The Notes: Week of September 8 - September 12, 2025
Hey, Neighbors! Welcome to the start of the Packers season... and (less importantly?) the first Committee Meetings Week of September 2025.
There are a number of meetings on the City of Appleton government schedule that are cancelled this week. Members of the following committees get this week off:
- Finance Committee
- Parks and Recreation Committee
- Fox Cities Transit Commission
- Utilities Committee
Now, let's get into what will be discussed this week...
Monday, 09/08/2025
Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm Since the last design hearing this committee had for a street reconstruction went so well (Oklahoma Street), they've scheduled yet another street design hearing. This time, it's for multiple streets (Badger Avenue from College to Memorial, Sixth Street from Memorial to State, Eighth Street from Pierce to Badger, and Rankin from Commercial to Wisconsin) and we will see if there will be any strong neighborhood feedback on any of the proposed projects. It looks as though there is far less predicted tree loss within these projects. But that is likely because there are just that fewer a number of trees in these areas. There is also one action item -- a request to remove a two-hour parking time limit on a portion of Viola Street which has been under a six-month trial with no negative effects.
Later in the week is when things may get a little dicey...
Wednesday, 09/10/2025
Board of Health - 7am Early-riser board members will be asked to review and approve a number of tuberculosis-related policy and procedure additions/changes for the city's Health Department. The policy and procedures were drafted in February of this year and have thus far been approved by the city's Legal Services Department. You can view/review them all here. In information items, they will review a couple new dangerous animal declarations, the updated list of already approved noise variances, and the September 2025 Health Department newsletter.
Appleton Redevelopment Authority - 9am A little later in the day (at a more reasonable hour!), members of this committee will meet for the first time since February 2025. As such, they will first go through the procedural items of electing a chairman/vice chairman, etc. Then, in information items, they will review the latest on the update of the city's Sub-Area Plans (included in the latest revamping of the Comprehensive Plan which is currently in the works). These sub-area plans are for Northland Avenue and Richmond Street, South Oneida Street, and Wisconsin Avenue. They are also scheduled to hear more on the 222 N Oneida Street property (to be used in the federal-grant-supported construction of a mixed-use development surrounding a new downtown transit station).
City Plan Commission - 3:30pm Commissioners will take up the potential annexation of a couple of properties on the border of the city and the Town of Grand Chute. The property owners are petitioning to have their single-family-home properties annexed in order to access and connect to the city's water main there. The commissioners will also be asked to review and approve the disposal of some publicly-owned property adjacent to the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center (PAC) which the PAC currently rents from the city for parking use. The PAC would like to purchase this land instead of continuing to lease it.
Community Development Committee - 4:30pm This meeting will begin with a public hearing regarding a notice of funding available from the city in the form of Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) for the 2026 program year (04/01/2026 - 03/31/2027). You can find out more about the allocation plan for these funds here.
In action items, the committee will look to approve two items that were reviewed and approved by the Appleton Public Arts Committee last week -- updates to the Art in Public Places Policy and approval of the light pole banners and replacement snowflake decor on Wisconsin Avenue and Richmond Streets, Both items were mentioned here in last week's alderman blog post.
Then, the item mentioned in the City Plan Commission section above -- the small lot that's owned by the city that the PAC would like to purchase -- will be up for discussion. On the table from the PAC is a $1 offer to purchase. This seems miniscule, I know. But the city currently pays stormwater fees of nearly $3,000 on this property annually. Should the purchase go through, this annual amount would no longer be a taxpayer burden. The PAC will also pay all closing costs for this transaction. The city plans to use grant funds only (per the memo regarding this offer to purchase) to have an environmental assessment performed on the property and, if needed, perform any mitigation or cleanup on the property (again, with grant funds only). No costs above grant funds will be incurred by the city, according to the offer terms. What are your thoughts on this sale? Do you have any questions or issues in this regard?
The next item up for approval by this committee is a requested go-ahead for the city to apply for the federal and state grant funding for the assessments and potential remediation for the property of interest above. If the above gets approved, I cannot see how this one won't.
Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm First up on the agenda for this committee is a potential denial of a bartender's license for an applicant with five -- count 'em FIVE -- Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) offenses, the last being a felony offense in 2020. He was also convicted of Disorderly Conduct in May 2025 when, it is reported, he was removed from a local bar for instigating a fight while intoxicated. I cannot see how this applicant might at this time be able to show "rehabilitation" which is the only way in which he could be granted this bartender's license. What are your thoughts on the wisdom of allowing this applicant this licensure?
