I wanted to take a moment today to give everyone a heads up that things are going to be quiet for the next couple of weeks around here: All of this week's scheduled committee meetings have been cancelled or postponed and, as December is a five-Wednesday month, next week is a scheduled off week for the Appleton Common Council.
Our next scheduled meetings are on Wednesday, January 6, and I'll be back that week with my usual update.
Until then, have a safe and happy holiday season and I'll see you in the new year!
I hope everyone is staying safe and dry out there as rain continues into its third consecutive day here in Appleton. If the weather was about 20 degrees colder, I shudder to think about how much snow we'd have.
Meanwhile, the Appleton Common Council will have its regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday at 7 pm or whenever our 6 pm organizational meeting wraps up. Here are some of the items I'll be watching:
District 8 vacancy
The council has gone a few weeks now without a representative from the city's eighth district after Polly Dalton resigned her seat at the end of November. Alderperson Dalton would have been up for re-election in April, and this week we'll consider three options for what to do regarding the remainder of her term:
First, we could elect to hold a special election. This is an unrealistic option, however: Minimum public notices would prevent us from holding said election until the first week in February, at which point a new alderperson would hold the job less than two full months before coming up for reelection.
We have the option of appointing a new representative for District 8 to fill the remainder of the term. We have done this on multiple occasions before, with Alderpersons Dalton, Coenen and former Alderperson Stueck all getting their seats for the first time this way.
Finally, we could opt to simply leave the seat vacant until residents of the eighth district get to elect their own representative in April.
If you heard my Fox Cities Viewpoint from two weeks ago, you already know that I'm planning on pursuing the third option. As I mentioned above, the special election option is unrealistic due to the short amount of time remaining on the term. That leaves appointment as a possible option, but I don't support it for two reasons:
I'm a firm believer that the residents of a district are the only ones qualified to select their representative. I don't think we should select one for them, and I don't think the challenges created by going one alderperson short for a few months are significant enough to merit taking that right for ourselves.
Last Wednesday we learned that at least three candidates have taken out paperwork to run for this seat in April. Selecting one of them to be appointed to the seat early would be an implied endorsement of the candidate and could give them an unfair advantage in the upcoming election.
Beyond that issue, I introduced most of this week's most pressing topics in last week's update. Here are the items that could be acted upon on Wednesday:
Last week the Finance Committee voted to remove a previously-approved amendment that would have addressed an issue related to special assessments for properties transitioning from rural to urban status. That item goes before council this week, and I'm hoping to change it back.
Actually, I guess that's all. Here are updates on the items that will not be voted on this week:
The special use permit for a second expanded Community Living Arrangement (CLA) near the corner of Ballard Rd and Milestone Dr was approved by the City Plan Commission. A nearby rezoning request transitioning properties south of Glenhurst Dr to single-family zoning was recommended for approval and will go to council on January 20.
The Finance Committee opted to delay action on a resolution calling for alderpersons to be able to participate remotely when absent from meetings until after the first of the year. More technical research needs to happen before this item can proceed.
A proposed redesign of County Highway JJ north of North High School was sent back to staff to consider more options. I expect we'll likely discuss it again in late January.
A resolution calling for the city to change the ordinances related to secondhand dealers and holding periods for purchased items was held until January to allow time for potentially impacted parties to weigh in on any changes.
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.
The Appleton Common Council has a very busy committee week ahead, likely to be our only full-schedule committee week between budget adoption in early November and the end of the year. As such, there's a lot going on:
City Plan Commission, Monday, 4 pm
One of the challenges Appleton (along with a great many similar cities) faces as our population grows older is a significant shortfall in available capacity in our senior living facilities. In my nearly three years serving the city we've seen a fair amount of work done to help address that shortfall here in the 13th district.
When I took office in April of 2013 we had three senior living facilities in the district, all located at the north end of Cherryvale Avenue. A fourth has since been constructed near the corner of Ballard Road and Milestone Drive, and a fifth is in process near the corner of French Road and County Highway JJ.
On Monday the City Plan Commission will be asked to approve a Special Use Permit to allow a sixth such facility to be constructed near the aforementioned new facility at Ballard and Milestone. This facility would add an additional 80 beds of capacity for senior living to the district, bringing us up to 272 within the district. Across the city the total licensed Community Living Arrangement (CLA) capacity would go up to 516, which is less than 1% of Appleton's total population.The Appleton Redevelopment Authority also recently authorized city staff to negotiate with a developer on a possible CLA development on the former Foremost site along the Fox River.
I don't intend to oppose this development as it's serving a very clear community need. It's worth noting, however, that concentrating senior living facilities in one area of the city does create some infrastructural needs. The north end of the 13th district, which now will host more than half of the city's CLA beds, is served by the city's smallest fire station. That station is tasked with responding to all ambulance calls, and may need to add an additional truck and/or staffing in upcoming years to meet the resulting increased demand.
Finance, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
With the 2016 budget process complete the Finance Committee is back on its usual schedule and will be asked to consider a pair of longstanding pending items this week.
First, we will again be asked to consider approval of a draft ordinance allowing absent alderpersons to participate in meetings electronically. I know I've written about this before (most recently in September, I guess), and I support the concept of this ordinance but struggle with some of the challenges regarding how it will work in practice. Some of the ongoing challenges include:
Technical issues that make it unclear how much of a meeting an electronic participant will actually be able to see or hear, and whether or not their participation will be able to be effectively recorded along with video of our meetings. I'm hopeful we'll be able to test that this week.
Issues involving who can and cannot participate this way. The current ordinance tasks the council president with determining whether or not an absent alderperson has "good cause" for missing a meeting and should be allowed to participate. That's open to a wide variety of interpretation and could cause some real issues. I'd prefer to allow alderpersons a set number of annual absences (two is my preferred number), and leave it up to the individuals to determine how they use them.
Second, we'll also resume discussion on the 2015 Special Assessment policy, which still includes some challenging language regarding streets undergoing "rural to urban conversion." Under current policy the city assesses property owners for the expansion and improvement of their "rural" road when it is annexed into the city or when city expansion requires it to become urbanized. This creates a very specific issue on places like French Road, which was recently repaved (and assessed) and will likely face a second wave of construction when the road is urbanized in future years. Under the current policy property owners with frontage on that street would be assessed both times.
At council several weeks ago I attempted to amend the policy to allow for that second assessment but to give property owners a credit in the amount of the first assessment. This ensures they're still participating in the improvement of their street but eliminates the "double hit" they'd otherwise be feeling after already paying for their street to be resurfaced recently. That amendment passed but was referred back to committee for further discussion.
I remain hopeful that we'll find a way to handle these relatively isolated situations without creating undue hardship on the property owners involved.
Municipal Services, Tuesday, 6:30 pm
Later on Tuesday the Municipal Services Committee will meet to discuss, among other things, another item of some significance to many District 13 residents: The design of the proposed reconstruction of County Highway JJ between Lightning Drive and Ballard Road.
