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.