Common Council Update for the Week of October 26

It's city budget season and election season simultaneously for the Appleton Common Council, which has made for an extremely busy month. This week we have another round of committee meetings scheduled, and here are some of the highlights:

Finance Committee, Monday, 5:30 pm

This week's Finance items are not likely to be controversial but there are a pair I wanted to note: This week the committee will be asked to recommend accepting a pair of grants for our City Clerk's office to help mitigate the unbudgeted costs of the upcoming election.

The first grant comes from the Wisconsin Elections Commission and is for nearly $45,000 to cover some of the extra postage costs incurred by this year's massive shift to voting by mail. The city has always borne the cost of mailing ballots to those who request them but this year due to the ongoing pandemic (and justifiably so) we're seeing a massive uptick in demand for mailed ballots.

The second grant comes from the Center for Tech and Civic Life. It's for more than $18,000 to cover costs related to "provide safe and secure elections." The combination of a high profile election and the aforementioned significant uptick in voting by mail have created some needs for election safety and security measures. This grant will pay for two additional ballot processing units, supplies for mailed ballots and additional poll workers to assist with early voting.

I wanted to take a moment today to thank the Elections Commission and the Center for Tech and Civic Life for these grants to help cover expenses that we could not foresee when we approved the 2020 budget last November, and thank our Clerk's Office staff for finding these opportunities to cover some of the expenses we're facing this year without negatively impacting their priorities elsewhere.

City Plan Commission, Tuesday, 4 pm

We're continuing to experience additional demand for new housing on the city's north side, as shown by a pair of action items before the Plan Commission this week.

First, the commission will be asked to approve preliminary plats for a pair of additions to the Emerald Valley subdivision, located northwest of the corner of French Road and Highway JJ. This is related to the rezoning proposal I mentioned two weeks ago and will add 50 single family lots to that neighborhood, expanding the subdivision to a total of 180 lots.

Additionally, this week the commission will have an opportunity to approve the final plat for the Trail View Estates South subdivision. This project will add 25 new single-family lots west of Cherryvale Avenue and south of the Apple Creek corridor. Ten of the lots will face Cherryvale, with the rest connecting off of a pair of new streets off Cherryvale.

Finance Committee (again), Saturday, 8 am

Finally, the budget process continues this week with our annual "Budget Saturday," a full-day meeting of the Finance Committee to conduct a department-by-department review of the 2021 budget. This is my eighth Budget Saturday as an alderperson and my seventh as a member of the committee, but my first as chairman.

I completed my read-through of the budget on Friday and pre-submitted my list of 70 questions to give staff an opportunity to review and prepare answers for them in advance of Saturday's meeting. Per usual, the phrase "status quo" is used a lot to describe this budget in relation to prior years: There are no staffing changes proposed and levy limits imposed by the state largely preclude us from making wholesale changes in operations. 

This year Budget Saturday will look a little different: In past years most of council and many members of city staff have gathered in the council chambers all day. This year, to reduce the risk of virus spread, we're asking everyone to participate remotely with the exception of myself as committee chair, the mayor and the city attorney. The entire meeting will be broadcast online, as our meetings always are. As has been the case in the past, the committee will not take comment from the public during Budget Saturday, and we encourage people who wish to speak on budget-related topics to plan to participate in the budget public hearing on November 4 or budget adoption on November 11.

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.