The proposed redesign aims to address some safety issues related to the north entrance/exit of the North High School parking lot, where the combination of inexperienced drivers attempting to turn left with pressure from traffic backing up behind them and the relatively high rate of speed for traffic on Highway JJ has created some significant accidents and near-misses. That issue existed before but has been exacerbated a bit by recent development on the north side of JJ which adds some additional traffic and some pedestrian concerns to the mix.
The Department of Public Works has proposed a design including the following:
Construct a raised concrete median east of Ballard Road, from the
existing median to 550’ east of Lightning Drive and gapped at Lightning
Drive intersection (width varies from 3.3’ to 18’, 5.5’ at most locations).
Provide an enhanced pedestrian crosswalk of Edgewood Drive at the
west side of the Appleton North High School (ANHS) entrance.
Construct a single-lane roundabout with east, west, north, and south
approaches at the Lightning Drive intersection, with right-of-way
sufficient for future roundabout expansion to two lanes, if needed. Construct one 12-foot eastbound and one 12-foot westbound through
lane (plus 2.5-foot curb and gutter)
Construct one 4-foot eastbound and one 4-foot westbound bike lane
(plus 2.5-foot curb and gutter)
Construct one 5-foot concrete sidewalk along north right-of-way line
and one 10-foot asphalt multi-use trail along south right-of-way line.
Construct a dedicated eastbound right-turn lane at the ANHS entrance.
Construct a dedicated westbound left-turn lane at Ballard Road.
Construct a second through lane for westbound traffic at the approach to
Ballard Road.
Construct a second through lane for eastbound traffic from Ballard Road
to the ANHS right turn lane.
Construct approximately 600’ of Lightning Drive north of Edgewood
Drive with one northbound through lane, one southbound through lane,
and a two-way-left-turn lane.
Construct a stormwater pond meeting state and local stormwater
management requirements northeast of the Edgewood/Lightning
intersection.
The primary objection to this proposal has come from business owners and developers on the north side of the Highway, who would see access to their property restricted by the new design. They've proposed a secondary option which would meet many of the stated goals above but include an opportunity to turn left into their developments. This option carries significant additional construction costs and would require the city to purchase additional property for street right-of-way.
Safety & Licensing, Wednesday, 6 pm
Finally, this week the Safety & Licensing Committee agenda includes my resolution calling for the city to consider changes to its ordinances regarding secondhand dealers and holding periods. This item was held when the committee met in special session last week. In the interest of shortening an update that's already well over 1300 words, I'll refer any interested parties to my comments on the matter from my previous update.
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.
The Appleton Common Council kicks off December with a bit of an unusual week. We have a regularly scheduled full council meeting on Wednesday but the agenda is very light as most of our committees cancelled their scheduled meetings during Thanksgiving week.
Most of the items going to this week's council agenda will come from another meeting on Wednesday, a special Safety & Licensing Committee meeting that was rescheduled from last week. I have a pair of resolutions on that agenda:
School bus lights
I won't speak for everyone, but I think most drivers have a common expectation that they're required to stop when a school bus stops to unload passengers. As such I was surprised to discover that that's not always the case: State statute allows municipalities the right to allow bus drivers to use red flashing lights to stop traffic in certain situations, but it's otherwise banned unless said municipalities take action to allow it.
I've since learned that several major municipalities in the Fox Valley and around the state (Green Bay, Oshkosh, Neenah and Madison are some notable examples) have enacted ordinances allowing school buses to stop traffic, but some have not. As such, I've submitted a resolution calling for Appleton to allow this practice in an effort to keep our bus passengers safe.
Secondhand holding periods
I've also recently learned a great deal about state statutes and ordinances related to secondhand dealers. One thing that has been brought to my attention is some irregularity regarding the period of time secondhand dealers are required to hold merchandise after purchasing but before reselling it. The quick version:
State statute requires secondhand dealers hold items in their existing condition for a minimum of seven days before they are eligible for resale.
The shortest, seven-day holding periods are only available to municipalities that have electronic reporting of secondhand purchases.
In the absence of electronic reporting, a waiting period of at least 21 days is required.
Municipalities are allowed to determine which waiting period they choose to enforce.
The final point creates an issue as some Fox Valley municipalities (including Grand Chute) have elected to move to the seven-day waiting period, while Appleton has not. The requirement to hold items for an additional two weeks creates the opportunity for the recovery of more potentially stolen items but also puts secondhand dealers in Appleton at a potentially significant competitive disadvantage against dealers in other communities. I've heard of at least one business looking to locate in the Valley that chose to open outside the city to avoid our restrictions.
As such, I've submitted a resolution calling for the city to consider a seven-day waiting period. I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion on this topic.
If the committee takes action on either of these items, the recommendations will be immediately taken up by the full council at their 7 pm meeting.
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.
This week would be a committee week for the Appleton Common Council but, between the Thanksgiving holiday and Tuesday's Christmas parade, nearly all of this week's meetings have been cancelled or postponed. As such, I'm taking the opportunity to take a week off to spend time with family. I'll see you back here next week.
One of the busiest weeks of the council year is upon us, as we have a normal committee week in addition to Wednesday's final adoption of the 2016 city budget. Here are the highlights, in chronological order:
Human Resources, Monday, 5 pm
I wrote about this last week, so I hope you'll excuse me for being brief. Council salaries have to be set two years in advance so no member of the body is setting their own salary: They'll all face re-election once before the new salary takes effect. In 2014 council voted to raise the salary 2% in 2016, from $5805 to $5921.
No inflation adjustment was necessary for 2017, so two weeks ago the HR committee voted to hold salaries flat for another year. At council, however, I supported an amendment to switch to a 5% increase in an effort to begin to address the fact that low salaries combined with our evening work schedule may prevent many qualified candidates from seeking this office. That amendment failed, but the item was referred back to committee for further discussion.
Raising salaries for elected officials is never popular (last year it resulted in one of the screamiest voicemails I've ever received), but the reality is our failure to adjust our position's pay against inflation for long periods of time has allowed it to become so low that it's a barrier to entry for qualified candidates who may need to take evenings off of work or find childcare to be able to participate. A 5% increase (from $5921 to $6217) won't solve that problem, but it is a step in the right direction.
Municipal Services, Tuesday, 6:30 pm
The effort to reconstruct a portion of County Highway JJ and resolve some safety issues along the north side of North High School will take a step forward this week when the Municipal Services Committee holds a public hearing to discuss the proposed design.
I haven't seen the actual plan yet, but it's my understanding that it contains:
A new raised median with a fence on JJ between Ballard and Lightning, eliminating left turns on and off of the street throughout that area and preventing students from running across the street instead of using the crosswalk.
A roundabout at the corner of JJ and Lightning that will allow vehicles that had to turn right onto JJ to turn around.
No official action will be taken at this meeting: The committee will be asked to approve a final design at a later date.
