The Notes: Week of March 16 - March 20, 2026

It's SnOWmAgGeDOn, Neighbors!  What an awful spring-winter this weekend has been so far, huh?  I hope you have all been safe and warm through this Wisconsin "surprise" and that the digging out won't take us all that long.  

Thanks for tuning in to this week's alderman blog post while you await the end of this March blizzard.  This week is a Full Council Meeting Week.  But as you'll see below, there are a few other meetings on tap for this week as well.  

If you see anything below about which you have any further questions, please let me know.  

Tuesday, 03/17/2026

Historic Preservation Committee - 3pm  This committee last met in July 2024... so they've got some catching up to do, I guess.  They will first select a chairman and vice chairman.  Then they will take up the only action item on the agenda: a request to approve the verbiage on a new historical marker to be placed near a bronze bust of Harry Houdini in Houdini Plaza.  The applicant (Appleton Downtown Inc. - ADI) hopes to place the marker this year, in honor of the 100th anniversary of  Houdini's death (10/31/1926).  Here's what they propose:

"Born Erik Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, Harry Houdini became a world-famous magician and escape artist. His family immigrated to the United States when he was four years old, settling in Appleton in 1878. His father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, served as the first rabbi for Appleton’s Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. Throughout his career, Houdini proclaiming Appleton as his hometown. In 1897 he performed at the Appleton Opera House and challenged the local police by escaping from their handcuffs and a jail cell. Houdini’s career soared after traveling to Europe in 1900 where he did numerous escapes and stunts. Houdini was not only highly regarded as a performer but was an author, pioneer aviator, silent film star, inventor, and a collector. Appleton proudly remembers its connection to the legendary “Handcuff King,” as a testament to his enduring legacy and prestigious career." 

I already see an issue with the fourth sentence which I think should read "proclaimed" instead of "proclaiming."  But with that minor correction, I have no issue with the city approving this.  The applicant is also working with the Wisconsin State Historical Society for the placard and placement.  

Library Board - Appleton Public Library, Cornerstone Conference Room - 5pm  Board members will discuss approval of the February bill register, a number of relatively minor budget amendments, acceptance of an endowment from a private trust, a small table of organization change request (moving a position within the organization with no budget impact), and the awarding of a consultancy contract for the development of a five-year library strategic plan.  The latter means an outlay of $29,000 which is to be paid for by grant funds from the Friends of the Appleton Public Library.  

Wednesday, 03/18/2026

Appleton Redevelopment Authority - 8:30am  This meeting has been cancelled. 

Tax Payment Appeal Board - 6:15pm  This board -- made up of one alderman (yours!), the City Attorney, and the city's Finance Department Director -- is charged with the review of three appeals for leniency for late property tax payments.  The only situation in which the board can grant an appeal (thereby removing late fees/interest from the property owners' tax record) is if clear postal error has been demonstrated.  I am not sure that any of the three appeal requests to be heard at this meeting clearly shows postal error.  Postal "inconsistency" could certainly be applied in these cases; but most likely not postal "error."  You can review the three appeal requests here.  What do you think?  

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  The mayor gets the ball rolling in this meeting with a request for the council to approve the hiring of a new Finance Department Director for the city.  You can read more about the recommended candidate here.  The rest of the meeting will be made up of all of the things discussed last week in committee meetings.  Here are the two items most likely to garner extra discussion at this meeting:

• From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  Once again, the late acceptance of a special event permit application is up for approval.  Please note that the council is not specifically asked to approve the event itself, just the acceptance of the application which was submitted days late for a 45-days-before-the-planned-event deadline.  I've addressed this multiple times here, here, and here. 
  
  A number of you have already sent me your comments and feedback in this regard.  (Thank you!)  I, too, am concerned about the bending of the rules as far as missed deadlines for submission of these event permits.  The precedent this may set makes it difficult for the city to at all uphold a deadline for future applications such as this.    
  
  In this particular instance, it's important to remember that the applying group is always permitted their First Amendment rights to gather and to protest in the City of Appleton.  But the special event permit is needed due to their wishing to block some roadways for a protest march.  Should they have chosen instead to just protest and hold a rally in Houdini Plaza, the permit would not be needed.  And a part of the city's special events permit process is that the applicants for these permits are required to foot some of the taxpayer bill for the city resources needed for the events.  Without this permit, for instance, this group could gather and protest (without the march through the streets portion that's planned) and the city's police force would still be needed to help keep the peace.  The expense of that Appleton Police Department (APD) presence would fall solely on the taxpayers of the city.  But with this permit process, the applicants are required to pay 25% of the expense of the city resources (APD and other road closure expenses).  So there are benefits to allowing the late application.  
  
  I believe that I have consistently made it clear that I am more and more uncomfortable with continued approvals for late special events permit applications.  But I see the benefit of approving this one and then moving on to perhaps amending/changing the rules for the permit process to somehow curb future late applications.  How the city moves forward from here in the special events permit process, though, remains to be seen.
  
  
• Also from the Safety and Licensing Committee:  The committee last week recommended that the full council uphold the city's administrative suspension of the Commercial Solicitation License for Helping Homes.  The license period is only until the end of March 2026, though.  So it's not much of a penalty for this company's misuse of this license during this licensing period.  I suspect Helping Homes will reapply once the new license once the new licensing period opens.  So city health department staff will have to be judicious in deciding whether to allow the company to get a new license in the future.     
  

Everything else discussed last week looks to have passed through committees without much ado.  So perhaps it will not be too long a full council meeting this week.  (So sorry to my council colleagues for making that assertion as now I've "tempted the gods"!)

Again, I wish you the best in our digging out efforts this week after the worst of the spring blizzard blows through.  Please do reach out to me with any questions, comments, or concerns with anything city-government-related.  Have a great week!