What you may not know: Week of March 3

I apologize for the somewhat brief nature of this update: I'm writing from Arizona, where I'm currently on vacation and will be until Tuesday evening. 

With that said, I'll be back for this week's meeting of the Appleton Common Council on Wednesday, and there's one issue in particular I'm keeping an eye on this week:

Appointing an alderperson for District 8

Many of you may have heard that Alderman Kole Oswald, who had previously announced he was not planning on seeking re-election, recently accepted a job in China and moved overseas, vacating his position on the council. As of this writing he would have had about a month and a half left on his term before his replacement was sworn in at our second meeting in April.

At our last council meeting we briefly discussed what we as a council can do regarding the remainder of his term. We have the ability to hold a special election, but in this case it's not feasible to do so. By the time we held a special election it'd already be Election Day. We also have the ability to appoint someone to fill the seat in the interim, and that's what we'll debate on Wednesday.

For what it's worth, only one candidate filed to run for this seat in the spring elections: Polly Dalton. As such, the obvious option is to appoint Ms. Dalton to fill the seat early. It's really up to her, though, if she'd like to start on the council immediately or would prefer to wait until after she's likely to be elected in April.

We also have the option of appointing someone else, but anyone else we appoint would hold the position for just six weeks before, since they have not filed as a candidate for the April elections, they're likely to have to give up the seat (barring a write-in campaign).

I'm always reluctant to give a seat on the council to someone who wasn't interested in the task of running for election. So, with that said, my preference would be to either appoint Ms. Dalton to the seat early or simply leave it vacant until after the spring elections. 

You can see agendas for all of this week's meetings and the full schedule at the city's Legistar page.

Keeping you informed on issues that may impact you around the city is one of my primary goals as an alderman. Making the council's activity as accessible as possible to as many people as are interested is part of my goal to make it easier for more people to get involved with issues that matter to them.