Budget adoption, Wednesday, 6 pm
Finally, the council will meet in special session on Wednesday to wrap up deliberations on the city's 2016 budget, make any final amendments and approve the final document. This event concludes more than a month of review, special meetings and public hearings.
I've developed something of a reputation for being heavily involved in the budget process, pre-submitting 74 questions for our all-day budget meeting and proposing several amendments during final adoption each of the last two years. This year, however, I find I have no changes to propose.
This decision didn't come from a lack of effort or concern. Here are some of the items that remain on my radar:
The primary headline from this budget season has been the decision on how to proceed with the Erb Pool project, as that facility is scheduled to close following its 2016 season. Two weeks ago the Finance Committee amended the plan to call for a total of $9.25 million to be spent replacing the 50 meter pool (and the proposed "splash pad" replacement) with a 25-meter pool and other amenities to be determined later. Two of my colleagues have proposed amendments to expand the project by either $750,000 or $1.25 million in an effort to keep a 50-meter pool at the facility. I support these amendments: If we're going to build a new pool, I'd like to see us preserve some of the unique features that make Erb a notable community asset.
There has been some discussion of the possibility of adding a full-time recreation programmer position to the Parks & Recreation department to help address rapidly increasing demand for our programs and services. I support adding this position, partially funded by the increase in Recreation revenues, and look forward to discussion on two amendments calling for it.
Finally, I remain concerned by some of the financial details in the city's relationship with Reid Golf Course. The city continues to pay $8500 per year in rent to the golf course for winter programs despite the fact that the course owes about $160,000 to the general fund on a 24-year, interest free loan. I proposed an amendment last year to address this issue but it did not receive any support. I did not propose the amendment this year, but would still like to see the situation improved.
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.
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.
The Appleton Common Council has a busy round of committees scheduled this week but all of those meetings will be conducted under the looming shadow of the 2016 budget, which we are currently reviewing. If you've liked my Facebook page you may already know that I finished my reading of the 660-page budget on Friday night and have submitted 74 questions to directors regarding items that appear within.
The budget is a great place to read about, discuss and perhaps amend city priorities, but it also represents a tremendous opportunity to learn about things we do as a city. In addition to a few attempts to make adjustments, every year I come away with a deeper understanding of how city government works and why we do some things the way we do.
If you'd like to learn more about the budget and how the process works, I have two opportunities for you this week:
First, on Monday at 6:30 I'll be participating in an Our Town Hall event titled "Demystifying the City of Appleton Budget" at the History Museum at the Castle. Follow this link for more details on the event, which should be a great opportunity to talk to an interested group about the process and some of the discussions we'll be having in the weeks ago.
Then, if you're really ready to dig in, the Finance Committee will be reviewing the budget for a full day on Saturday, starting at 8 am, and the meeting is open to the public. It's a long day and it's not anyone's favorite way to spend a fall Saturday, but it is an excellent opportunity to go department-by-department through the budget, get a lot of questions answered and start a conversation about where adjustments may need to be made.
Even without the budget review, it would be a pretty busy committee week as our regularly-scheduled meetings include the following:
Parks & Recreation, Monday, 6 pm
We've been discussing issues being caused by problem drinking in several city parks for quite some time now. Several months ago staff was directed to produce a system that would require a permit to bring alcohol into the parks, which is what nearly all of our neighboring municipalities do. That recommendation was sent back to committee on October 7 and held at their last meeting on October 12, so the Parks & Recreation committee will have it on their agenda again this week.
I know several of my colleagues have a strong interest in finding another way to resolve this issue without requiring permits, and I'm curious to see what they'll come up with. I think there's some consensus around council that something has to be done to address this matter, as excessive, extended drinking in the parks is creating an air of unsafety around some facilities.
Special Common Council meeting, Wednesday, 7 pm
And now, please allow me to introduce the elephant in the room.
We're starting to get very close to deadlines for decisions related to the proposed exhibition center, and in an effort to respect the time-sensitive nature of this work council will meet in special session on Wednesday to again discuss and potentially vote on multiple agreements that could open the door for the facility's construction.
All of these items were also a part of last Wednesday's council agenda, but some very significant eleventh-hour changes to the proposals made it impossible for council to conduct any kind of proper review of the agreements in play before voting at that meeting. All told, 102 pages of new documents were handed out during the meeting, making moot several of the documents many of us had spent a great deal of time preparing to discuss.
One of the changes between the documents we thought we were showing up to discuss and the actual current draft of the agreement is very significant. It calls for a much larger expansion of the room tax to fund two projects instead of one. The first, of course, is the proposed exhibition center. The second, which would receive a small share of room tax dollars immediately and a significantly larger share once the Performing Arts Center's borrowing expires in 2017, is an amateur sports facility.
Wednesday was the first time most, if not all members of council had heard about any significant possibility of lumping a sports facility into this project. On Wednesday we were given several suggestions of what this expenditure might look like, but at present there is no real consensus on what the actual project will be, where it will be constructed, when it will be launched or completed or what its projected impact will be on either the tourism marketplace in the valley or the community infrastructure that would support it.
Previous drafts of the proposed room tax agreement called for a 3.5% increase across nine municipalities to pay for the exhibition center's construction, with the rate going back down 2% when the Performing Arts Center is paid off in 2017. The new proposal calls for the tax across all municipalities to go up to 10%, the maximum allowed by the state, and remain there for at least the duration of the exhibition center's debt.
This represents a remarkable late shift in plans, with the deadline to close on the exhibition center's property about a month away. Tying these two projects together creates a bizarre partnership: The exhibition center has been discussed and debated for many years now and we know a great deal of details on it. The sports facility has been a part of the proposal for less than a week and requires funding despite having nearly none of the salient details fleshed out. To approve one, we must approve both. And there's really not much time to seek any further details.
When we're talking about a commitment this big, we have to be more responsible than this.
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.
First of all, my apologies for missing last week's update while I was returning from a wedding out of town. It ended up being something of a moot point, as most of the week's major action items were held and I'll have a chance to tell you about them again when they come back up for committee discussion.
In the meantime, the full council meets on Wednesday and we still have some pretty big items to discuss:
Appointment of a new City Clerk
The city has been without a city clerk and employing an interim deputy clerk since July 23, but the search to fill the former role appears to be drawing to a close. On Wednesday council will be asked to approve the hiring of Kami Scofield, who would start on November 16.
I haven't met Ms. Scofield but her qualifications are significant: She has spent the last four years as the City Clerk in Verona, is certified by the Wisconsin Certified Municipal Clerks Association, belongs to both the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association and International Institute of Municipal Clerks and has a bachelor's degree in Public Administration from UW-Stevens Point.
I look forward to getting an opportunity to meet Ms. Scofield and work with her in the future.
Special Assessment Policy
In my last update I mentioned a concern with the City of Appleton's 2016 special assessment policy regarding streets that need to be transitioned from "rural" to "urban" status. This transition typically happens in areas that have recently been annexed into the city in an effort to bring their infrastructure up to city standards.
