The Notes: Week of August 3 - August 7, 2026

Hi again, Neighbors!  Happy first week of August.  Can you believe it?  We're already here! Where has the first two-thirds of the summer gone? 

This week is a Full Council Meeting Week in City of Appleton government.  And there are a few other meetings on the schedule as well.  Read on for the details...

Monday, 08/03/2026

Library Board Nominating Committee -Appleton Public Library Cornerstone Conference Room - 1:30pm  This sub-committee of the Library Board has a simple task ahead of them at this meeting.  Their one action item for the day is "selection of nominees for library board president and library board vice president."  They will of course take the results from this meeting to the full library board when it next meets. 

Wednesday, 08/05/2026

Human Resources and Information Technology Committee - Special Meeting - 6:30pm  Somehow the meeting that this committee was scheduled to hold a couple of weeks ago got cancelled.  So this special meeting is a "make up game" for those action items.  Please see the alderman blog post for that week for more information on their action items to be addressed this week before the full council meeting.

City of Appleton Common Council - 7pm  As per usual, the mayor gets things rolling... this time without proclamations but instead with a couple requests for the approval of some citizen board member appointments.  We then move on to the meat of the agenda with potential approvals of all of the committee action taken two weeks ago.  Here are the items of interest and which may garner more discussion by the full council:

• From the Municipal Services Committee:  Approval of the design for the 2028 reconstruction of a downtown stretch of Franklin Street.  This was mentioned here and here and despite the fact that there is a planned removal of some bike lanes on this reconstruction project, the design will likely be approved.  The city staff did a good job of demonstrating that there are plenty of alternative downtown bike lanes so the loss of some on this stretch of Franklin Street will not be detrimental.  
  
  
• From the Safety and Licensing Committee:  Absent on this full council agenda is a resolution regarding Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) technologies policies in the city.  This item has been held at the committee level until early September since there is a lot of discussion yet to be had regarding the future of these surveillance technologies in the city.  You'll no doubt hear more about this in near future alderman blog posts. 
  
  
• From the Finance Committee:  Proposed revisions to the city's purchasing policy are up for final approval by the full council (mentioned here).  These are a bit of a concern for me as there is a potential for less required competitive bidding for city contracts.  But the Director of Finance made it clear that the proposed changes follow both state and federal guidelines and mirror what some other similar-sized Wisconsin municipalities use.  Let me know if you have any concerns in this regard.
  
  
• From the Parks and Recreation Committee:  A no-action resolution "supporting vegetation analysis" in the city is back up for discussion after being held at council since mid-June.  (See here and here and here for a refresher on this topic.)  I'm not sure where this resolution will go from here as some council members believe that there have already been actions taken in the city (with staff and in the Parks and Recreation Committee) that have essentially eliminated the need for this resolution.  This alderman, as you know, has been a "no" vote on this resolution and all similar no-action resolutions.  But perhaps there will never be a need for a vote on this as the resolution could be withdrawn, held indefinitely, or received and filed.     
  
  
• Reconsideration of an item from the Safety and Licensing Committee:  When this council last met, a resolution requesting a one-year renewal of a truancy ordinance in the city failed in a tied vote with three aldermen absent from the meeting.  One of the absent aldermen has apparently asked for a reconsideration of this item (which is the right of an absent member); so there will be another discussion and vote on this.  As I've mentioned in past blog posts, I do hope that the city renews this truancy ordinance for at least this additional year so that the school district and citizens here can gather another year's worth of data on the success (or not) of the truancy ordinance in getting students back into school.  The last school year's results (which may or may not have been directly related to the new truancy ordinance) were generally positive.  And I have seen no real negative ramifications to having this ordinance in place.  I do not believe it harmful to have a truancy ordinance again in place for at least one more school year.  Let me know if you agree (and if not, why not).

Do you have any questions or concerns about any of the above items?  Or is there anything else city-government-related about which you'd like to inquire?  Please let me know! 

I hope that you have a great first week of this new month.  I pray that you are all safe and well and that our community continues to generously pitch in for clean-up efforts for those who were so deeply affected by the recent tornado which ripped through our area.  I feel grateful to live in such a kind and caring community.