Then a big item shows up again, this time for action by this committee -- the resolution to re-enact a truancy ordinance in the city. As you've likely heard from numerous news reports recently, the resolution for this was presented many months ago and the Appleton Area School District (AASD) has since presented to this committee their current statistics on truancy, their outreach processes, and reasons for their desire to add a truancy ordinance back to City of Appleton municipal code. How much of this have you followed? What are your thoughts on this? I am interested in putting a trial ordinance in place and thoroughly reviewing the success of the ordinance after and throughout said trial period. Since the previous truancy ordinance was easily revoked by a previous council, I believe that it would be easy to rethink this should we need to down the line. Once we have some real-world statistics on whether a new truancy ordinance works to get these super-high-risk students who are otherwise resistant to any communication with their schools back on track with a proper education, the ordinance could either remain in place or again be revoked. But we don't know until we try, do we? As long we move forward in a methodical manner and avoid the pitfalls of the previous iteration of a truancy ordinance in the city, I believe it worthwhile to give AASD one more "tool in the toolbox" to help reach the students who are toughest to reach right now. We owe it to those students to try. Right?
Also on the agenda are a few temporary liquor licenses and a temporary premises amendment for upcoming events and notices of five more liquor licensed establishments' convictions for serving/selling alcohol to minors: Lumberjack Johnny's, Antojitos, Appleton Axe, Camelot, and Richmond Citgo.
Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - 6:30pm The only action item on the agenda for this committee is a held discussion on a salary for future aldermen. Only three members of the committee were present for this discussion at the last meeting of this committee. I, the committee chairman, moved to affirm the current alderman salary rate for aldermen elected in the April 2027 elections. One of the other committee members and I voted to approve this no-increase motion. However, one committee member (Nate Wolff of District 12) denied that motion without comment. Since there was no committee majority vote with only the three members present, the committee then voted to hold this item for further discussion this week. No justification or proposal for salary amounts was mentioned or discussed at the last meeting... so I wonder whether there will be something coming forward this week.
I'm very interested in your opinions on this as I do not believe that all who take on the position of alderman do the work required to justify the current salary, much less a salary increase. Many also forget that salary increases for elected aldermen are an added burden on taxpayers. There are fifteen aldermanic seats... so every pay increase, even minor, must be multiplied by fifteen. The arguments in the past for salary increases have included the desire to encourage more of a "living wage" for aldermen to encourage other voices and folks with different backgrounds to run for council seats. I do not believe that a wage increase is how the city should be go about trying to encourage varying voices in council. It is pure conjecture that an increase in alderman pay would lead to more diverse voices on the council. There is simply no proof of this. And there's the definite potential that a dramatically increased salary for aldermen could encourage those who are not "in it for the right reasons" to run for common council seats. We cannot get what's best for the city overall simply by paying aldermen more.
I am of the mind that instead of an alderman salary increase, we should look into term limits for aldermen to encourage new and different voices on the council. What are your thoughts?
As you can see, Wednesday just gets more and more interesting with each committee meeting! Please let me know if any of the above items piqued your interest. And feel free to stop in at City Hall during any of these meeting times and let all of the aldermen there know your thoughts.
I wish you a great week and look forward to "seeing" you back here for another alderman blog post next week.
Community Development Committee - 4:30pm This meeting will begin with a public hearing regarding a notice of funding available from the city in the form of Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) for the 2026 program year (04/01/2026 - 03/31/2027). You can find out more about the allocation plan for these funds here.
In action items, the committee will look to approve two items that were reviewed and approved by the Appleton Public Arts Committee last week -- updates to the Art in Public Places Policy and approval of the light pole banners and replacement snowflake decor on Wisconsin Avenue and Richmond Streets, Both items were mentioned here in last week's alderman blog post.