There are two phases in that process: A "grade and gravel" phase where the street is prepared for permanent installation, and the actual installation of a permanent street. Last week the Finance Committee voted to amend the proposal to remove residents along these streets' responsibility for the grade and gravel portion, but continue to assess them for permanent street installation. In my opinion that's a step in the right direction, but it leaves a gap among property owners that have already paid for it and will also be billed for the final installation.
I remain concerned about how this policy impacts property owners in that gap, and will continue to work to address the issue.
Exhibition Center
Two weeks ago council opted to take no action on a proposed intergovernmental agreement to raise the room tax across the Fox Valley to finance the construction of a new exhibition center downtown, and this week that item is back on our agenda along with another important milestone: the management agreement between the city and the owners of the Radisson Paper Valley hotel.
I haven't had a chance to review these documents at this point, but I will between now and Wednesday because it's critically important that they, especially the management agreement, protect our interests and limit our risk in the event this project moves forward.
I'm pleased to note that some of my previous concerns regarding this project, especially the hotel's long-term ownership situation, have been resolved. I've written at length about some of the risks that need to be minimized, and I'm hopeful this document will address them.
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.
The last few weeks have been relatively quiet for the Appleton Common Council, but that all changes on Wednesday as the full body meets to consider a packed agenda. Here are some of the highlights:
Mayor salary
The process to determine a mayoral salary for the next four years (April 2016-2020) has taken on a life of its own over the last several months, with various debates, refer-backs and amendments, and took another turn two weeks ago when the Human Resources committee voted 3-1 to recommend a salary decrease of $10,000 for the city's chief executive.
It's my opinion that the logic used to reach this conclusion was quite poor. The comparables used to set this recommendation were all significantly smaller cities than Appleton, and if you try to use those comparables and then adjust for population, size of budget overseen or number of employees overseen, you end up with a dollar figure that suggests our mayor is actually due a very significant raise, not a pay cut.
I remain in support of the committee's previous recommendation, which called for the mayor's existing salary to be increased by 1.5% in each of the next four years. I think that's a reasonable, small adjustment to a salary that serves its purpose well at this point.
Alcohol in parks
On the same night two weeks ago the Parks & Rec committee voted 3-1 to recommend approval of a resolution calling for a change in the rules regarding alcohol in city parks. Under this proposal park users would need a permit to bring alcohol into the parks.
As I've mentioned previously, Appleton is one of just two communities in the Fox Valley that allow alcohol in parks, and that's created a significant issue in a few of our downtown parks with heavy daytime drinking leading to a wide variety of undesirable behaviors. It's unfortunate that this issue has forced us to consider such a sweeping change, but it appears likely that any smaller changes would simply push the issue into another park or another location.
Special Assessment Policy
At the Finance Committee last week I was the lone dissenting vote on a recommendation to approve the city's proposed 2016 Special Assessment Policy, which includes a clarification that I find problematic regarding streets transitioning from "rural" to "urban" status.
When the city enacted the wheel tax and eliminated special assessments for street reconstruction this year, we attempted to draw a line in the sand between streets being reconstructed and permanent streets being constructed for the first time to replace temporary streets in new subdivisions. The clarification mentioned above addresses a third type of street that fits neither of those classifications: a "rural" street that needs to be improved after being annexed into the city or due to expansion of the city. The item we're being asked to approve will allow for property owners to be assessed when their streets are upgraded. This impacts a fair number of locations across the north side of the city, including French Road.
French Road was recently repaved but is technically still considered a "rural" road. I'm concerned about how this clarification to the policy could impact residents who were assessed for that repaving and could face another assessment when that street eventually has to be modernized.
Expo Center Room Tax Agreement
Finally, we've reached another decision point on the process of constructing an exhibition center in downtown Appleton. On Wednesday we'll be asked to approve a proposed intergovernmental agreement with the various municipalities that pay into the Fox Cities' room tax, calling for them to increase their rates to finance the bonds that would be needed to proceed with this project.
Getting this approved by all nine participating municipalities is one of the two major hurdles that need to be cleared to make this happen - the other is the management agreement between the city and the hotel. I'm more concerned about the latter: As I've previously said, I think this project could be a great thing for the city if done the right way and without significant risk. The management agreement is, to me, where the rubber hits the road on that issue.
I should also note that these agreements are coming directly to council in a bit of a break from our typical decision-making procedure. There is a critical timing element here, as this item needs to be heard and approved by nine member communities (some of which only hold one meeting per month) before the end of November. For that to be possible, we need to take it up early and quickly to leave time for others to take action.
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.
It's going to be a very busy committee week for the Appleton Common Council, with a collection of items we've mostly discussed before being the most notable:
Human Resources, Monday, 5 pm
The mayor of Appleton serves four-year terms, and will be up for election the next time in April of 2016. Back in March the Human Resources Committee was asked to make a recommendation on the mayoral salary for the next four years, and that action item has been held several times before eventually being approved, then referred back to committee last week.
The recommendation on the table calls for the mayor to receive 1.5% raises in each of the next four Aprils. This roughly amounts to a cost of living increase, and keeps the mayor's salary somewhat static when compared to the rate of inflation.
Months ago I discussed the challenge of finding fair comparable positions to use to set our mayor's salary, as our longstanding structure of a full-time mayor and no city manager or administrator is relatively rare. With that said, I think the mayor's current salary of $94,686 is fair compensation for his role and I support the current recommendation to make modest increases to it over the duration of the next term.
Parks & Recreation, Monday, 6 pm
Over the summer the Parks & Recreation and Safety & Licensing Committees spent a fair amount of time discussing the issue of alcohol in parks, as the Police Department has experienced a spike in issues related to our current policy of allowing park users to drink between 9 am and 9 pm. This policy is somewhat unique in the valley, as nearly all of our neighboring communities have either banned alcohol in parks altogether or require a permit to possess or consume alcohol in parks.
In August the Parks & Recreation Committee asked staff to provide more information on what the ordinance and procedure may look like if Appleton moved to a permit-only model, and on Monday they'll receive that information and be allowed to make a recommendation.
It's unfortunate to have to change a policy in all of our parks because of a relatively small group of people misbehaving in a relatively small number of our parks, but the reality is that our existing ordinances have allowed this to become an issue and have limited our police force's ability to resolve it.
Finance, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
The Finance Committee will be asked on Tuesday to make recommendations on several items, old and new:
First, the committee will again be asked to consider a proposed ordinance change that would allow alderpersons who cannot attend meetings to participate and sometimes vote on items. I approve of this item in concept but have been concerned with some of the specifics, including the determination of "good cause" for an alderperson to be absent, the lack of limits on times an alderperson can participate this way, and potential technical challenges involved in ensuring the remote participant can hear all debate and have their participation recorded.
The committee will also be asked to approve the city's special assessment policies for the 2016 budget year. I'm still working on evaluating and understanding the proposed changes for the year to come, and hope to have more on this item in future updates.
