Monday, January 23, 2017

What you may not know: Week of January 23

It's a busy committee week for the Appleton Common Council, so let's get right to the highlights:

Parks and Recreation, Monday, 6 pm:

Through the winter the Parks & Recreation Committee has been receiving biweekly updates on the construction progress at Erb Park and Pool. This week they'll be asked to make a recommendation on a pair of updated pool policies that, among other things, establish new fees for usage of that facility.

The facility rental fees for Appleton pools have not been updated since 2013, and here is the redlined table showing the proposed modifications:
Pool admission fees for Appleton pools have not been updated since 2011. The proposal before the committee calls for daily fees to remain the same at Mead and West Pools ($3.50/day for adult open swim, $2.50 for youth and seniors) but calls for a $1 across the board increase for users at the new Erb Pool ($4/day for adults and $3 for youth and seniors).

Additionally, this revision calls for a $5 increase in the cost of pool punchcards and increases in price for annual swim passes.

Municipal Services, Tuesday, 6:30 pm

Two weeks ago I mentioned that the Municipal Services Committee was being asked to make a recommendation on a proposal calling for the end of free parking in city-owned ramps during snow emergencies, a change largely proposed in response to challenges allowing that practice with the city's new "pay on exit" parking ramp structure. That meeting was later cancelled due to weather, so the item now appears on their agenda again this week.

In addition, this week the committee will be asked to make a recommendation on city staff's requests to remove two sets of traffic signals along Franklin Street, at its intersections with Superior and Oneida streets. The city's recent downtown mobility study found these lights to be unnecessary, and if you've passed by them recently you may have noticed signs stating that they were being considered for removal, and that the lights had been set to flash to simulate a two-way stop.

After trying it this way for 90 days we have seen no accidents and received no complaints, so staff is recommending council proceed with an ordinance change to remove the fixtures.

You can see all of this week's meeting agendas 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, January 16, 2017

What you may not know: Week of January 16

The Appleton Common Council has a regularly-scheduled council meeting this Wednesday at 7 pm. Due to last week's inclement weather on Tuesday, however, we have a bit of business to take care of first:

Finance Committee, Wednesday, 6 pm

The Finance Committee had to cancel our regularly scheduled meeting last week and will instead meet before council this week to take up an item I mentioned in last week's update: A proposed agreement to purchase four fire trucks over the next four years from Pierce Manufacturing in a package deal. The Safety & Licensing Committee recommended this item for approval on a 4-0 vote at our meeting on Wednesday.

One of the challenges in entering into a long-term agreement like this as a city is our budgeting process: Our budgets are set annually and council cannot "bind" future councils to make a decision a certain way in years ahead. As such, council cannot actually commit to purchase trucks beyond the current budget year, discount or no discount, as the decision to actually pay for them rests in the hands of (potentially) future holders of our offices. At Safety & Licensing the agreement was clarified a bit: While this is a tentative agreement to purchase four vehicles at an established price, the city does have the ability to back out of the deal without penalty if the council should decide at any point that we cannot or do not wish to make that year's purchase.

Assuming the committee meets as scheduled and makes a recommendation on this item, it will go before the full council later in the evening.

Fair Street Update

Another item on the council agenda for Wednesday night is Alderman Siebers' resolution calling for rezoning of seven properties at the south end of Fair Street, where it dead ends between Franklin Street and College Avenue. His resolution was recommended for denial by a 6-0 vote at the City Plan Commission last week.

The heart of this dispute is a question about how these properties should have been assessed for recent utility work. The properties in question are single-family homes but several of them are on property zoned Central Business District (CBD), and properties carrying that zoning pay a larger portion of the cost for utility reconstruction. Regardless of how council decides to handle the recommendation regarding this resolution, we'll still have to take a second action at a later date in regards to their request to make an exception to the Special Assessment Policy. That request is scheduled to go before the Finance Committee next week.

This step remains important, though, as an indication that the properties are correctly zoned and were not overcharged in error. With that piece of information in hand, we can proceed with the latter request with more knowledge to work from.

