The Notes: Week of September 1 - September 5, 2025

Hello, Neighbors!  Happy Sunday of a long weekend!  I hope yours is going well so far... 

This week is a Full Council Meeting Week in City of Appleton government.  And in addition to the regular Wednesday night meeting, there is one other meeting scheduled.  To follow is the rundown of what you can expect to hear about this week:

Wednesday, 09/03/2025

Appleton Public Arts Committee - 8am  There are two action items for this committee to discuss.  The first is a revision of the Art in Public Places Policy that governs the work of this committee.  There are a few changes/edits for review but the spirit of the policy has not been significantly modified.  Second is a request from the Appleton North Business Association (ANBA) for an update to the light pole signage/decorations on Richmond Street from Northland to College and on Wisconsin Avenue from Badger to Ballard.  The previously used winter holiday decorations along these streets have deteriorated; so the ANBA has agreed to purchase new ones (snowflakes).  But they would also like to, in the off-season, have those snowflakes replaced with flags/banners bearing a logo and the website of the organization (AppletonNorthside.org).  Since the city owns and maintains the light poles, the Department of Public Works will continue to install/uninstall these decorations and banners; but the purchase of them will not be with taxpayer money as ANBA will use their funds for the purchases.  I expect both of these action items to be approved without much fanfare by this committee. 

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  The mayor has once again saved the council some time by giving us a no-resolutions council agenda!  So after the minutes from the previous council meeting are reviewed and approved, we will head right into the meat of the agenda.  The items most likely to garner additional discussion from last week's committee meetings are as follows:

• From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  This committee voted to allow the late application for the World Peace Festival to be approved despite their applying quite late in the special events planning process.  It seems that the applying organization was unaware of the new application process and simply rented the park pavilion as they have in the past.  However, they planned their event for a date earlier than last year.  So when the City Clerk's office reached out to them to inform them of the new process, the organization was already "late" in applying.  Since this is the first year of this new special events policy and process, the committee felt it fair to allow the late application to go through with the caveat that the exemption is a one-time thing for this organization/event and provided that all city departments are able to complete their review and sign-off on the application in time for the event. 
  
  
• Also from the Safety and Licensing Committee:  The committee, after a long hearing including objections by the attorney for the license holder, voted unanimously to approve the revocation of the liquor license for Mr Frogs on College Avenue.  Now it's up to the full council to approve the revocation.  I suspect that there will be numerous more objections by the attorney for the license holder as he was disappointed that he did not have more time to prepare for the revocation hearing last week and believes that the city should make some sort of "arrangement" for a reduced penalty, despite the establishment reaching the threshold for revocation within the first year of holding a liquor license.  For the overall public safety in the downtown area, I do not believe that any sort of bending of the rules should be granted in this case.  Do you have any thoughts or opinions on this?  Let me know.   
  
  Note that there is a notice on the agenda regarding the potential for the council to go into closed session to debate this revocation.  That may or may not occur. 

• From the Parks and Recreation Committee:  This committee voted to amend the city's long-held policy for the Naming of Public Parklands (in existence since 1997) for the purposes of renaming the existing Veterans Park (not Veterans Memorial Park as it was recently renamed).  Some committee members apparently believe that there should be an allowance for "ideas and concepts that don't technically fall within" the naming policy (found here).  If this amendment holds up, why have a policy at all?  Here is a phrase directly taken from the existing policy: "The purpose of this policy is to provide a consistent and rational framework for the naming of newly acquired parklands."  This amendment directly controverts that phrase. 
  
  I believe that there is some desire on the part of some of these committee members (and likely some constituents who believe that these committee members can easily be swayed) to completely disregard the existing policy in favor of something like "Pride Park" or similar which does not fall into the naming conventions approved and in use by this city for decades.  Again... why should the city have any policies at all if there are regular diversions from them by council members?  It's ridiculous to me. 
  
  What are your thoughts on this potential diversion so far from a policy that it makes said policy irrelevant?  It seems to me that some folks are so short-sighted that they will push any thought or concept for a park name forward simply to satisfy a current agenda in favor of not thinking about the long-term greater good of the City of Appleton overall.  That disappoints me... yet does not, somehow, surprise me.  I'm interested in hearing your feedback on this.   
  
  
• From the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee:   When I wrote about the Appleton Police Department (APD) request to change their table of organization last week, I noted that I was concerned about the potential increase in a full-time position and how it would be paid for.  It turns out that I misread the change request and that two positions would move from one area to another -- a net effect of zero increase/decrease of staffing at this time.  As such, I found this an easy item to approve and suspect that the rest of the council will feel the same.  
  

And that will do it for the week.  It seems like this is a relatively short blog post with a few very important items!  Just as I do every week, I hope that you got something from this blog post and are now more informed about the happenings in your city's government.  I look forward to hearing from you should you have any questions or concerns about any of the items mentioned here or anything else city-government-related.  

Have a wonderful Labor Day... and join me back here again next week for another alderman blog installment!