Finally, we'll also be asked to make a recommendation on a proposed change to a relatively new city ordinance dealing with licensing and permitting of businesses on properties that have fallen behind on their property taxes. An issue came to light this summer when a business renting space in a building was denied a license because their landlord had fallen behind on property taxes. The business owner had done nothing wrong but was forced to (at least temporarily) close due to this issue. Our legal department has proposed a change to the ordinance that would address this specific issue but retain much of the ordinance, which has otherwise been useful when dealing with delinquent properties.
Any committee recommendations on the above topics will appear before the full common council at their next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, October 7.
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.
Between holiday week cancellations and light agendas, it's going to be a relatively quiet committee week for the Appleton Common Council. One frequent topic of discussion, however, is due up again:
Board of Health, Wednesday, 7 am
I've written about a resolution calling for the city to expand the allowed zonings for urban beekeeping in June, July and August and now the debate continues into September, when the Board of Health will be asked again to make a recommendation on the topic on Wednesday morning. They voted 3-1 to approve suggested changes to the city's ordinances on bees at their August meeting, but the matter was referred back to committee by Alderperson Cathy Spears, who wants to have another discussion on the differences between honeybees and mason bees.
Mason bees were discussed in the packet of information provided to board members in advance of their August meeting (and now, additionally, their September meeting) and, while they do provide some of the pollination benefits of honeybees, they produce very limited honey and no wax.
Anyone wanting to review the proposed ordinance language can do so via the third attachment on this page. Here are some highlights, for those not interested in the full review:
Beekeepers must have an annual permit from the Health Department, and must also have formal education and/or sufficient experience as a beekeeper.
Beekeepers must own and reside on the property where they intend to keep bees.
Beekeepers are limited to two hives on properties under half an acre, a limitation that will include nearly every single family home in the city.
Any property owners within 200 feet of a proposed hive will be notified and can object to the proposal, which would lead to the application being denied. The applicant can appeal a denial to the Board of Health.
Bees must be selected from "stock bred for gentleness and non-swarming characteristics," and any colony found to be aggressive shall be destroyed or re-queened.
Assuming the Board of Health takes action on this item on Wednesday, their recommendation will come before the full council on Wednesday, September 16.
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.
With my apologies, this is going to be a short update. It's a committee week for the Appleton Common Council, but most of the items worth discussing have been discussed in this space before. As such, here are some updates on items I've written about recently:
Human Resources, Monday, 5 pm
Back in March the Human Resources committee was asked to recommend a salary structure for the mayor for the office's next term, from April of 2016 through April of 2020. That item was held in March and again in May, June and July while council debated, voted down, reconsidered and again voted down consideration of possible changes to the city's governmental structure.
With that debate behind us, on Monday the HR committee will again be asked to make a recommendation. Back in May I outlined the challenges inherent in doing so, noting that differences in mayoral duties across municipalities make it hard to compare apples to apples when setting a salary. I'll be interested to see how the committee opts to proceed here.
Finance, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
The city continues to wade through some challenges with a relatively new ordinance dealing with licenses issued (or not issued) to properties where a landlord has fallen behind on his or her property taxes. Last week a resolution calling for the city to create provisional licenses to deal with these cases was referred back to the Finance Committee, where it again appears on the agenda this week.
The issues we've experienced with this ordinance, however, will likely lead to a broader review than what's called for here. As one of the three co-sponsors of the resolution, I'm interested in withdrawing it to make way for that larger conversation.
Additionally, at Finance this week the committee will also be asked to again review an ordinance we've been discussing since June that would open the door for members of the council to participate remotely when they're unable to attend a meeting. I remain in favor of the spirit of what we're trying to do here, but voted against the final product at committee two weeks ago because I remain concerned about the details of the procedure used to determine who can participate and our ability to successfully allow it with our existing setup.
Finally, these items remain in process but will not be voted on this week:
The Appleton Police Department and Parks & Recreation Department are continuing to work on language for a change to the park ordinances regarding alcohol. Council will likely take action on a proposal to limit alcohol to those with a permit sometime in September.
A resolution calling for the city to expand the urban beekeeping permit process is also on hold, having been referred back to the Board of Health. That board's next scheduled meeting is September 9 at 7 am.
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.
The Appleton Common Council will meet in its regularly-scheduled session on Wednesday, August 19, but before we get started we'll have a special meeting to discuss one of our longstanding items:
Expo center update
The Common Council will meet at 6 pm on Wednesday and is expected to go into closed session to discuss the latest developments in the effort to build an expo center in downtown Appleton. I don't know the specifics of what will be discussed on Wednesday, but I can tell you that two major hurdles remain if the city is going to purchase the prospective site yet this year.
The exhibition center likely cannot happen without agreement from many of our neighboring municipalities to raise their room taxes to help pay for it, so an intergovernmental agreement will be needed before anything can move forward. It's my understanding that work on this side of the project is ongoing.
Meanwhile, another critical piece of the puzzle is the proposed management agreement between the city and the new owners of the Radisson Paper Valley. I've seen public statements saying both sides expect this to be done soon.
Both of those agreements will need to come before the common council for approval, and I look forward to the opportunity to review them. It's my understanding that council will take no official action on the expo center at this meeting.
Once we've wrapped up that discussion in closed session, council will reconvene in open session to take up our other scheduled items. Here are the updates on items I discussed last week:
Alcohol in parks
Last Monday the Safety & Licensing and Parks & Recreation committees held a joint meeting to discuss proposed changes to our park ordinances regarding alcohol. After a fair amount of discussion there seems to be a feeling that something needs to be done but some of us appear to remain concerned about how the issues we're experiencing can be addressed without impacting others whose ability to have alcohol in parks is not causing a problem. In the end a resolution requiring a permit to bring alcohol into the parks was referred to staff for further development. No action will be taken on this item on Wednesday. Licensing and landlords
Last week the Finance Committee voted 4-0 to recommend approval of a resolution calling for the city to create a new, provisional license to allow some temporary flexibility to business tenants caught in the middle of disputes between the city and their landlords over unpaid property taxes.
This issue is somewhat complicated and may lead to a review of the entirety of the ordinance, but I'm glad to see the committee understood the need to do something to help business owners who have done nothing wrong. I'm hopeful council will do the same this week.
Urban beekeeping
Finally, last week the Board of Health voted 3-1 to approve a resolution calling for the city to expand the urban beekeeping permit process to residential property. We've been discussing bees for some time now, and I wrote this piece on the existing regulations for beekeeping on public institutional and urban farm properties back in June. If this item passes council on Wednesday night, the next step would likely be for staff to prepare a proposed ordinance for council to review on a future 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.
After a couple of quiet weeks (an off week to end July and a very light council agenda to open August), the Appleton Common Council has a very busy committee week starting today. Here are some of the highlights:
Parks & Recreation/Safety & Licensing joint meeting, Monday, 6 pm
The issue of alcohol in parks has been making significant headlines in recent weeks, and we'll likely take a step towards addressing the issue when the Parks & Recreation and Safety & Licensing committees come together for a special joint meeting Monday night.
