The Notes: Week of July 21 - July 25, 2025

Hello, Neighbors!  Thanks for waiting for this week’s blog post. Where I am right now is a bit on the spotty side for internet access.  So we’ll just do our best for this Committee Meetings Week post.

Here’s what you can expect this week:

Monday, 07/21/2025

Library Board (Nominating Committee) - 11am - Appleton Public Library Thrivent Conference Room The members of this special sub-committee of the library board will nominate candidates for the library board president and vice president at this meeting. 

Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm  A design hearing for proposed reconstruction of a stretch of Oklahoma Street is first on the agenda for this committee. Some neighbor feedback expressed concerns about the proposed narrowing of the street during reconstruction. What folks often find hard to understand is that the city has to balance replacement of all of the underground services beneath the street and trying to save as many large tress along the terrace of the street as possible. Naturally, the completely reconstructed street must be narrower than the existing street due to trying to keep the excavation equipment to rebuild the street away from the deep and large roots of trees that have long lived along the terrace of said streets to avoid killing these trees.  I can assure you that no one on the council or in administration in city government wants trees to be sacrificed to construction.  It’s just that sometimes that is what must be. 

In other business, the committee will look to approve the following:

• The street design/layout for a new subdivision called Glenmore Park (off of Apple Hill Boulevard near the Apple Hills Subdivision)
• The street design/layout for a new subdivision called Mission Ridge North which is just north of Emerald Estates 
• A new intermunicipal/state finance agreement and future maintenance agreement between the City of Appleton, Town of Grand Chute, Outagamie County, and the State of Wisconsin for the building of the diverging diamond interchange of Richmond Street (Hwy 47) and Highway 41
• The vacation (removing from city right-of-way) of the portion of Oneida Street between Franklin and Washington Streets for the upcoming construction of the new downtown transit center
• A revision of a permanent street occupancy permit for Edison Elementary School to paint lightbulbs on nearby sidewalks to dedicate safe walking routes for school children
• Ordinance changes to codify already approved parking restrictions on Baldeagle Drive and Providence Avenue
• An intermunicipal agreement between the City and the Town of Grand Chute for the costs of making the new temporary signal at Ridgeway Drive and Richmond Street permanent (The Town will pay 50% of the bill for this.)

Finance Committee - 5:30pm  This committee meeting will start with the committee members hearing from a representative of Baird regarding the impending issuance of general obligation and other specialty bonds by the city.  The following will then be up for approval:

• Issuance of $10,865,000 in general obligation notes
• Issuance of $8,975,000 in water system revenue refunding bonds
• Issuance of $4,725,000 in sewerage system revenue bonds
• Issuance of $8,800,000 in storm water system revenue refunding bonds
• A contract for ~$900,000 for remodeling for the Community Development Department office space

Parks and Recreation Committee - 6pm  This committee will look to approve numerous municipal ordinance changes related to prohibiting using pickleball and tennis courts for anything but pickleball and tennis and to codify the recent changes regarding alcohol prohibitions near park pavilions.

Tuesday, 07/22/2025

Fox Cities Transit Commission - 2:50pm  Commisxsioners will first vote on approval of the June 2025 payments for Valley Transit and then look to approve a cooperative agreement between the state, the East Central Regional Planning Commission, Appleton, and Valley Transit.  The financials and ridership numbers will also come up for review.  

Utilities Committee - 4:30pm  This meeting has been cancelled.

Wednesday, 07/23/2025

City Plan Commission - 3:30pm  There are three public hearings and corresponding action items planned for this commission’s meeting this week.  First, the newly annexed and rezoned property on Winslow Avenue (near the intersection of Northland Avenue and Highway 441) will be discussed.  The plan there is to have “pre-delivery and inspection of pre-ordered electric vehicles” (Rivian) on this property; so the applicant is requesting a Special Use Permit (for an “automobile, RV, truck, cycle, and boat sales and display lot”) that would run with the property unless and until there would be any substantial changes to the business operations there.  With that last little bit of phrasing, I could see voting to allow this.  I just would not like this lot to change ownership or the business on the property change enough that this could become a large (potentially run-down) used car lot of some sort.  What are your thoughts?  Second is a request to revise the floodplain mapping for a parcel off of Glenhurst near Everbreeze.  Third is a rezoning request for a proposed new subdivision mentioned above — Glenmore Park — north of Apple Hills Subdivision.  The parcel is currently zoned and used as agricultural land.  But the developer would like to move forward with development of it with a rezoning to R-1B, R-3 (Multifamily), and P-I (public/institutional for a future park).  See here for a map of the proposed future use of this land. A preliminary plat map of a portion of this land to potentially be rezoned is also on the agenda for approval.  See the map here.  The developers of the Mission Ridge North Subdivision (also mentioned above) are also seeking this commission’s approval of a preliminary plat.  See that map here.  And also as discussed above in the Municipal Services agenda, this commission, too, will be asked to review and affirm the vacation of some of the street right-of-way for Oneida Street between Franklin and Washington Streets. 

Community Development Committee - 4:30pm  In another instance of appeasing the “non-gendered-language” crowd, this committee will first vote to approve some municipal code changes that will instead (assuming approval) include terrible grammar.  See here for that verbiage with subject-pronoun disagreements galore.  There is also a second (and this time not egregious) request for some municipal code changes related to the city’s inspection supervisor’s ability to issue citations for violations of city code.

Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm  There are five demerit point requested appearances to start off this committee’s meeting.  All of the following received demerit points for dispensing alcohol to a minor:

• Stuc’s Pizza
• Walmart on Calumet Street
• Appleton Liquor 
• Rascal’s Bar and Grill
• Scuba’s Pourhouse

In action items, the committee will look to approve a liquor license for the Trout Museum at their new location, a temporary premises amendment for the liquor license for the PAC for an upcoming event, and a request for McFleischman’s to serve alcohol at the downtown Appleton farm markets on some upcoming dates.  In informational items, committee members will be reviewing mid-year reports for the Appleton Fire Department, the partnership agreement between the Appleton Fire Department and Gold Cross Ambulance, and the city’s Legal and Administrative Services Department. 

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - 6:30pm  This meeting has been cancelled. 

And there you have it!  A little late… but still a summary of what will be happening (or may have already happened) in your city government. Please, as always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns about anything included in the alderman blog posts. Have a great rest of your week!!