What you may not know: Week of November 26

The Appleton Common Council returns from our Thanksgiving holiday break this week with a full slate of committee meetings. Here are some of the items on our agendas:

Municipal Services Committee, Monday, 4:30 pm

Earlier this year the Department of Public Works initiated a six-month trial of new parking restrictions along Lutz Drive near the Appleton Yacht Club in an effort to resolve a safety issue on the adjacent multi-use trail. The common practice of Yacht Club users loading/unloading their vehicles on the south side of the street created an increased risk of pedestrians/cyclists on the trail getting hit with car doors on their way through.

The six-month trial in this area called for the creation of some "no parking" area along the south side of Lutz Drive adjacent to the trail to eliminate this unsafe interaction between trail users and vehicles. The Yacht Club continues to operate a small parking lot at their facility and users would continue to have access to parking on the north side of the street, along with access on the south side a little further down the street. Yacht Club users have expressed concerns with this arrangement.

The Municipal Services Committee initially recommended permanently enacting the changes made during the six-month trial, but the item was later referred back to committee for further discussion. The committee will be asked once again to make a recommendation on Monday and the item is expected back at council on December 5.

Utilities Committee, Tuesday, 5 pm

Preparations continue for Outagamie County to open a new landfill cell at their facility between Holland Road and French Road and south of Highway 41 in future years. The new cell will be at the northwest corner of the facility, near the French Road overpass over I-41. This week the Utilities Committee will be asked to make a recommendation on two staff requests regarding leachate, the associated water that has percolated through the landfill materials and leached out some of the chemicals within.

The city had previously agreed to accept leachate from the new landfill cell at the Wastewater Treatment Plant, which has the capacity necessary to accept this material for treatment. Outagamie County has since asked the city to also consider accepting leachate from the east and northeast cells at the facility, however, and doing so would cause the plant to exceed its design capacity for loading of ammonia.

The staff recommendation on this matter calls for the city to accept leachate from the landfill's northwest site but reject the requests regarding the east and northeast sites.

Community and Economic Development, Wednesday, 4:30 pm

On Wednesday the Community and Economic Development Committee will be asked to review allocation recommendations for the city's expected Community Development Block Grant funds for the 2019-20 program year. CDBG is a US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program providing funds intended to provide assistance and improve quality of life for low and moderate-income households in the community.

For the 2019-20 program year the city projects to receive around $560,000 in funding. A six-member panel with representatives from the Mayor's office, Common Council, Appleton Redevelopment Authority and City Plan Commission recently met to review requests for grants and arrived at the following recommendation:

• City programs including the Homeowner Rehabilitation Loan Program, Neighborhood Services Program, Fair Housing Services, Appleton Housing Authority, Police Department and administrative costs will receive a combined $290,018.48.
• Requests designated as "Public Service" are subject to a 15% cap per HUD regulations, so a request from Harbor House for $30,000 towards counselling/advocacy staff is slated to receive $10,000, a $20,000 request from LEAVEN for rental assistance is recommended to receive just under $10,000 and a request from Pillars, Inc. for support staffing was not funded.
• Three projects designated as "Non-Public Service" were fully funded. Pillars, Inc is expected to receive $100,000 towards an affordable housing project, Rebuilding Together Fox Valley has $50,000 towards a home repair project for low-income homeowners and Iris Place Respite Center is expected to receive just under $50,000 towards a project to replace a boiler system.
• A request from Habitat for Humanity for $88,500 to acquire three properties to rehabilitate and resell to low-to-moderate income homebuyers was not funded.

At the committee meeting this week I expect we'll learn more about why the Habitat request was not granted and the city's options for the nearly $50,000 in funds left unallocated as part of this recommendation.

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.

Notes on Appleton's 2019 Budget

The Appleton Common Council will meet in special session on Wednesday night to make final amendments and adopt the city's 2019 budget.

This was a very difficult budget year: The state's limits on our revenue meant we had around $600,000 in new revenue available to put into the budget, and wage increases for our contracted employees (The Police and Fire Departments, Valley Transit) and our increased health insurance costs alone rose by about $670,000. So there simply isn't money available this year for new programs or any notable expansions to current programs funded from our operating budget. We're also having to borrow a bit more money to pay for road projects that would previously have been paid for in cash.

Here are quick notes and explanations on a few of the discussions I've been involved in during the budget process:

Police Equipment/Personnel

The lack of extra available funds exacerbated an already difficult situation with the Police Department, where a collection of necessary personal protective equipment had already fallen behind its replacement schedule. The ramifications of this issue became very apparent recently when our SWAT team was unable to use their gas masks during an incident.

On Budget Saturday I worked with Alderperson Kathleen Plank to partially address this issue by removing part of the PD's scheduled contribution to our Central Equipment Agency to help fund the purchase of new gas masks. There are still equipment needs at the department, however, and I anticipate multiple amendments this week in an effort to get that problem addressed.

Additionally, it's my understanding that Alderperson Patti Coenen has made an effort to cut from several budgets in an effort to fund a new police officer starting in March. This amendment came about relatively late in the process and I'll be curious to learn more about it during debate.

Wheel Tax

As I noted above, the city is borrowing significantly more money than usual this year to stay on top of our street reconstruction projects. On Budget Saturday I raised the possibility of increasing the Wheel Tax by $5 to help reduce that borrowing.

I know the Wheel Tax isn't universally popular, but in this case raising it would actually save taxpayers money in the long run: Generating about $340,000 in new revenue would allow us to pay cash for some of our smaller street projects instead of borrowing. Vehicle owners would have to pay an extra $5 in the short term but would avoid having to pay that money back with interest as part of their property taxes over the next decade. To compare this to one's personal finances: Paying cash is almost always cheaper in the long run than putting a purchase on your credit card.

At any rate, the proposal was not well received at committee and failed on a 3-1 vote. I don't intend to bring it up for debate again on Wednesday night.

Polygraph Testing

On Budget Saturday I asked the Finance Committee to consider an amendment that would remove $2500 in funding used for polygraph testing as part of the police hiring process.

Polygraph, or "lie detector" testing, has largely fallen out of favor due to questions about its accuracy. It's been illegal for private companies to use it in their hiring processes for around 30 years now. A recent Wired Magazine article, however, notes that it's still pretty common practice for public safety employees. Popular Science also wrote about this in September.

In a year where we have a litany of unmet budget needs, cutting off our reliance on pseudoscience seems like a good opportunity to find some fiscal flexibility. My amendment failed 2-2 at committee but I intend to ask the full council to overturn their recommendation.

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.