Monday, February 25, 2013

What You May Not Know: Week Of February 25

The council has a full week of committee meetings this week, but two items stand out for me:

Human Resources, Monday @ 6 pm:

The HR Committee and the proposed new compensation plan for non-union workers remain the top story this week, although for the first time in a few weeks things are headed in a new direction. At Wednesday's full council meeting Alderman Konetzke proposed an amendment that would remove some controversial parts of the proposed plan but move forward with the wage data from that proposal and call for further study into the worker classification process.

This issue was debated strongly Wednesday night before the full council finally voted to allow the amendment, but send it back to the HR committee for more work. There are still several issues to be addressed here, including:
  • Issues with the math in the wage data.
  • A discussion on whether the city should offer starting wages at 80% (as proposed) of market value, or 83% (as currently done), 87.5% (as initially recommended), or some other value.
  • Establishing a framework for the "classification compensation study team." We don't know who would be on it, what their powers would be, the process for appealing their decisions, and more.
All that and more will likely be discussed on Monday night, so if you're heading out to this meeting I'd plan on being there a while.

Finance, Wednesday @ 5 pm:

It's still only listed as an "informational item," but the committee continues to work to reevaluate the interest rate tied to financing for special assessment projects for homeowners who opt to pay the additions to their property tax bills over five years. In 2012 the council voted to lower the interest rate from 9 to 6 percent, but now they're working to find a metric to tie that number to in an effort to avoid having to readjust it in the future.

There's a lot to be decided here, such as whether these loans should be qualified as "secured" or "unsecured" debt, what kinds of loans to compare them to and how rates charged by the city should compare to rates charged by private institutions. No binding action will be taken on this matter this week, but these conversations will help shape the discussion moving forward.

You can see this week's full committee schedule here and agendas for all of the meetings here.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as a candidate for and a potential member of Appleton's City Council. There's a lot going on and a lot of information out there, but I'm happy to do everything I can to make these decisions and the discussions around them as accessible as possible to as many people as are interested.

Monday, February 18, 2013

What You May Not Know: Week Of February 18

Before we talk about this week's council activity, here's a quick reminder that there's a primary election on Tuesday to narrow the field of five candidates running for two spots on the Appleton School Board and three candidates running for one spot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Your polling locations are the same as they were for last fall's general election (for residents of District 13 it's Faith Lutheran Church on East Evergreen), but if you need a reminder or are voting for the first time since moving you can find your voting place here. If you're not registered to vote or need to change your address you can do so at the polls.

I'm not endorsing any candidates in these races, but I will say I think the Post Crescent did a great job gathering information on all five school board candidates for their profiles on the paper's Politics page.

Looking ahead a day, the full council meets on Wednesday night and here are some of the big items on their agenda:

Human Resources:

The city's proposed new non-union compensation plan will be before the Council again this week, although not much has changed since it appeared there two weeks ago. The Human Resources committee recommended the proposal be rejected by a split 2-2 vote, which is only different from their last 3-1 vote to reject because different aldermen were absent from the meetings.

Everyone wants the city to finish this plan and do what's right for its employees, but unfortunately it appears this proposed plan has some serious issues. Even setting aside the math issues that took months to resolve, this plan calls for hiring new city workers at an estimated 80% of market value, well below the 83% offered in the previous plan and even less than the 87.5% Carlson Consulting has recommended in other cities.

Another problem with the plan lies in the data collection used to establish those rates, which was done by necessity in secret because the private sector data is proprietary. That doesn't leave room for any transparency in the process of determining salary for hundreds of city employees.

There's still a chance this plan, with its established flaws, will be approved by the council Wednesday night. If not, it will be set aside and staff will be directed to produce a new proposal.

Also denied last week was a proposal to make Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday for all city employees. The proposal ran into a sticking point regarding the differences between the city's non-union employees, who could have this change made immediately, and the union-represented employees who have already bargained for holidays in their contracts. The proposal was denied by a 2-2 vote, but don't be surprised if it's amended on the council floor to pertain to only non-union employees and passes.

Parks and Recreation:

On Wednesday three members of the Parks and Rec committee voted to approve a memorandum of understanding with Friends of Appleton Skate Park, a group looking to build a skate park in Telulah Park. The group is looking to begin fundraising to help develop a facility and will take a key step forward if this memorandum is approved. 

The full text of the proposed agreement appears on pages 188-189 of last week's Alderperson packets.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as a candidate for and a potential member of Appleton's City Council. There's a lot going on and a lot of information out there, but I'm happy to do everything I can to make these decisions and the discussions around them as accessible as possible to as many people as are interested.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

It's called "talking to potential constituents," not "wasting your time."

A few days ago I happened to meet an elected official from another community. I mentioned my campaign and he asked if I'd acquired a list of likely voters from my district yet. I haven't, and I'm not planning on it. I don't really need the list because I'm planning on talking to everyone, not just "likely voters."

This strategy isn't exactly common practice, and my new friend was incensed by it. He told me I'm going to "waste my time" talking to people who don't usually vote, and that if I "wanted to win" I'd forget about them and pursue the low-hanging fruit of people who typically vote.

That strategy is pretty common practice in electoral politics, but there's a very simple problem with it for me: I'm running for alderman to represent my entire district, not just the likely voters.

This isn't the first time I've caught someone by surprise with the fact that my plan to get elected doesn't involve taking the shortest possible path. I'd like to represent everyone as a member of the council and I'm planning on talking to everyone that will listen about it, whether they vote in every election or they've never voted before. I'm hoping a sideeffect of my campaign will be a significant collection of new Appleton voters, people who have never been asked to vote in a city race before but are joining the conversation about the city's future for the first time.

