The Common Council is meeting 07/21/2021 at 7PM.
The Mayor will be presenting two proclamations, appointing two people to the Library Board, and recommending that current Deputy Human Resources Director Jay Ratchman who is currently serving as the interim director be hired to serve as the next Director of Human Resources.
The Council will also be voting on all the items that have been through committees over the last couple weeks. While you can never know for sure what will and will not be pulled out of the agenda for an individual vote, there are a few things that are important or in some way notable.
There is, of course, the proposal to issue over $31 million of promissory notes and bonds.
There are also the mayor’s recommendations for allocating the city’s $5.115 million excess General Fund balance. Alderpersons Brand Firkus (Distrist 3) and Chad Doran (District 15) recently introduced a resolution calling for funding a study to investigate the feasibility of implementing a transportation utility in Appleton. That resolution came out after the mayor had created his recommendations for the excess balance allocations. During the recent Finance Committee meeting Alderperson Doran had asked them to amend the allocations to cover the cost of a transportation utility study, which the committee members declined to do; however, Mayor Woodford has now submitted a memo to the Common Council recommending that they amend the allocations to include funding for the transportation utility study.
The Department of Public Works’ proposed modified operation plan has garnered a lot of public interest and feedback. The proposal before the Council would offer free bulky overflow pick up every other weeks from April through September but would limit the number of items per collection period to no more than 2. It would also change the way brush and yard waste is collected, and leave city crews free to perform snow removal work that they cannot find a contractor willing to do.
The Alvin Street reconstruction had been referred back to committee after Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) had tried to amend the reconstruction plans to eliminate parking on the section of Alvin Street between Wisconsin Avenue and Brewster Street. This section of street is right next to the Appleton Planned Parenthood facility and demonstrators (both for and against Planned Parenthood) utilize the on street parking every day. The idea behind the parking restrictions seemed to be that it would somehow influence the behavior of the demonstrators, but Alderperson William Siebers said they would continue to come and simply find somewhere else to park. The committee decided to not recommend any changes to the reconstruction plans because the reconstruction was a separate issue from the demonstrators. It is still possible that the item could be separated out for further discussion and a separate vote.
I have not had a chance to recap the 07/14/2021 Safety and Licensing Committee meeting, but they did vote to recommend denying the alcohol license application for Mr. Taco due to the suspicious removal of Sandra Munoz’s name from the application and the unclear relationship between Ms. Munoz and Julia Nino Gomez, the applicant on the license application. As outlined in the police department’s memo and as has been reported on by the Post Crescent, Sandra Munoz was among several people who, earlier this year, were charged with conspiring to distribute cocaine.
[The application is, honestly, pretty amusing. It literally looks like they filled it in with Sandra Munoz’s information and then whited that information out leaving only Julia Nino Gomez on the application as if that would not look at all suspicion or draw people’s attention to the application.]
There is also a “Public Hearing for Rezoning #8-21 Coolidge Court from PD/C-2 Planned Development General Commercial District #34-84 to R-3 Multi-Family District.” This item had garnered some neighborhood feedback and opposition during the City Plan Commission meeting on 06/23/2021, so it is possible that some neighborhood residents will appear at the Common Council meeting also.
Finally, Appleton Downtown Inc is asking permission to install a parklet on State Street across from Muncheez Pizza and next to the Mile of Music mural. This would be part of a pilot program to study the installation of parklets in Appleton.
Those are the interesting items I can think of. We’ll see what does and does not get pulled out for a separate vote.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=867241&GUID=B9061662-1925-4BE6-B084-6279053B76A2&Options=info|&Search=
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