- Safety & Licensing Committee (where I'll be serving as chair for the third year)
- Finance Committee
- Fox Cities Transit Commission
I've also previously served as chair of the Central Equipment Agency Review Board, and I'm hoping to be reappointed to that body this week.
A new council year also means our first opportunity to revisit actions taken by previous councils: Our council rules state that a new council can, by resolution, reintroduce any item approved or rejected by the old council. As such, our first notable item this week will probably seem familiar:
Parks & Recreation, Monday, 6 pm
Last week I re-submitted a resolution calling for the City of Appleton to lift its outdated ban on dogs in parks. You may recall that council last discussed this item in July of 2016, and it failed on an 8-6 vote. Two seats on the council have since turned over, making this issue worth exploring again.
This year I've written the resolution to specifically highlight one of the cruxes of the argument in favor of allowing dogs in parks: The city already allows dogs in virtually every other public space (sidewalks, trails, dog-friendly businesses) and already has ordinances in place to govern their and their owners' conduct. We already require dogs to be leashed, we require their owners to pick up after them on public and private spaces, we require the Police Department to be informed in the event of a bite or attack, and we require them to be kept out of spaces where food is being prepared for sale.
Those existing ordinances have been deemed sufficient to allow people and dogs to operate and interact in virtually every public space in the community, and we see very minimal issues from those interactions. As such, I've asked the Parks and Recreation Committee and Common Council to consider lifting the ban on dogs in parks and treating parks as we treat any other public space in this regard.
Allowing dogs in parks also creates a series of positive benefits for the community, including but not limited to:
- Opportunities for pet owners to further socialize their animals as part of their training process and reduce the risk of future adverse reactions to meeting new people or other animals.
- Increasing usage of many of the city's less-trafficked parks, reducing the risk of illegal activity in low-traffic spaces.
- Making the parks a less attractive space for undesired and/or messy wild animals (most notably geese along the Fox River) to congregate.
I recognize this issue will likely be controversial again, and I anticipate this will likely be the first of several times we discuss it again. It has been my experience, however, that the city's ban on dogs in parks makes our community a less attractive place to live for many pet owners who would otherwise happily and responsibly reside here. I'm looking forward to the day when we change that.
Finance Committee, Tuesday, 4:30 pm
As you may know, the city and Canadian National Railroad have been involved in discussions for many years about the possibility of the city acquiring unused railroad trestles over the Fox River for use in expanding our waterfront trails. The discussions regarding the possible transition of the trestles have been long and challenging, but this week the Finance Committee will be asked to approve an agreement that would transfer ownership of three such trestles and some surrounding property to the city.
The donation agreement before the Finance Committee this week is 35 pages long (you can see it for yourself at the attachment here, if you like), and reflects years of work to take the next step in making our riverfront a more attractive place for pedestrians and bicyclists. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed.
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.
I agree that many families would like to walk their dogs along to parks and playgrounds because they are part of the family. My main concerns are with making sure owners clean up after their dogs, and keep them under control while in the parks. People don't even always clean up at the dog park, and in spaces where kids are running around and playing and people are having picnics sometimes on the grass, poo and having dogs too attracted to others' food are two real potential problems.
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