The discussion will center around a resolution that would eliminate drinking in the parks without a permit, which would be very similar to the ordinances in place in most communities around the Fox Valley. The hope is that eliminating permit-free alcohol in the parks will help the police keep disorderly, frequently homeless drinkers out of downtown parks.
I sympathize with the police department's desire to do more about this issue, but I worry that we're addressing a symptom of a larger problem here. Our recent annual count showed that homelessness in the city is on the rise, and that's likely a contributing factor to the issues we've been experiencing in the parks. We're certainly capable of chasing these individuals out of the downtown parks, but unless we take steps to address the underlying issues we're just going to find them drinking somewhere else.
Finance, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
On Tuesday we'll discuss another resolution, this one an effort to try to mitigate some unintended consequences to a change to the city's licensing ordinances.
As you likely know, the city licenses all kinds of businesses: restaurants, bars, tattoo parlors, etc. Recently we changed city policy to make issuance and renewal of those licenses contingent on property taxes being up to date, giving us some leverage over property owners that may otherwise have allowed their debts to the city to continue to lapse.
This creates an issue, however, when the property owner and the business operator aren't the same person. We've had at least one instance this summer where a business owner was leasing from a landlord who failed to pay their taxes, causing us to shut down a business that got stuck in the middle of the dispute.
Last week Alderpersons Plank, Martin and I co-submitted a resolution calling for the city to develop a provisional, short-term license to issue in these cases. The provisional license would give tenants an opportunity to continue to operate for up to three months while the tax issue was being resolved, or in the worst case it would allow them to continue to operate temporarily while looking for options to relocate. These tenants have committed no crime, and I hope we'll find a way to help them make the best of a bad situation.
Board of Health, Wednesday, 7 am
Finally, a longstanding debate will reopen on Wednesday morning when the Board of Health will be asked to make a recommendation regarding Alderpersons Dalton and Meltzer's resolution calling for an expansion of urban beekeeping in the city. I've written a fair amount about this issue in the past, and remain convinced that the permitting process we've been using for hives on public institutional and urban farm properties can be tweaked to allow safe, successful, low-impact beekeeping on residential zoning.
Any action these committees or boards take on any of these action items will go as recommendations before the full council at our next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, August 19.
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.
I'm anticipating a quiet committee week for the Appleton Common Council, with the Human Resources, Finance and Community & Economic Development Committees and Transit Commission all canceling their regularly-scheduled meetings. There are still a couple of items of interest, however:
Parks and Recreation, Monday, 6 pm
As you may have seen in the Post Crescent over the weekend, the issue of alcohol use in city parks is becoming a concern and may need to be addressed. Chief Todd Thomas of the Appleton Police Department sent a letter to Parks and Rec committee chair Joe Martin and I (as chair of the Safety & Licensing Committee) late last week to express his concerns.
The concern, in a nutshell, is this: alcohol-related complaints at our downtown parks have skyrocketed this year, with groups congregating to drink during the day and at times harassing other park users. This issue takes up a lot of our police officers' time, has led to some events being removed from the parks and creates the impression that our downtown parks are unsafe.
This issue was at least partially exacerbated by a 2014 change to the city's park ordinances which expanded the hours (moving the start time from noon to 10 am) during which one can legally consume alcohol in the parks. That change stemmed from a five-month review of park ordinances, which included several extensive debates on allowing dogs in parks (a change we eventually opted not to make). In the interest of full disclosure, I was a member of the Parks and Recreation Committee when we made that change. It was largely an afterthought to a long debate on dogs, and I don't remember hearing much in favor of or against it.
Over the coming weeks I suspect we'll hear several possibilities to address this issue, including narrowing the drinking hours in parks or eliminating alcohol in parks without a permit. It's still too early for me to predict how this will go or advocate for a certain outcome. This item is information-only and no action is expected to be taken this week. Utilities, Tuesday, 5:30 pm
Managing stormwater runoff and the associated flooding issues are one of the elements of running a city that I think a lot of people don't think about. There's a very difficult balance to maintain between spending too much on stormwater infrastructure and allowing flooding to occur, and every project we take on to reduce flooding comes at a not-insignificant financial cost.
Over the last several years the city has been working on a project to better identify properties with large amounts of impervious surfaces and use the actual square footage of that impervious space as the basis for their stormwater charges. That's a time-consuming process and it's being done in multiple phases, with the most recent implementation happening for multifamily properties.
Last week the council heard from several residents of multifamily properties upset over their new stormwater charges, and as a result Alderman Ed Baranowski submitted a resolution calling for a review of this process and its implementation.
The existing process was largely debated and put into place before my time on council, and was the subject of much discussion at that time. I suspect I'll get an opportunity to learn a lot more about it in the coming weeks.
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.
I hope everyone is doing all right following Sunday and Monday's bouts with severe weather, and my thoughts go out this morning to those with damage remaining to repair and clean up. In the meantime, however, the Appleton Common Council will meet for its regularly-scheduled session on Wednesday, and here are some of the items I'll be watching:
City government structure
Last week the Human Resources Committee voted 2-2 to recommend denial of a resolution calling for city staff to research alternatives to Appleton's longstanding Mayoral structure, including the possible hiring of a City Manager or Administrator. This week that debate will move on to council.
I do appreciate one amendment made at committee, calling for a City Manager position to be considered in addition to a City Administrator if this resolution passes. If we're going to look at options, I think we'll be best served by considering all of our options.
However, I'm still not intending to support this resolution. As I wrote last week, any change to our existing structure will come at a significant annual cost and I'd prefer to see that money used elsewhere. Parking ramp changes
We're continuing to look at changes suggested in the city's recent downtown parking study, and have already voted to eliminate meter restrictions after 6 pm. Now we'll shift our attention to parking ramps, where the first step in a significant change could occur on Wednesday.
This week the council will be asked to vote to approve a contract with Walker Parking Consultants for "professional services" related to transitioning the Green, Yellow and Red parking ramps (the ramps near the PAC, Library and Paper Valley Hotel) from a flat-fee, "pay as you enter" model to a "pay on exit" model that will charge users based on the time used.
The contract is for $46,500 and does not include the actual transition: This is the data collection and bidding preparation portion of the project, in addition to some oversight of the final contractor should we choose to proceed. No final decision on a transition to a new rate structure or the form of that rate structure will happen here.
Cell phone tower reconsideration
Two weeks ago the Common Council voted to deny a request for a Special Use Permit for a proposed new cell phone tower along West Wisconsin Avenue, citing aesthetic concerns with the large structure. This week one council member who was absent from that meeting will ask for the item to be reconsidered.
Voting down a cell phone tower request creates a pretty significant legal challenge for the city. As part of the 2013 budget the State Legislature passed significant changes to the process of cell tower siting, greatly limiting municipalities' local control over new towers. Details about the changes are available here, and the fifth and sixth pages of that document include a list of actions municipalities cannot take regarding towers. The first item on the sixth page reads "Disapprove an application based solely on aesthetic concerns."
