As I posted the other day, the Common Council voted to repeal the emergency ordinance that has been allowing them to meet remotely and, as of July 1st, they will return to normal Council rules. It does however sound as if they plan to revisit normal Council rules to allow some permanent flexibility regarding participating remotely.
Here is a more indepth recap of what that discussion looked like.
They initially were going to vote on a temporary emergency ordinance that would have given them flexibility to participate remotely through September 30, 2021.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) offered a substitute amendment that would return Council to regular operating procedures as of June 1. His reasoning was that things have been changing at a pretty rapid pace over the last few months and weeks and city staff is planning to have all their members back working in their normal settings on June 1st so the Common Council should too.
Mayor Woodford and Attorney Behrens clarified that Alderperson Doran wanted to return all Council and committee meetings to their regular, pre-Covid format.
Alderperson Doran confirmed that is what he wanted to do.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) seconded his motion.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) encouraged the other alderpersons to defeat this amendment with the reasoning that the emergency ordinance already was scheduled to automatically end on September 30th, and it could be repealed before then. June 1st is really close and since everyone was back in Council Chambers anyway there was no need to make people feel like they were under any pressure to come back. The ordinance as it was written gave the Council a sense of flexibility and control over their individual comfort zones. Alderperson Metzler pointed out that if someone’s family member were to come down with Covid, some people who were comfortable being in chambers right now might not be comfortable being in chambers. It was too premature to return everything to normal by June 1st. The current automatic repeal in September gave them a good amount of time to make sure they felt safe.
Alderperson Hartzheim believed that the fact that they were all in chambers that night and able to conduct business appropriately face to face helped them help the city and their constituents. Them being there that night in person allowed them to make June 1st happen.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) agreed. She believed that sometimes they need to set the pace of their families and community. In the last few weeks they had been asked to talk about some important things [that was a reference to the AAPI and CEDAW resolutions] and they all felt that it was okay to be in chambers in order to honor people by listening to them with respect. If that was the case it meant that they were also capable of attending to do work. She thought that were were in a new phase of the disease thanks to all the efforts we’ve done as a community, and at some point they as alderpersons needed to lead the community out of it by continuing to be safe, continuing to be respectful, and getting back to the business of normalcy.
Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) [who has health issues] said that he was in chambers. He was the last guy in the house. He was ready to start working. They’ve got work to do.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) welcomed everyone back and said it was good to see all of them in person and many unmasked. She thought that they’ve all done a really good job of showing how willing they are to come back and she wanted to remind everyone that not everyone was in the same position. She has a son at home who has a disability and requires extra assistance. She’s been looking for a caregiver for the last year and has been unable to find one in the evening. She can’t just get a babysitter, and there’s a nationwide caregiver shortage. She wanted them to think about making decisions for people who are in different positions than the rest of them. She thought they were all adults trying their best to be there. They’ve been there since they were invited back without being told to or having their presence demanded. She would just like the flexibility as a parent to still be able to take part remotely; otherwise there may be times where she might not be able to attend. She didn’t think that was right for her constituents. She urged everyone to defeat this.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) also urged his colleagues to defeat this. He said that Covid is still relevant in the community and having the time through September would allow people to participate if a family member gets sick. He said that just recently one of the city’s Director’s children got Covid and it would be better for that Director to participate virtually rather than put other people who might not yet be vaccinated at risk by coming in.
[Honestly, the appeal to care for unvaccinated people doesn’t come off as very convincing. At this point, it’s very easy to get vaccinated if you want to. Outside of the rare adult who has some kind of health issue that prevents them getting vaccinated, anyone who isn’t vaccinated could be vaccinated if they wanted to.]
Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10) said that the President has spoken and said to follow the science. The CDC has spoken and said that masks for those who are vaccinated can come off and to respect those who still choose to wear the mask. So he was going to heed to the President’s guidance and the CDC’s guidance and alderperson Martin’s guidance.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) said that regardless of how the vote turned out he thought they were all going to be wanting to attend and be in-person as much as they could be and circumstances allowed, so from that standpoint it was a little bit of a moot point. He said that beyond and outside the scope of Covid, unforeseen circumstances can strike, so while he was okay with getting back to work on June 1, he would also really be open to, in the future, trying to find a way to incorporate some of the technology the lessons they learned over the last few months to allow flexibility so that they can still participate in Council work even when life throws things at them that makes it more challenging to be in person.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) asked for clarification as to what Alderperson Doran’s motion would do. Would it still allow public participation electronically at the Mayor’s discretion?
Attorney Behrens said, no, the amendment was to repeal the existing temporary ordinance so it would go away and the Council would return to the point in time before that temporary ordinance went into effect.
Alderperson Fenton said that, with that clarification, she concurred with Alderperson Firkus. 53.4% of vaccine eligible residents in Appleton have had at least one dose of the vaccine. It’s not just the 15 alderpersons and staff that they were concerned about in conducting the city’s business. She was pleased with the original proposed ordinance that it did maintain some flexibility for public participation electronically under extraordinary circumstances as well as electronic participation by alderpersons. She urged her colleagues to maintain some flexibility and leave the ordinance as it was originally presented.
Aldereprson Alfheim said she would fully support, in the future, changing Council rules to make it allowable to utilize technology. She thought having a strict set of rules that says you must be in person resulted in eliminating some people from running for office who could be quality members.
She thought the rules needed to change; however, the question before them was should be amended based on Covid? Looking strictly at Covid, she believed they needed to start taking steps forward. They were never going to get to a percentage where they could all say “there, now it’s done”. Although there were valid reasons that people should be able to perform their Council and committee duties remotely, she didn’t think that was what they were being asked to decide that night.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) encouraged the alderpersons to not vote in favor of this. He said that there were a number of department heads and chairs that were participating virtually that evening. The Council needed to figure out how they were going to move forward because participating remotely was a valuable tool, particularly for the staff members who work long hours and have to come and be in person for Council and committee meetings. Attending virtually would maybe help them manage their days. He thought they should slow down a little bit and figure out how they were going to do that and what the metric around virtual participation would be. They should give themselves a ittle bit of time to figure that out before they simply go back to where they were.
Alderperson Doran said he thought they had seen how technology can benefit them through the pandemic, but it had also made life difficult. He had been on the Council for about 6 weeks and several of the meetings he attended had technology issues that slowed them down and made participation difficult. He really supported public participation and community members being a part of the work they do in government and would support the Council looking at ways to continue making participation more accessible for the public; however, that was not the intent of or a part of the current discussion. The job the alderpersons were elected to do was to participate in person. City staff was hired knowing that part of the role of being a director is to participate in person when required. He said they would all appreciate the opportunity to have some flexibility and he thought there were some opportunities to have that flexibility built in when emergency situations arise. He also believed it was important for the Common Council to be leaders in the community. The community looks to the Common Council and as staff comes back on June 1st he thought it was also appropriate for the Common Council to also fall in line with that since a lot of community members view the Common Council as an extension of staff.
Mayor Woodford wanted to point out that they were discussing Alderperson Doran’s motion. What that entailed specifically was the timing of the repeal of the ordinance as specified and the nature of the repeal of that ordinance. He said that some of the discussion was venturing into a discussion about Council rules and he just wanted to point out that they had veered into that place. He asked them to please be mindful of that as they moved on with the discussion.
Alderperson Wolff said that by cancelling it now instead of in September they were not giving staff and other Council members enough time to find a babysitter or to be in chambers if they were planning on being able to attend via Zoom. He said that if the deadline were at the end of June he would definitely support it, but he thought that cutting off the ability to participate remotely right now wasn’t beneficial to some of the directors and people who weren’t ready to make that commitment.
Alderperson Alfheim said she would remove her support of the June 1st date if the Council would consider changing the date to July 1st. That would give them some time to perhaps revisit the Council rules and create some opportunities and special situations in which they could utilize technology. She thought that was a fair compromise. She said it was hard to figure out the issues that they have in only two weeks, but she did think it was a good idea to move forward prior to the end of September. She said she would withdraw her support for Alderperson Doran’s amendment but hoped that perhaps they could think about a July 1 date.
