A busy budget season for the City of Appleton Common Council continues this week. We did make one significant change to the budget at our day-long review session on Saturday, adding $6.25 million to the budget for the Erb Pool project to allow for the project to continue with an actual pool, as opposed to the splash pad concept that had been proposed.
The newly recommended dollar figure is likely enough to pursue something similar to either option 1A or 1B on this page, which both include 25-meter pools in addition to other amenities. The current pool at Erb Park is 50 meters, and the option calling for a new 50-meter pool would could roughly an additional million dollars.
If you'd like to weigh in on this topic or any of the other items in the 2016 budget, we will hold a public hearing on Wednesday night at 6 pm before our regularly scheduled council meeting. No official action on the budget will be taken this week. Any final amendments and the official adoption of the budget will happen on Wednesday, November 11.
Now, on to this week's agendas.
Appleton Redevelopment Authority, Wednesday, 3 pm
Efforts to redevelop the former site of the Foremost Dairy plant on the Fox River will take another step forward on Wednesday when the Appleton Redevelopment Authority will meet in special session to see presentations from two of the five developers who responded to a recent request for proposals (RFP) for the property.
This is the city's second attempt to redevelop this property. The first fell through earlier this year due to a financing issue, but that process helped us learn a fair amount about concerns regarding this property's maximum occupancy, access issues and neighborhood concerns. I'm hopeful that some of the lessons learned the first time around will help us come out with a strong result the second time.
After that and the previously mentioned public hearing on the 2016 budget, we'll hold our regularly-scheduled council meeting. Here are some highlights from the agenda:
Alcohol in parks
A discussion that started in July of this year will carry on into November on Wednesday night as council will be asked to consider the Parks & Recreation committee's recommendation regarding a proposed permitting process for allowing alcohol in parks.
Throughout this process it has been clear that something needs to be done to address problems arising from groups of people drinking to excess all day long in some city parks, but we've also heard concerns about inconveniences caused to responsible park users by any new ordinance. The committee had previously recommended adopting a permit-only policy for alcohol in parks, and last week they amended that recommendation to allow both one-time and one-year permits.
As I've mentioned previously, Appleton very nearly stands alone as a Fox Valley community allowing alcohol in parks without a permit. This recommendation puts us in a position to be more consistent with our neighboring communities while still allowing those who wish to drink responsibly in our parks an opportunity to do so.
Aldermanic salaries
On the same day last week the Human Resources committee voted 4-1 to recommend alderpersons receive no salary increase for the council year beginning in 2017. Alderpersons are currently scheduled to receive a 2% raise in April of 2016, raising our salary from $5,805 annually to $5,921.
There are a pair of issues to consider here, and I'll admit I'm still struggling to weigh one against the other. The first is a relatively simple goal to help our salaries keep pace with inflation. The 2% increase in 2016 reflected a Bureau of Labor Statistics-estimated 2% rate of inflation between midyear 2013 and 2014. This year the BLS says the rate of inflation was flat from September 2014-present, so no increase was needed for that purpose.
Beyond that, however, there's a larger issue related to accessibility of this office that represents a significant factor. While the workload related to being an alderperson varies from week to week and season to season, the simple action of attending assigned meetings occupies somewhere between 3-6 evenings every two weeks. Most alderpersons would make more money if they spent those evenings working somewhere for minimum wage or tending bar than they do serving the public. And, of course, attending meetings isn't the only responsibility of this position.
It's an honor to be elected to serve in this role and many of us would do it for free, but the combination of evening hours and low compensation make this position one that many qualified people either cannot afford to take or would prefer not to pursue. As a city, we lose out every time a good candidate for one of these jobs is disqualified or disinterested. Simply raising the salary by a percentage point here and there to keep up with inflation won't solve this issue.
Exhibition Center
Finally, this week we're likely to cast another key vote in the decision making process regarding the proposed exhibition center. The item on the table at this meeting is a proposed management agreement between the city and the new owners of the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel.
I haven't had a chance to review these documents yet, but I understand the changes are minimal from the item that was on our agenda two weeks ago. While many of my initial concerns regarding this project have been resolved, I still voted against two of the three room tax-related action items last week due to concerns over lack of details in one of the ordinance's late additions: a funding mechanism for to-be-determined sports facility projects.
To the best of my knowledge the approval of this agreement and our neighboring communities' willingness to approve the room tax agreement are the last two hurdles between this project and a required November closing date.
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.
Kyle I am curious, what is the typical salary in Wisconsin for an Alderman in other similar size communities?
ReplyDeleteThe numbers range all over the place. Some that are higher than Appleton include Green Bay ($9887 plus benefits), Racine ($6900), Waukesha (going up to $7000 in 2016) and DePere (up to $6520 in 2015). Menasha alders get $5190 plus $60 per meeting. By that formula I would have made something like $11,430 this year.
DeleteLower figures include Oshkosh ($3750) and Neenah ($4075), among other smaller cities.
We were given a list of 16 cities to compare as part of this conversation. Of the four cities on that list with populations over 70,000, our current $5805 is the lowest.
Thanks for that information. It appears we are somewhere in the middle. I would guess most alderman do it as a service for their community and to "give back" versus expecting it to pay like a normal job but I can see where the hours you all put in are probably way over the top. Even at $11,000 I wouldnt want the job :)
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