Given that information, this debate changes a bit. State statute overrules any decisions we may make locally, and as such we have two choices:
Vote to approve the Special Use Permit and allow the tower to be constructed, or
Vote to deny the Special Use Permit, likely face a lawsuit we have very little chance of winning, incur legal fees, and still end up allowing the tower to be constructed.
I certainly understand the concerns about the impact of this tower, but denying this request is a clear violation of state statute and won't prevent the new structure from eventually going up. As such, I hope we'll take the responsible step and reconsider this vote.
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.
Hopefully everyone had a great and safe holiday, and is ready for an interesting committee week for the Appleton Common Council. Here are some of the items I'll be watching:
Human Resources, Monday, 5 pm
The City of Appleton's governmental structure is back on the table for discussion this week as the HR Committee will have their first discussion on a resolution calling for the city to consider eliminating the current mayor-council system in place of a format including a city administrator position. The resolution in play doesn't call for a change outright, but calls for the possibility to be researched and for a recommendation to come before council by October 7.
This discussion isn't new, by any means: The possibility of a change was researched at length in 1990 when council opted to stick with the current structure.
From my perspective, this issue comes down to efficiency. Hiring a city administrator could cost the city over $130,000 annually, and we'll likely continue to have a mayor at a reduced role and salary. In 2015 the mayor is receiving $94,686, so that's a significant annual cost increase. It's possible the money we're considering spending here could fund an entire additional staff person or more in another city department.
The proponents of this plan likely have a lot of work to do to demonstrate that the city would experience enough improvement under a new system to justify the cost.
Finance, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
On Tuesday the Finance Committee will take up three items that may be of minor interest:
First, the committee will be asked to reject all bids for a tennis court project at Highview Park, pushing the construction back to 2016. We had budgeted money for this project in 2015 but the bids for construction came back well above our expectations during our initial bidding process this spring, and have come back high again following an attempt to re-bid the project this summer. Assuming council approves the request to reject all bids, we'll likely budget for this project again in 2016.
Second, as I've mentioned previously, council will be asked to consider a proposed ordinance regarding remote participation for members who cannot make it to our meetings. I'm in favor of this ordinance in concept but will likely recommend a change or two to its execution before I'll be comfortable supporting it.
Finally, I wanted to mention an action item dealing with debt management. On Tuesday the committee will be asked to recommend approval of a recommendation allowing $845,330 of the city's unassigned fund balance to be used to pay down long-term debt. That figure represents 75% of the city's balance surplus, meaning we can use it to pay down debt and still hold on to three months' worth of operating expenditures to be used in case of emergency.
I know I've mentioned previously that Appleton's long term debt per capita is easily lower than any other comparable community in the state of Wisconsin, and here's another example of why that's the case. Responsibly handling our fund balances and paying down debt early helps us keep costs down for our projects and ensure low interest rates for borrowing going forward.
Board of Health, Wednesday, 7 am
Finally, the Board of Health will be up bright and early on Wednesday for the latest addition to an ongoing conversation about urban beekeeping.
I've written at length about some of the possible regulations that could be considered if beekeeping was expanded to residential property, as proposed in Alderpersons Polly Dalton and Vered Meltzer's resolution. In addition, there's an extended story in today's Post Crescentdiscussing the possibility with comments from one Fox Cities beekeeper discussing the benefits of implementing a change.
If the Board opts to take action on this item on Wednesday, the resolution would appear before the full council on Wednesday, July 15.
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.
This is likely to be a quiet week for the Appleton Common Council, as we have a relatively light agenda for our regularly-scheduled full council meeting on Wednesday. Here are some updates on the items I discussed in last week's post:
Bees
After a bit of discussion and information gathering, last Monday the City Plan Commission voted to refer a resolution calling for expansion of urban beekeeping to the Board of Health. That body is expected to meet on July 8 at 7 am.
City government structure
Last week the Human Resources Committee voted 2-1 to delay action on setting a mayoral salary for the 2016-2020 term to allow alderpersons time to consider the possibility of changing the city's management structure and hiring a city manager to take over some of the duties currently performed by the mayor.
As I mentioned last week, I don't support the proposed change. However, if we don't discuss it now before setting the mayor's salary, then it would be very difficult to make any changes before the office's next term is up in 2020.
Council remote participation
Last week the Finance Committee discussed but did not take action on a draft of ordinance language that could allow alderpersons to participate via speaker phone or Skype when they cannot phyiscally attend council meetings. This ordinance could solve some notable concerns about council absences but still needs some tweaking before it's ready for an up or down vote.
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.
Yesterday's post generated some discussion from folks who wanted more details regarding the possible regulations and permit process involved for the proposed expansion of urban beekeeping. I attended last night's City Plan Commission meeting to gather a bit more information.
Appleton already allows beekeeping on properties zoned Public Institution and Urban Farm, and has since 2011 and 2013, respectively. Hives are currently operating under this ordinance at Lawrence University and Riverview Gardens. You can find the policy regarding the permitting process starting on page 31 of the "CPC Agenda Packet" link on this page.
Those requirements, which would likely be the starting point for any expansion to residential properties, include the following:
Beekeeping would require a one-year, annually reviewed permit from the Health Department.
Part of the permit process would include notification of all property owners within 200 feet. Those property owners would have 14 days to file an objection, and any objections shall be reviewed by the Board of Health and Common Council to determine if a permit should be issued.
Before bees are allowed to be introduced to a hive, the Health Department must inspect the hives to make sure the owner does not have too many hives, the hives have removable frames, a six-foot high barrier has been constructed around hives within 30 feet of property lines, there is a minimum setback between hives and property lines (30 feet in front, 10 feet on all other sides), a supply of water is available, and all hives are at least 50 feet away from other structures unless the hive owner has written permission to have them closer.
All hives must be actively managed, and any hives no longer being maintained must be removed.
Bees must be selected from stock bred for "gentleness and non-swarming characteristics," and beekeepers are required to take action to destroy or re-queen any hive exhibiting aggressive or swarming behavior.
Again, these requirements are only a starting point in this conversation and could be amended to better suit the situations involved in a residential setting. But this is an example of what the permitting process could look like, should council decide to move forward.
In the meantime, it will be a few more weeks before this item is discussed again. Last night the City Plan Commission referred this item to the Board of Health, which will meet on Wednesday, July 8 at 7 am. If the Board opts to take action on the item at that point, then it would appear before the Common Council on July 15.
It's a committee week for the Appleton Common Council, and here are some of the items I'll be keeping an eye on:
City Plan Commission, Monday, 4 pm Two weeks ago I mentioned a pending discussion on the possibility of expanding urban beekeeping in the city by allowing owners of residential property to apply for a permit to keep up to five beehives on their property. The commission was split at that time and held the item for two weeks to gather more information.
