The Notes: Week of May 18 - May 22, 2026

Full Council Meeting Week

Tuesday, 05/19/2026

Library Board - Appleton Public Library Cornerstone Conference Room - 5pm  Board members will review and look to approve the April bill register, a few small budget amendments, and an appointment of one a few of the board members to a nominating committee.  They will also hear updates on the upcoming Summer Library Program and Common Sense Media Teen programming. 

Wednesday, 05/20/2026

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

Finance Committee - Special Meeting - 6:30pm  There is only one item on this agenda for this special meeting: a request to approve a deadline extension for the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the city and Driftwood Hospitality for the management of the Fox Cities Exhibition Center (FCEC).  The MOU lays out a framework for the execution of a full management agreement; but the formal writing of the management agreement has not yet been completed.  The action called for here in this special meeting (and again during the meeting of the full council) is approval of an extension of the MOU from the current prescribed end date of 06/01/2026 to a new end date of 07/01/2026.  This added month is expected to be all that's needed to get all of the "t's" crossed and "i's" dotted.  

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  The mayor gets the ball rolling with the announcement of seven proclamations.  We must be coming into proclamations season!  Also from the mayor will be an update on the city's food truck inspections program which is supposed to operate in conjunction with neighboring municipalities to help ensure the safety of food trucks and their offerings throughout the Fox Cities.  

From there, we get to the heart of the agenda with all of the items discussed last week in committee meetings.  Below are the highlights of items expected to garner further discussion at this full council meeting:

• From the Municipal Services Committee:  After further staff and engineering review, the 2028 paving reconstruction of Roosevelt Street between Oneida and Morrison Streets is back up for approval, this time with a change from the originally suggested 26' width to a newly suggested 29'.  This revision is due primarily to the reconsideration of the seasonal Erb Pool traffic/parking that comes to that block of that street during the pool operation season.  This was detailed here and is, I believe, a proper interpretation of how the city's Smart Streets design guidelines were initially strictly followed but then revised based on added information specific to that particular one-block stretch of that street.   
  
  
• From the City Plan Commission:  Two rezoning items were recommended by approval by this commission last week and are now up for full council approval.  Both deal with some properties currently owned by Lawrence University which are requested to be rezoned from Public Institutional (PI) to residential R2 to facilitate the selling of these properties for future neighborhood home building.  Some neighbors expressed concern about 1) the properties being rezoned to R2 (allowing for two-family homes) and 2) the mayor (as commission chairman) having previous ties to Lawrence University (as a graduate of that institution and as a former employee there).  The concerned neighbors were made aware that a property zoned as R2 would allow for two-family homes but not require that the construction on those lots be two-family housing.  It is also important to note that the mayor abstained from the discussion of this item and from a vote during the commission meeting last week.  As is appropriate, he stated that he is no longer affiliated with Lawrence University but that just the appearance of any potential conflict of interest on his part required him to recuse himself and abstain.   
  
  An additional FYI: the first published iteration of the full council meeting agenda includes an action item that will not be discussed and voted on by the council until 06/03/2026.  This item -- the potential creation of a new Tax Incremental District (TID) for governmental funding of the infrastructure investments in the Thrivent property on the north side of the city -- will either be removed from this week's agenda in a subsequent publishing of the council agenda for this week or will be removed from this week's discussion administratively by the council due to incorrect timing.  Not to worry, though, folks.  I will have plenty more to say about allowing for TID funding for the development of land owned by a Fortune-500 company with $122.5 BILLION (thousand-million) in admitted assets in 2025 and $194 BILLION (thousand-million) in assets under management in 2024 in an upcoming alderman blog post. 
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  Three requests for the city to apply for Safe Streets for All (SS4A) grants for the planning for the future development of three traffic corridors in the city are all up for approval by the full council after being unanimously recommended for approval by this committee last week.  Of critical importance to District 13 is the grant application for the CTH JJ/Edgewood Drive corridor which is in desperate need of "urbanizing" to help bring the neighborhoods north of CTH JJ closer into the city street and pedestrian network and move a vital corridor of this district towards much needed increased traffic and pedestrian safety measures.  I am confident that these requests will be approved this week and am very hopeful that the city is awarded these grants!
  
  Also from this committee is a recommendation for the city administration (mayor) and staff to move forward with a potential plan to use borrowing rather than general funds (property tax funds) to fund the city's Central Equipment Agency (CEA).  Against my better judgement, I voted (as a Finance Committee member) to allow this process to move forward... but only on the condition that whatever plan the mayor's office comes up with will require more discussion by this council and another round of voting on the actual plan yet to be formulated and presented.  I will have more information on this in a future alderman blog post as well (since there will be future required council action on this).  But at this point, I am uncomfortable with shifting the financial responsibility for the large equipment purchases and maintenance of the vehicle fleet from the backs of the departments expecting to use this equipment and into more borrowing for the city.  
  
  
• From the Community Development Committee:  A new resolution (and supporting documents A and B) calling for an increase in the fees assessed to property owners for city-administered weed/tall grass cutting and snow removal (when property owners are made aware of municipal code violations yet refuse to move forward to correct violations on their properties) is up for approval.  I am still interested in more information in this regard as I do not see how the fees called for relate directly to actual snow removal and weed/tall grass cutting costs.  I am also concerned that the last clause in the resolution calls for an annual 3% increase for snow removal without further evaluation of these actual costs.  I believe that this resolution requires a bit more discussion and honing so I hope to hear more at the full council meeting and perhaps have this item referred back to this committee for more discussion.

I believe that just about covers it for this week.  It seems like perhaps not much... but there's a lot here!  If you've read this far and wondered "Why isn't my alderman asking for more feedback from me on these items?"... here's your chance:  Let me know what you think on anything noted above or anything else city government-related.  I would love to hear from you!

I hope that you had a great Sunday today and that your week ahead will be a lovely and bright one.  I look forward to "meeting" you back here again next week for another alderman blog post!