Meanwhile, here are a pair of updates on items I mentioned last week that do not appear on this week's council agenda and will not be acted upon:

  • Tuesday's cancellation of the Municipal Services Committee meeting meant the committee did not get a chance to make a recommendation on a proposed change to the city's parking ramp policies removing free parking during snow emergencies. The committee will hold a special meeting this week but this item is not on their agenda and will likely be discussed at their next regularly-scheduled meeting on January 24.
  • Additionally, time constraints (the meeting is at 7 am and many of the volunteer members need to leave by 8 am to get to work) and another contentious item meant the Board of Health did not have much time to discuss a resolution regarding urban chickens at their meeting last Wednesday. I'm becoming concerned with this process: The Board only meets once monthly and has received presentations and discussions at four meetings now but still has not taken action on this item and will likely only have an informational discussion at their next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, February 8. If they don't take action at their next meeting, this item will have been under their jurisdiction for six months.
Again, no action will be taken on the previous two items this week.

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, January 9, 2017

What you may not know: Week of January 9

It's going to be a busy committee week for the Appleton Common Council. Here are some of the things on our agendas:

City Plan Commission, Monday, 4:00 pm

On Monday afternoon the plan commission will be asked to weigh in on an issue that could set significant precedent for the future of special assessments and zoning in the city. In an effort to avoid spending 1000 words on the background, here are the bullet points:
  • The south end of N. Fair Street, a dead-end street extending off of W. Franklin downtown, received new utility infrastructure in 2016 and received special assessments for said work.
  • The properties along this portion of Fair Street are single-family homes, but the zoning for the properties are either Central Business District (CBD) or multifamily (R3), which is also reflected in the city's long-term plans for future development in this area.
  • Because special assessment rates are calculated due to property zoning and not actual use, the property owners along Fair Street were assessed at the CBD or R3 (higher) rates, instead of what single family properties on single family-zoned properties would have been charged.
Alderman Bill Siebers, who represents these properties, submitted a resolution in October calling for these properties to be rezoned to reflect their current use and also requested that their special assessments be retroactively adjusted to reflect single family zoning.

Today the Plan Commission will be asked to make a recommendation on the first of those two items, the zoning of the property. It's going to be an interesting discussion on the merits of zoning based on future intended use as compared to current usage.

Finance Committee, Tuesday, 4:30 pm

I believe I've written previously about some of the budget challenges created by previous purchasing decisions related to fire trucks. Our current fleet of trucks were mostly purchased around the same point in time, meaning they're all scheduled to come up for replacement in the same window. The city is currently scheduled to purchase "pumper" trucks in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in addition to a larger "reserve pumper" in 2020. The three pumpers currently cost around $625,000 each and the reserve pumper is closer to $800,000. 

This week both the Finance and Safety & Licensing Committees will be asked to make a recommendation on a request to order four trucks from Pierce Manufacturing to be delivered over the next four years. The prices would be set this year but subject to a 3% "Producer Price Index" increase each year. Even with that increase, packaging the four vehicles together would save the city around $80,000 as compared to purchasing the four separately.

I sit on both the Finance and Safety & Licensing Committees and will be interested to hear more about this agreement in both venues.

Municipal Services Committee, Tuesday, 6:30 pm

In 2016 the City of Appleton made a major change to our parking ramps, removing the previous flat-rate, pay-on-entry ramp parking fees and moving instead to a pay-on-exit, time-based ramp fee structure. On Tuesday the Municipal Services Committee will be asked to weigh in on the ramifications of one of that change's consequences.

In previous years it has been city policy to open the ramps up free of charge for parking during snow emergencies, to provide safe sheltered parking for downtown users while also keeping as many vehicles as possible off of the sides of the roads during snow removal. Unfortunately, our new fee structure makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to continue that practice. 

Staff is asking for the committee and council to approve the elimination of the Snow Emergency Ramp Parking Policy. If that happens, free parking in the ramp during snow emergencies would be eliminated and anyone planning to use the ramps in that situation would either have to pay for parking or find another alternative.

Board of Health, Wednesday, 7 am

For the third consecutive month the Board of Health has an information item on their agenda regarding the possibility of allowing chickens in the city. This month there is some hope that they will discuss the possible fee structure for initial inspection and ongoing licensing of properties with chickens. 

As has been the case in each of the last two months, this item is information-only and no official action will be taken. The earliest this item could come before the board for action is now Wednesday, February 8.

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.