Mayor Woodford told her that she had the option to make the amendment that she just discussed.
She moved to change the date to July 1st and was seconded. The Council then discussed this new amendment.
Alderperson Van Zeeland said that she is hearing a lot of people in agreement that they would like to look at the flexibility of Council rules. She asked Attorney Behrens if the Council took action on the current amendment would that limit their ability to to change Council rules at a later date?
Attorney Behrens said that if the item that was currently on the floor was passed that the emergency ordinance regarding temporary Council rules would be repealed July 1st. There would be an option 2 weeks from now for a reconsideration if anyone wanted to do that. But, this action on the temporary ordinance would not necessarily preclude the Council from, at an organizational meeting, taking up the topic of remote appearance and things of that nature. He said they just had an organizational meeting and they had an organizational meeting last October which was about the midpoint of the Aldermanic year. [They’re sworn in in April.] The temporary ordinance is still temporary in nature so what the Council was figuring out right then was how much more temporary it was going to be.
Alderperson Van Zeeland said that gave them some options. She would like to have those options worked out before they ended the temporary ordinance.
Alderperson Harzheim applauded Alderperson Alfheim for creating a nice compromise that would allow them to come together and conduct the business of the city in person but give them a little bit more time to make those adjustments. She supported the date change.
Alderperson Firkus agreed. It gave them just enough breathing room to look at what they wanted to do regarding Council rules and create a long term solution that was outside the scope of what they were currently voting on.
Alderperson Meltzer appreciated the compromise but was still concerned about time. If they repealed the temporary ordinance then they would lose a mechanism that was important to them. The ordinance automatically repeals on September 30th, so given that government moves slowly and they don’t know when they’ll be able to schedule an organizational meeting or what else they might want to talk about and what would go in to actually feeling ready when the time came for the temporary ordinance to go away, it would make sense to keep it with the September 30th date. Alderperson Meltzer would rather they come back to repeal it before September 30th than for them to have already repealed it and then find themselves in a situation where they need to reinvent the wheel or are pushed up against the timeline of having set a deadline that we can’t comfortably meet. The fact that they were in chambers regardless of whether the temporary ordinance exists was the leadership they were showing to the community. Why cut away an emergency option that might benefit them in the future? Keeping the September 30 date would give them more time to figure out what seemed like a lot of really complicated questions.
Alderperson Smith asked if there was an increase in cases could they implement another emergency order?
Mayor Woodfor said they could though the same process that put the current ordinance in place.
Alderperson Smith said that if something happened between July and September they could certainly institute another emergency ordinance.
Alderperson Van Zeeland reminded everyone that it took time last year to put the original emergency order in place. Several Council members were unable to attend while that was being taken care of.
Alderperson Alfheim’s final comment had to do with the city staff itself coming back on June 1st. As far as she knew, Council members were also employees of the city so at some point in time wouldn’t the question be raised that if it’s safe enough for them why is it not safe enough for the alderpersons also? “If it’s healthy enough for the city it’s healthy enough for us.”
She said complications to schedules would always be an issue, hence long term rules changes. They needed rule changes so they could deal with life as it is today. Hopefully, in the future, they would be able to address some of those changes quickly and get something on the books that would give them some common sense choices available with technology, but she believes they needed to move past Covid keeping them from being together.
Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) asked to call the question.
The Council voted on the amendment to repeal the emergency ordinance with the date of July 1 instead of the original date of June 1 that Alderperson Doran had proposed. It passed 9-6 with Alderpersons Meltzer, Van Zeeland, Fenton, Thao, Schultz, and Doran voting no.
The Mayor confirmed with Alderperson Doran that he did intend to vote no.
As a result, the Common Council will be returning to their normal Council rules on July 1, but it sounds like they may be revising those rules in some manner before July 1st.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=853493&GUID=F2F30B92-9A40-4FFF-9912-76253AED5FCD&Options=info|&Search=
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