Then, the item mentioned in the City Plan Commission section above -- the small lot that's owned by the city that the PAC would like to purchase -- will be up for discussion. On the table from the PAC is a $1 offer to purchase. This seems miniscule, I know. But the city currently pays stormwater fees of nearly $3,000 on this property annually. Should the purchase go through, this annual amount would no longer be a taxpayer burden. The PAC will also pay all closing costs for this transaction. The city plans to use grant funds only (per the memo regarding this offer to purchase) to have an environmental assessment performed on the property and, if needed, perform any mitigation or cleanup on the property (again, with grant funds only). No costs above grant funds will be incurred by the city, according to the offer terms. What are your thoughts on this sale? Do you have any questions or issues in this regard?
The next item up for approval by this committee is a requested go-ahead for the city to apply for the federal and state grant funding for the assessments and potential remediation for the property of interest above. If the above gets approved, I cannot see how this one won't.
Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm First up on the agenda for this committee is a potential denial of a bartender's license for an applicant with five -- count 'em FIVE -- Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) offenses, the last being a felony offense in 2020. He was also convicted of Disorderly Conduct in May 2025 when, it is reported, he was removed from a local bar for instigating a fight while intoxicated. I cannot see how this applicant might at this time be able to show "rehabilitation" which is the only way in which he could be granted this bartender's license. What are your thoughts on the wisdom of allowing this applicant this licensure?
Then a big item shows up again, this time for action by this committee -- the resolution to re-enact a truancy ordinance in the city. As you've likely heard from numerous news reports recently, the resolution for this was presented many months ago and the Appleton Area School District (AASD) has since presented to this committee their current statistics on truancy, their outreach processes, and reasons for their desire to add a truancy ordinance back to City of Appleton municipal code. How much of this have you followed? What are your thoughts on this? I am interested in putting a trial ordinance in place and thoroughly reviewing the success of the ordinance after and throughout said trial period. Since the previous truancy ordinance was easily revoked by a previous council, I believe that it would be easy to rethink this should we need to down the line. Once we have some real-world statistics on whether a new truancy ordinance works to get these super-high-risk students who are otherwise resistant to any communication with their schools back on track with a proper education, the ordinance could either remain in place or again be revoked. But we don't know until we try, do we? As long we move forward in a methodical manner and avoid the pitfalls of the previous iteration of a truancy ordinance in the city, I believe it worthwhile to give AASD one more "tool in the toolbox" to help reach the students who are toughest to reach right now. We owe it to those students to try. Right?
Also on the agenda are a few temporary liquor licenses and a temporary premises amendment for upcoming events and notices of five more liquor licensed establishments' convictions for serving/selling alcohol to minors: Lumberjack Johnny's, Antojitos, Appleton Axe, Camelot, and Richmond Citgo.
Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - 6:30pm The only action item on the agenda for this committee is a held discussion on a salary for future aldermen. Only three members of the committee were present for this discussion at the last meeting of this committee. I, the committee chairman, moved to affirm the current alderman salary rate for aldermen elected in the April 2027 elections. One of the other committee members and I voted to approve this no-increase motion. However, one committee member (Nate Wolff of District 12) denied that motion without comment. Since there was no committee majority vote with only the three members present, the committee then voted to hold this item for further discussion this week. No justification or proposal for salary amounts was mentioned or discussed at the last meeting... so I wonder whether there will be something coming forward this week.
I'm very interested in your opinions on this as I do not believe that all who take on the position of alderman do the work required to justify the current salary, much less a salary increase. Many also forget that salary increases for elected aldermen are an added burden on taxpayers. There are fifteen aldermanic seats... so every pay increase, even minor, must be multiplied by fifteen. The arguments in the past for salary increases have included the desire to encourage more of a "living wage" for aldermen to encourage other voices and folks with different backgrounds to run for council seats. I do not believe that a wage increase is how the city should be go about trying to encourage varying voices in council. It is pure conjecture that an increase in alderman pay would lead to more diverse voices on the council. There is simply no proof of this. And there's the definite potential that a dramatically increased salary for aldermen could encourage those who are not "in it for the right reasons" to run for common council seats. We cannot get what's best for the city overall simply by paying aldermen more.
I am of the mind that instead of an alderman salary increase, we should look into term limits for aldermen to encourage new and different voices on the council. What are your thoughts?
As you can see, Wednesday just gets more and more interesting with each committee meeting! Please let me know if any of the above items piqued your interest. And feel free to stop in at City Hall during any of these meeting times and let all of the aldermen there know your thoughts.
I wish you a great week and look forward to "seeing" you back here for another alderman blog post next week.
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