Recap Of 07/14/2021 Safety And Licensing Committee – Denial Of Mr. Taco’s Liquor License Application, Mid-Year Reports From Police And Legal Services

The Safety and Licensing Committee met on 07/14/2021. It was a relatively short meeting, not quite 20 minutes long.

The first item they took up was the liquor license application for Los Amigos, LLC, doing business as Mr. Taco

Chief Thomas said that the memo the police department had submitted summarized the issues quite clearly and their reasoning behind recommending a denial of the liquor license for the business. (Essentially, the police were recommending denial of 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.)

Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) had a question for the attorney. The memo basically stated that the police department was assuming there was a tenuous connection between the applicant and Sandra Munoz who has been indicted for conspiracy to sell cocaine. Did the city face any legal repercussions for denying the license based simply on that tenuous perceived connection between the applicant and Ms. Munoz?

The attorney said the city was not at risk. Because this was an initial application, not a renewal, the city had a wider ability to deny. Among other things, a municipality could deny an application based on an adverse impact on the peace, quiet, and cleanliness of a neighborhood, which was what the memo cites. They did need to show a rational basis for the denial, and the memo did indeed clearly lay out the considerations the city had. That would be the only standard.

Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) wanted to know if there was any issue with the fact that the individuals listed in the memo had been accused of a crime but not yet convicted.

The attorney said that would have no effect on the city’s ability to deny.

The committee members had no further questions and voted unanimously to deny the application.

The committee also took up the temporary premise amendment applications for Jim’s Place and the Wooden Nickel which the committee had voted to hold last time they met.

Clerk Kami Lynch explained that these applications had been held at the previous meeting because it had been noticed that the applications referenced 219 College Avenue but the city had no received an application from 219 College Avenue. (Instead, they just had applications for the businesses on either side of that address.) Charles the Florist was located at that address in between the two bars who were submitting the premise amendment applications. Both of those bars had gotten permission from the florist to use the parking lot so that they could get a continuous premise amendment. Attached to one of the applications was a copy of an email exchange showing that the florist did give the bars permission to use the parking lot to extend their premises during the Mile of Music dates.

Alderperson Hartzheim wanted to confirm that, legally, the attached email exchange was enough for them to issue the permit.

Clerk Lynch said that this temporary premise amendment was no different than the resolution the city passed during Covid to allow businesses to use each other’s outdoor space to facilitate more social distancing. So as long as there was permission and the premise amendment was contiguous, then it was acceptable to do.

The committee voted unanimously to approve the applications. 

Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) asked to separate out for an individual vote two temporary alcohol permits applications that Sculpture Valley had submitted to sell and serve alcohol during Mile of Music. The committee had no discussion about those items and approved them with Alderperson Schultz abstaining from the vote.

[Although he didn’t say why, I would assume he separated them out because he is involved with Sculpture Valley and felt that it was a conflict of interest to be voting on their applications. It is up to individual alderpersons to decide when there is a conflict of interest, and every once in a while, one of them will separate out items that wouldn’t normally appear interesting so that they can abstain from voting on it while maintaining the ability to vote on the balance of the agenda.]

The committee then voted to approve the balance of the agenda and moved on to the information items.

The 2021 Police Department Mid-Year Report was included in the agenda packet.

Chief Thomas said there were not many changes from what they expected with the budget. They were under 50% of their budget which is normal. He said he gets his hopes up that they’re doing well on the budget, but at the end of the year they pay out of a lot of compensation which comes out as one big chunk that they can’t budget for during the first part of the year. He said they were right about where they normally were, and were on a good track.

Alderperson Hartzheim mentioned the police department’s inability to procure bullets and asked if there was a plan for procurement through the remainder of the year because supply was so low.

Chief Thomas acknowledged that was a challenge. It was not unique to APD as everyone in law enforcement is dealing with that issue. He said APD had gone through a lack of ammunition availability before and they had a good inventory. They had no concerns about running out, but he did want to make sure the Council was aware of the issue.

They then moved on to the Legal Services Mid-Year Report.

Clerk Lynch noted that this item would also appear on the agenda for the next Finance Committee meeting. She didn’t have anything to comment specifically regarding the report but was open to answering questions.

Alderperson Hartzheim saw that they were at 70% of the mail/copy services budget for the year. She wondered what caused that and if they would be going over their budget this year.

Clerk Lynch was anticipating that they would go over on that. A lot of the excess expenses were related to increased absentee ballots and also additional mailings that they could not plan for. She said that line item was always a hard one to plan for, and the Covid pandemic had messed with it a lot. There were also a lot of election related mailings that they have to follow up on. The state sends out mailings and then the city has to send out additional mailings to either keep the voter record active or not.

Alderperson Hartzheim thanked her and said he had been expecting that the increased expenses were Covid related.

Alderperson Van Zeeland wondered if there was a way the city could ask for funding from the state or federal government to cover some of the extra costs for those absentee ballots.

Clerk Lynch didn’t think that was an option. She did think it would be nice if they could put those costs under the election budget rather than the mail/copy budget. They do their best to cut costs with other mailings by sending them double sided and trying to at least reduce to postage weight. She said that next year postage was anticipated to go up quite a bit, and she thought the postage budget was going to be a struggle for a while.

Alderperson Matt Reed (District 8 ) noticed that the number of staff training hours had dropped dramatically and wondered if there was a reason for that.

Clerk Lynch said it was due to a lack of time for training. Additionally, a lot of the big trainings didn’t happen due to Covid. There was one deputy clerk attending the virtual clerk’s institute, but that didn’t show up in the report because it had happened after the mid-year point.

There were no other questions so they moved on to the Director’s Reports

Chief Thomas had a couple of updates. First he thanked Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12)  who hosted a neighborhood listening session a few weeks before in District 12. The police department has held those before and didn’t get a lot of turn-out. With the pandemic still going on, they were concerned, but they ended up having 40-50 people show up, and they had a great discussion. The district commander was there as well as a couple young officers. They always encourage the young officers to go to these meetings. He said if any of the alderpersons were interested in hosting one of those meetings either in their district or across a couple districts the police department would be more than willing to do that.

Secondly, he talked about a Women in Public Safety Academy that they are planning to host on October 2 at Fox Valley Technically Academy. He praised Assistant chief Olson and Lieutenant Megan Cash for coming up with the idea which arose from a brainstorming session on recruitment, diversity, and attracting more women applicants. The fire department has become involved and it has expanded to include the Appleton Police Department, the Appleton Fire Department, and the Attorney’s Office. It started off as an academy, but it may become more of a job fair, targeting high school women 15-20 years old. They have openings for about 50 students and expect that to fill up quickly. They may hold additional academies after that.

Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10) asked if there were still opportunities to do ride-alongs with officers.

Chief Thomas answered that they just opened up again for ride-alongs a couple weeks before, and he encouraged the alderpersons to do them.

There were no other reports or discussion and the meeting adjourned.

View full meeting details: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=860956&GUID=5E89167A-4F5D-4FB8-9E4D-3C7B60BBB189&Options=info|&Search=