Appleton Common Council Update for Week of October 5

It's been a relatively quiet few months for the Appleton Common Council: While our regular meetings have continued our agendas have been relatively light and non-controversial. Beginning this week, however, business will begin to pick up as we take on our busiest month of the year, budget season.

This week members of council will receive our copies of Mayor Woodford's 2021 budget. From there we have roughly three weeks to review them before "Budget Saturday," the annual full-day meeting of the Finance Committee to discuss the budget section-by-section. That meeting is scheduled for October 31. 

From there we move to a public hearing on the budget at our council meeting on November 4, with final amendments and adoption of the budget scheduled for November 11, five weeks from Wednesday. It's going to be a busy few weeks.

The mayor will introduce the budget and give a brief overview at Wednesday's council meeting, which I've asked him to consider broadcasting via Facebook Live to help it reach a wide audience. From there, our budget process will look a little different from usual due to COVID-19: Things we've always done, like an all-day in-person Budget Saturday, are now significantly more challenging than they used to be. I'll have more details about how those processes will adapt to the times in future weeks.

In the meantime, this week council will hold a mid-year organizational meeting to clarify some of our council rules before embarking on this process, and we'll hold our regularly scheduled council meeting. The biggest topic of conversation this week is likely to be a request to approve a new boundary agreement between the City of Appleton and Town of Buchanan to bring 14 parcels of "town islands" into the city. The parcels in question are circled and in orange on this map:

Bringing these parcels into the city will improve the efficiency of services offered in this area and create clear boundaries between the city and our neighbors in this area. Since this proposal came forward council has been contacted by one property owner in opposition to this change.

The ongoing pandemic makes it increasingly difficult for us to safely allow large groups to participate in our governmental meetings, making it all the more valuable to have the tools for residents to contact alderpersons online and view our meetings remotely. If you have thoughts on these or any other action items on our agendas this week I would encourage you to use those links to remain engaged and active in the safest way possible.

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.