Monday, February 22, 2016

Taking a week off

Good morning folks,

With my apologies, I need to take a week off from my council updates as I'm currently out of the area. I'll be back next week and hope to have an update for you then. Thanks!

KL

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

What you may not know: Week of February 15

Before I get started on the update, here's one final reminder that today, Tuesday February 16, is an election day. Across the state of Wisconsin we're voting today in a primary for a seat on the Supreme Court. You can use my.appleton.org to find your polling location, if you need help, and please remember that you'll need to bring photo ID.

With that said, I apologize for the fact that the remainder of my update will be rather brief. The Common Council meets in regularly scheduled session on Wednesday at 7 pm, and the primary item of interest on the agenda is the Highway JJ reconstruction I discussed in last week's update. Last week the Municipal Services Committee was asked to approve "Option 2" and came up with a 2-2 vote, so the item comes forward to council without a recommendation.

I continue to support that option and while I was unable to attend the committee meeting last week, I did send the following message to be read during the proceedings:

I'm sorry to report I'll be unable to attend tonight's Municipal Services Committee meeting due to a prior engagement. I hope one of my colleagues will be able to share the comments I have prepared below, and they can also be included in the meeting minutes if necessary.

Given the volume of time and additional resources spent researching options for this reconstruction, I'm disappointed to see this item returning to committee with no additional viable alternatives on the table. However, given the possibilities before us I would urge the committee to recommend approval of Option 2.

While I recognize some drawbacks in convenience, the safety considerations and traffic impact are quite clear: Option 2 is both the most convenient for pedestrians, meaning our pedestrian safety infrastructure is likely to actually get used, and this configuration allows for the safest set of options for vehicles.

I also feel that the crosswalk in Option 2 represents a safer option than its counterpart in Option 3. I strongly suspect that drivers turning left into Kwik Trip on Option 3 will not expect to need to stop for a crosswalk in the middle of their turn lane. Failure to stop could lead to collisions between cars and pedestrians, and having to stop before fully entering the turn lane could lead to rear-end collisions or traffic backups.

At the stakeholders meeting last week we heard a point that you may hear again tonight, that it would be possible to turn Option 3 into something resembling Option 2 at some point in the future. While I recognize that possibility, I have a hard time believing that we'll ever reach a point where we can make that transition without hearing many of the same objections we're hearing now. 

With all due respect to those who may disagree, I feel that Option 2 represents an opportunity to do this right the first time. Thank you for your consideration.
If council chooses to act on this item this week (which they may not), then their action will go as a recommendation to Outagamie County. As we're discussing a county highway, the county has the final say on the design.

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. Good governance happens in the open, and I remain committed to raising awareness on the issues coming before us.

Monday, February 8, 2016

What you may not know: Week of February 8

The Appleton Common Council has a full slate of committee meetings on the schedule this week, but locally one discussion is likely to overshadow the others:

Municipal Services, Tuesday, 6:30 pm

Back in early December I mentioned that the city was working to finalize a design for the reconstruction of the portion of County Highway JJ between Ballard Road and Lightning Drive, and outlined the recommendation the Department of Public Works sent to council for consideration. At that time the Municipal Services Committee was not satisfied with the recommendation or either of the alternative options presented, and opted to direct staff to look at more possibilities.

On Tuesday the committee will again be asked to make a recommendation regarding this project, and the staff recommendation has not changed. The proposal, typically referred to as "Option 2," includes a raised concrete median to be installed between Ballard and Lightning, effectively turning all entrances into properties along that stretch into "right-in, right out" entrances.

As one might imagine, this has created some concerns for business owners along the north side of JJ, who will have less convenient access to their property. Their concerns are a large part of the reason why this item was held and why the city spent an additional $24,000 researching options for this redesign. In the end, however, no new feasible options came forward.

I attended a stakeholders meeting for this project last week and feel comfortable summarizing the arguments against this specific proposal into two points:

  1. A dispute over whether or not the safety issues caused by the current construction are severe enough to warrant major changes, and
  2. A debate about whether or not the safety improvements created by the proposed change should be valued above the interests of the business owners and developers on the north side of the street.
While I recognize the concerns of the property owners on the north side of the street, I think we have a great deal of evidence to suggest that the safety issues we're working to resolve are real and have been exacerbated by development in the area in recent years. And while I recognize the challenges created, I think the opportunity to fix these issues for both drivers and pedestrians and alleviate the possibility for a truly tragic event at this intersection is worth having to deal with some inconvenience. 

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. Good governance happens in the open, and I remain committed to raising awareness on the issues coming before us.

Monday, February 1, 2016

What you may not know: Week of February 1

Good morning and welcome to February. Here are the items of interest on the agenda for Wednesday's 7 pm meeting of the Appleton Common Council:

Erb Pool

Work continues as expected on plans to replace Erb Pool with a new facility following the 2016 outdoor swimming season, and that project will take another step forward on Wednesday if council votes to approve the Parks and Recreation Committee's recommendation to hire MSA Professional Services to design and engineer the new space.

While council still needs to award the actual contracts for all of the work to be done here, the money to design a new pool, keep the old pool open for the 2016 season, demolish the pool following the season and construct a new facility to open in 2017 were all set aside during our 2016 budget process in November.

For this portion of the process, we received bids from six companies interested in the project and it was our staff's opinion that MSA's projected cost was the lowest of any bidder who had the requisite experience and vision and whose bid contained all necessary components.

Northland Avenue/Richmond Street construction

Last week both the Finance and Utilities Committees voted unanimously to recommend approval of a request to adjust our 2016 Water Distribution Capital Improvement Program to allow for work this summer to replace water infrastructure under the portions of Northland Avenue and Richmond Street that are scheduled to be reconstructed as part of a road project in 2017.

At last week's Finance meeting I asked staff for some detail on how this will impact traffic this summer. We'll be doing our best to avoid closing the entire road at any given time, but even a single lane closure will have a significant impact on the ~24,000 cars that pass through this area each day.

It appears this is the way we'll have to proceed, but it's unfortunate that the State DOT was unable to give us the flexibility to work concurrently with their 2017 road project and avoid having to inconvenience drivers and local businesses for two consecutive summers.

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. Good governance happens in the open, and I remain committed to raising awareness on the issues coming before us.