The Notes: Week of March 9 - March 13, 2026

Happy Spring-y Sunday, Neighbors.  I hope you're quickly recovering from losing an hour of sleep last night.  (Lousy Daylight Saving Time clock change!)  

This week in City of Appleton government is a Committee Meetings Week.  Despite a few meeting cancellations, there are quite a few meeting agendas to go over in this blog post.  Have a look at the synopses below and let me know if you have any questions or feedback on any items. 

Monday, 03/09/2026

Municipal Services Committee - 4:30pm  Approval of a number of parking changes are first on this committee meeting agenda.  Then committee members will look to approve 1) the awarding of a contract for 2026 "diggers hotline" services for city utilities, 2) a contract increase amount for design services for the Lawe Street Canal Bridge, 3) a continuation of a contract for "illicit discharge detection" for the city's stormwater ponds, and 4) a contract modification for new parking ramp access kiosks (for updated tap-to-pay and some other new ticket/payment technology specific to parking ramps).     

Finance Committee - 5:30pm  There are only three action items on the agenda for this committee this week:

• A request to approve the receipt of a $17,200 drug trafficking response grant for the Appleton Police Department (APD).  With the grant funds, APD proposes to purchase a night-vision-capable camera for drug trafficking surveillance.
• A request for a sole-source purchase of controller equipment for the Appleton Water Treatment Facility.  This sole-sourcing is requested due to the particular controller brand (Allen Bradley) being only available through one local distributor (Werner Electric). 
• A request to approve a number of budget adjustments for 2025 budget carryovers on an ongoing anaerobic digester project at the city's wastewater treatment plant.  

Parks and Recreation Committee - 6pm  This meeting has been cancelled.

Tuesday, 03/10/2026

Fox Cities Transit Commission - 2:50pm  This meeting has been cancelled.

Utilities Committee - 4:30pm  The only item on this committee's agenda this week is the review and approval of the city's 2025 Annual Stormwater Report submittal to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR).  You can review this report here.  

Wednesday, 03/11/2026

Board of Health - 7am  Members of this board only have a few days to recover from the clocks changing before getting up super-super early for this week's meeting.  They will first look to approve an updated fee schedule for tourist rooming house and hotel licensing/inspections in the city.  The memo accompanying the request for approval of this item notes that the proposed fee increases are a direct result of a recent change in structure of the fees that the city must reimburse the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection for hotel/tourist rooming house licenses. 

    

Next, they will discuss the acceptance of a $10,000 state grant to reduce asthma triggers in the city.  Then they move on to conducting two appeal hearings for dangerous animal declarations.      

City Plan Commission - 3:30pm  Approval of the final plat map for the Mission Ridge North Subdivision (just north of the Emerald Hills Subdivision between Lightning Drive and French Road) is the only item up for approval by this commission.  If you're interested, you can view the plat map here.  

Community Development Committee - 4:30pm  In what seems like a bit of a trend for this week, there is only one item up for approval by this committee.  Committee members will be asked to approve a resolution that will help the Long Cheng Marketplace (owners of 1800 and 1804 S Lawe Street) to apply for a property renovation grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC).  Apparently, as a part of the grant process, the applicant must receive authorization from the city's government to submit an application.  This resolution is aimed to do that.  No taxpayer money (besides the cost of staff time used to prepare the memo and the resolution) is requested or required for this item.  So this resolution is likely to be approved here by this committee and next week by the full council.    

Safety and Licensing Committee - 5:30pm  I expect this meeting to be the longest of all of them scheduled this week.  Here is a rundown of what this committee will take up: 

• Five alcohol license demerit point violations appearances:
  Cozzy Corner, Wilder's Bistro, Wishing Well, and Hank and Karen's each for Dispensing Alcohol to a Minor (80 demerit points) 
  Maritime Bar for No Licensed Operator on Premises (40 demerit points, giving this establishment a total of 120 demerit points, approaching the suspension threshold of 150 points)
  
  
• A revisiting of a request to approve the late special events application for a proposed "No Kings" march.  (You can read more about this here -- from the first time this item was taken up in this committee -- and here -- when it was brought forward to the full council.)  Note: There would be no need for a special event permit in the city if a group simply wishes to gather in a public park or on sidewalks lining a street to hold a protest.  That's a constitutionally guaranteed right of the people.  However, this group proposes to block major roadways in the city's downtown for a march through the streets.  This then necessitates a special events permit in the city. 
  
  The delayed application was recommended for conditional approval the last time this committee met but was referred back to this committee when it came time for the full council to approve that.  Apparently the event organizers have changed their originally applied for march route which has required more city staff time for review and evaluation.  This is the concern about event planners not meeting the 45-days-before-the-event-date deadline for the special events applications!  The planned event date is fast approaching yet the plans for community safety at that event (the march portion with proposed street closures) are not yet approved. 
  
  More and more I'm concerned about granting exceptions to the 45-day rule due to the complexity of some of these event which absolutely require a long enough review and evaluation time period to ensure the overall public safety.  But as you already know, this particular request could be a very politically charged issue.  And no one wants to limit people's constitutional rights to assemble.  So... we shall see how this process continues on this week...
   
• Denial of a bartender's license for an applicant with a battery conviction on his record.  According to state statute, the license cannot be granted.  So the vote to deny the license application is simply a formality and the applicant has no right to contest the denial. 
  
  
• Potential confirmation of the suspension of a commercial solicitation company license for an organization known as Helping Homes.  See this memo which states the reasoning behind the license suspension and let me know if you agree with the suspension. 
  
  
• A request to accept grant funds for APD (as noted above in the Finance Committee meeting notes)
  
  
• Potential approval of a number of secondhand article dealer licenses, a cigarette/tobacco/vaping device dealer application, and a temporary beer license application 
  
  
• An update from the City Clerk on the upcoming Spring Election  

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

What items above have you concerned or have you asking questions?  Let me know your thoughts and feedback.  I am always happy to hear from you and to provide you more information when it is requested.  

It looks as though we may be in for a week of up and down weather this week.  I hope you all stay safe and enjoy some of the warmer days ahead.  Have a great week!