The Notes: Week of July 27 - July 31, 2026

Hello and happy Sunday to you, Neighbors!  This week’s alderman blog post will be a short one… but contains information on one very important meeting that will be held this week, despite this being Fifth Week.  As you know if you’re a regular reader of the alderman blog, Fifth Week in City of Appleton government usually means that there are no meetings scheduled.  And council members do indeed technically get this week off with no committee or council meetings scheduled.  The one meeting this week is directly related to the proposed Tax Incremental District (TID) for the Thrivent property on the city’s north side. 

Thursday, 07/30/2026

Joint Review Board (Outagamie County) - 12pm  As has been mentioned in previous alderman blog posts, each county in which there is City of Appleton property has a Joint Review Board which is made up of representatives from each of the taxing entities in that county.  This particular board has 

1. A City of Appleton representative — the city’s Finance Director
2. A representative from Outagamie County government — the county’s Director of Development and Land Services
3. An Appleton Area School District (AASD) representative — the school district’s Executive Director of Finance
4. A representative from Fox Valley Technical College — the college’s VP for Administration
5. A “public member.”  Interestingly… the public member for this board’s last meeting at the start of talks about the potential formation of a TID on the Thrivent property was the former Finance Director for the City of Appleton, Tony Saucerman.  He made several remarks at that last meeting, specifically questioning whether the State of Wisconsin’s legal “but for” test for the creation of a TID — “The development would not occur but for the use of Tax Incremental Financing (TIF)” — was really satisfied in the case of this Thrivent land TID.  Since that last JRB meeting, though, Mr Saucerman apparently resigned from this board “…due to moving out of the city in early July.”  What’s interesting about that is that State of Wisconsin law does not require the public member to live in the same municipality as the proposed TID.  On the agenda for this meeting, there is a new “public member” being proposed — the former Appleton City Clerk, Kami Lynch.  She will have to be approved by the rest of this board for this position on the board.  

By now you all know that the formation of this Thrivent TID passed in the City of Appleton Common Council by majority vote with your alderman and two others voting to oppose it.  So the final step to the official approval of TID/TIF for this land is for the majority of the Joint Review Board to find that the “but for” test is met and vote to approve the resolution for the TID formation.  

Here is a vital quote from a Wisconsin Department of Revenue document regarding this “but for” test:

“If a proposed development will happen without TIF, then TIF should not be used because it would cost taxpayers more than it should for the growth that results. But, if TIF can be used to encourage a development that wouldn’t otherwise happen, the tax base can be increased, thereby limiting the growing tax burden. The “but for” test is critical to this distinction; that is what makes it so important. Finding “but for” means that the JRB believes that the development will not happen without some assistance. They are endorsing the use of tax dollars to help bring growth that otherwise would not occur.”

I find it perfectly impossible to believe that “development will not happen without some assistance” in this case, due mostly to the wealth of the ownership of the property.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do not fault a company for growth and wealth.  As a former small business owner, I have no desire whatsoever to fault those who work hard for their wealth and I find no value in “jealousy” over anyone or any business having more wealth than others.  However, the fact that so much wealth exists under the Thrivent umbrella makes it impossible for me to see how development of this land “will not happen without some assistance.”  

This webpage lists specific questions that must be asked for the formation of a TID (and use of TIF).  Note number 5: “How are the municipality, school, county, and technical school districts impacted by the TID? Consider items such as: increased population, traffic impact, fire and police protection, emergency medical services, water, sewer, administrative services, increased student population, demand for training or housing.”  

Yes, the development agreement between the City and Thrivent includes some provisions for dealing with traffic impact (the purchase of land from the Wisconsin DOT for improvement of the intersection of Evergreen and Ballard Road) and fire protection (the option offered by Thrivent for the city to purchase some land for a new fire station on that plat).  But those, to me, were enticing offers made by Thrivent only in exchange for TIF financing on the backs of city taxpayers.  And those offers from Thrivent do not help the City or the other taxing entities when population increases in this area without the corresponding increased tax income from the new homes and businesses built on the TID land with a locked tax base throughout the 20-year life of this proposed TID. 

In other words, a cheap land purchase for a new fire station does not pay for the building of a new fire station or the additional firefighters and firefighting apparatuses needed to fill and staff it.  Those things will have to come from the city’s funding, i.e. the home owners who pay property taxes!  And the additional tax dollars that would normally (without a TID) come from the owners of new properties built on this development will not go to the city but instead go to the TID itself to pay for its creation/maintenance/the development by Thrivent.  

There will be additional garbage collection, snow removal, police protection, school children educating, etc to be done on this Thrivent land.  With a TID/TIF, those costs will all have to be borne by the rest of the taxpayers in the county/city/school district… at least for the next 20 years if the TID/TIF is affirmed by this Joint Review Board.  These are the vital things that these five JRB members will need to weigh before they cast their votes.  

In this document referencing the “but for” test in Wisconsin law, there is another important paragraph:

As you can tell from this blog post and my previous posts regarding this TID/TIF, I have great concern about whether a TID/TIF is truly warranted and will truly benefit this city in the end.  Again, I have no doubt that the development will occur and have nothing against the development of this land.  However, the creation of the TID to benefit seemingly only the developer at the expense of the rest of us taxpayers is my primary concern.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.  I encourage you to attend or at least watch this JRB meeting to see how the “but for” is justified.

Otherwise, I hope that you have a wonderful week ahead.  I look forward to hearing from you should you have any questions or concerns on anything city-government-related.  “See” you next week!