Debates like this are challenging sometimes because of the need to deal with a perception of a threat. When done correctly, urban beekeeping poses at best a minimal sting risk. However, I've been told that previous debates on this topic were dominated by constituents fearful of bees, regardless of how small the risk may be.
Getting stuck in the middle of debates like this is one of the more challenging aspects of this job. Unless we receive some evidence that urban beekeeping poses a substantial threat to neighboring properties, the Plan Commission and the council will likely have to choose between:
Passing good public policy despite knowing it will upset many of our constituents, or
Siding with our concerned constituents and rejecting a policy based on their (at least partially) unsubstantiated fears.
Or we could pursue a third option, I suppose: Continue to delay action. That's the safest course.
Human Resources, Monday, 5 pm
Over a month ago I wrote about a pending action item at the HR Committee calling for council to set the salaries for the mayor and city attorney's offices for their 2016-20 terms. This committee has been considering these items for some time now, but made headlines last week when one member suggested that this could be the time to review Appleton's longstanding policy of having a full-time mayor in place of a city manager.
At this time I don't plan on supporting a change to the current system. I don't see a problem with the way the city operates under the current structure and, as I noted in the post linked above, comparable cities with city managers pay their managers somewhere between $35-50,000 more annually than we're spending on a mayor. If we're going to make a change and spend that much more money, I'd need to see pretty significant proof that there's something to be gained.
With that said, if this is an option my colleagues would like to explore then this is probably as good a time as any to do it.
Finance Committee, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
Several weeks ago one member of the council asked the City Attorney's office to look at possibilities that could allow members to vote on items remotely when they are unable to attend our meetings. This week the Finance Committee will be asked to make a recommendation on one proposed ordinance that would address that concern.
Serving on the Appleton Common Council is a part-time job (in theory, at least), and from time to time we all have things come up, whether it's a personal or family medical issue, work travel, vacations, etc, that prevent us from being able to attend meetings. Our voting structure, however, creates a real issue when members are absent: State statute requires that at least eight of our 15 members vote to approve any action, regardless of how many members are present. This can create and has created situations where an item that would have passed if all 15 members were present has failed at least partially due to members absent.
The ordinance we're being asked to consider would allow members with a reasonable excuse for their absence to participate in meetings via speaker phone. That would go a long way towards solving the issue I mentioned above, but might create some new challenges. There are process issues I'd like to see resolved before I'd be comfortable supporting this.
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.
Before I get to this week's updates, I wanted to take a moment to send out thoughts to everyone impacted by this week's heavy rainfall and the resulting flooding. I know many residents in the southernmost portion of the 13th district experienced a fair amount of standing water on Monday as the city set a new single-day rainfall record with 2.23 inches. To put that into perspective, the National Severe Storms Laboratory says one inch of rain is (on average) equal to about 13 inches of snow, so this storm is roughly comparable to a blizzard dishing out 29 inches of snow.
Thankfully, the sun is out today and helping our storm sewers catch up. As such, this week's regularly-scheduled council meeting (and a special meeting) will still take place on Wednesday, and most of the attention is likely to be focused on one item:
Library Land Purchase
Before taking up anything else, the council will meet in special session at 6 pm on Wednesday to discuss a possible offer to purchase the Trinity Lutheran Church/Fox Banquets properties as a step towards construction of a new Appleton Public Library. This decision is the culmination of over six years of work to determine a site where the facility can best serve the community in the years to come.
I've written countless times about the reasons why I support moving forward with a new library, and instead of repeating those points again I'll refer you to APL150.org, where many of the reasons for proceeding this way are laid out. I also cannot publicly discuss details of the sale price (to this point they've only been discussed in closed session), but I suspect the number will be acceptable to most of the project's supporters. There's likely no number that would please the people who don't think we should be moving forward with this at all.
Regardless of outcome, this discussion has a possibility to be a milestone moment for the city of Appleton. I hope we'll decide to make an investment in making Appleton a great place to live and learn for generations to come.
Trestle negotiations
In last week's update I mentioned that council would be asked to approve an agreement between the city and Canadian National Railroad calling for the railroad to donate their abandoned trestles over the Fox River. At the time I didn't have any additional details.
It turns out this agreement is similar to what has been proposed in the past: The railroad would like three rail crossings in the city closed in exchange for ownership of the trestles, and the city has already closed two of them in the years past. The agreement on the table now calls for the city to close one more crossing over the next year in exchange for near-immediate ownership of the properties.
There is a financial reason why the timetable is important: The city has received a grant for $100,000 towards the process of including these trestles in our trail system, but that grant will expire if the city hasn't taken ownership by July 5. As such, we're running out of time to reach a deal.
If this deal does pass and is accepted by the railroad, the city will have some work to do to determine which crossing will close. In the past staff has recommended closing the crossing at Locust and Lawrence Streets just south of College Avenue, but council has been unwilling to support that recommendation. Entering into this agreement would force us to take action on that intersection or find another one to close.
The City Plan Commission opted to hold the resolution calling for an expansion on the types of properties allowed to keep beehives. The item will appear on their agenda again on Monday.
Both the Utilities and Finance Committees voted unanimously on a staff recommendation to delay a portion of the West Wisconsin Stormwater project and re-bid next year to allow time to deal with some unexpected soil issues. That item will appear on this week's council agenda.
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.
It's a full committee week for the Appleton Common Council, and here are some of the items I'll be watching:
City Plan Commission, Monday, 4 pm
Back in 2011 the city took a step towards allowing urban beekeeping within the city limits by allowing areas zoned Public Institution, and in 2013 Urban Farm zoning was also added as an acceptable location for bees. Last week Alderpersons Dalton and Meltzer proposed a resolution calling for beekeeping to also be allowed on residential zoning with the written permission of the Health Department.
There would, of course, be limits to residents' ability to keep bees: Residential properties would be limited to five hives and the city would have some work to do to develop a permitting process to ensure beekeeping is done in a safe and reasonable way. But I'm intrigued by this possibility and will be interested to see the Commission's debate.
Finance Committee, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
For several years now the city has been attempting to work with Canadian National Railroad to repurpose some of the unused railroad trestles over the Fox River to improve our expanding trail system. That process could take a big step forward Tuesday night when the Finance Committee will be asked to recommend approval of an agreement between the city and the railroad.
As of this writing I haven't seen the full text of the agreement, so I don't know what the terms will be for any possible exchange. I know in the past the railroad has asked for closure of railroad crossings at various streets in the city, but I don't believe that's the case this time as the item is not appearing before the Municipal Services committee.
Utilities, Tuesday, 5:30 pm
Immediately after the Finance Committee on Tuesday we'll get an update on one of the city's largest stormwater projects, as the Utilities Committee will be asked to review a proposal to delay the West Wisconsin pond project for a year.
The cause of the delay appears to be some unexpected soil conditions on the site of one of the new ponds. As such, most of the expected borrowing for the project won't happen this year and the effort will be rebudgeted next year.
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.
