What you may not know: Week of March 26

An normal council committee week features one meeting likely to generate a fair amount of discussion:

Joint Meeting of the Library Board Building & Equipment Committee and Appleton Finance Committee, Monday, 5:30 pm

After an informational meeting several weeks ago and a public open house two weeks ago, tonight committees from the Common Council and Library Board will come together again and have been asked to make a recommendation on proceeding with a plan proposed by Commercial Horizons to build a new library as part of a mixed-use building on the site of the existing Soldier's Square parking ramp.

I do not know what to expect in terms of discussion tonight but I am grateful to see this discussion continuing to move forward. If you are planning on attending tonight's meeting my advice to you would be to arrive early: Our council chambers have limited seating space and I suspect that space will quickly fill up. We attempted to hold this meeting in a larger venue but that process was complicated by AASD's spring break.

Finally, I will take a moment to address a concern I receive every time we discuss the library: Referendum. At this point there are no plans to put the library project up for referendum. While I understand the sentiment behind seeking that path, staff and alderpersons have spent countless hours informing themselves and preparing to make what they feel is the correct decision here. I don't think it's fair to expect the voters to put in the kind of time it would take to reach that level of understanding on the project. Simply put, I think difficult decisions like this are why we have elected representatives: To apply the time and energy required to make an informed decision when it would be infeasible for the general public to do so.

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.