There's a significant difference between taking the easiest path to get elected and running to lead. I'm committed to the latter, and I wish more elected officials would follow suit.


Monday, February 11, 2013

A Quick Thought On Snow Emergency Towing

Sunday's Post Crescent featured a note from Nick Penzenstadler on the topic of the city's recent snow emergencies. Overnight last Wednesday the city had 42 cars towed during their ban on parking on city streets, and each towing carries a $20 fine, $189 towing fee and $30/day storage fee for impounded cars.

As you might imagine, the owners of those 42 cars are not happy about having their vehicle towed away, both due to the sudden inconvenience of losing their vehicle and having to pay hundreds of dollars to get it back. And while some of those drivers probably should have known better, to a point I can see where others are coming from with their concerns.

Towing the cars away is something of a necessity for plow crews to be able to get the streets as clear as possible following a major snow event. The snow rules are clearly posted on the city's web site and distributed via the media to a point. But if you were new in town, a new driver or simply visiting the city, I'm not sure you'd know where to look to find out about them. I'm not sure the average resident checks the city's winter page for updates before every expected snowfall, for example.

I don't want to advocate for carelessness or ignorance here, but I do think the current penalty is a little steep for a one-time incident. I wonder if it would be possible for the city to find a way to charge a little less to people having their car towed for the first time, and recoup the difference by raising the fee for people who should have learned their lesson but got towed again anyway. The point of the policy should be to help everyone remember to get their cars off the street, not to overly punish the people who made a single mistake.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

What You May Not Know: Week Of February 11

There's a full week of committee meetings on tap, and here are some of the highlights:

Human Resources, Monday, 6 pm

Once again this week all eyes are on the Human Resources committee, who two weeks ago voted to deny the city's proposed new non-union worker compensation plan but had their recommendation referred back by the full council last Wednesday.

One of the reasons this plan has been delayed and kicked around for months now was a question about the math in the plan and the procedures used to reach the end result. Carlson Consulting was present at two committee meetings but failed to answer the questions to the satisfaction of members of the committee, then opted not to attend the last meeting after stating they felt they had completed their contractual obligation.

Since then, Carlson issued a memo to the city on Thursday attempting to explain the procedure (you can see it starting on page 24 of this week's Alderman packets). It remains to be seen if this document will answer the committee's outstanding questions.

At Wednesday's council meeting several aldermen spoke strongly regarding a need to move forward on this, either by approving this plan or creating a new proposal. There are a lot of workers hanging in the balance here, but on the opposite side there's also a strong opinion that getting this right is more important than getting it done quickly.

The committee has also held two items from their last meeting in January, one to make Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday for city employees and another to give aldermen a 0% pay raise for 2014.

Municipal Services, Tuesday, 4 pm

A few weeks ago the Parks and Rec committee voted to approve a plan for sidewalk installation at Vosters Park (they voted for a plan similar to Plan B in this post), and now the matter moves on to Municipal Services. After the extended debate about this matter at Parks and Rec, I would be surprised if the committee opts to make any significant changes to the plan.

The full schedule of meetings for this week is available in the Alderperson Weekly Packets.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as a candidate for and a potential member of Appleton's City Council. There's a lot going on and a lot of information out there, but I'm happy to do everything I can to make these decisions and the discussions around them as accessible as possible to as many people as are interested.

Monday, February 4, 2013

What You May Not Know: Week Of February 4

February 6 is the first Wednesday of the month, and as such the Common Council will meet at 7 pm at City Hall to discuss the following:

Human Resources:

Wednesday's big news will likely come from the report of the Human Resources Committee, where three of the four alderpersons present voted to deny the city's proposed non-union compensation and classification plan. At the 1/21 committee meeting there were again concerns expressed about the math involved in the proposed plan, and Carlson Consulting appears to have adopted a "take it or leave it" approach to the final result.

The city paid Carlson $60,000 to produce this recommendation, and it's both their opinion and the opinion of the city attorney that they've met their obligation and are no longer required to appear at committee meetings to defend or explain their work.

Given the questions surrounding the final result and the fact that Carlson has somewhat removed themselves from the conversation, it seems very unlikely that this plan will be adopted in full.

Utilities:

On Tuesday, January 22 the Utilities Committee voted to recommend approval of spending $6.4 million on the city's new "smart water meters," which will allow city staff to read meters from one location instead of having to send staff out, and voted not to allow citizens to opt out of receiving said meters. Citizens will still be able to apply for an exemption, but will have to appear before the Utilities Committee to make their case.

Both matters passed 4-0 in committee.

Public Works:

The Public Works Committee will meet at 6 pm Wednesday and their agenda includes an action item to approve spending $494,000 (plus a possible 10% contingency) to Statewide Raising to demolish the Washington Place apartment building located behind the City Center.

This and any other action items approved by the committee will appear on the full council's agenda an hour later.

Elsewhere in issues we've discussed previously: A few weeks ago I praised Alderman Christoph Wahl for a resolution that would require any non-emergency committee, commission or board meeting minutes to be posted for a minimum of 48 hours before the council could take action on them. The resolution was referred to the City Attorney to check on its legality, and his office has since issued a memo confirming that the council can take this action. As such, the resolution will likely be assigned to a committee Wednesday night, and could appear before the full council as soon as the February 20 meeting.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as a candidate for and a potential member of Appleton's City Council. There's a lot going on and a lot of information out there, but I'm happy to do everything I can to make these decisions and the discussions around them as accessible as possible to as many people as are interested.