The Common Council met 07/21/2021. The item that resulted in the most discussion was the allocation of excess General Funds.
During the Finance Committee meeting, Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) had requested that the allocations be changed to allow funding for the transit utility study that he and Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) had recently submitted a resolution about.
The Finance Committee had declined to make that change. However, ahead of the Common Council meeting, Mayor Woodford submitted a memo in support of taking some of the funds that had initially been allocated for Jones Park and enhanced crosswalks and use them to fund a transit utility study instead.
After the item was brought to the floor, Alderperson Doran reiterated that the excess funds provided an opportunity to fund the transportation utility study. The resolution that he and Alderperson Firkus had submitted originally went to the mayor’s office as a request to include funding in the 2022 budget, but that was prior to the Council finding out that this excess fund balance was available. He appreciated the work staff had done on creating the original allocation plan, but after having conversations with the Mayor, Department of Public Works Director Paula Vandehey, and Park and Recreation Director Dean Gazza, he felt they had an opportunity to use a little of that money to fund the transportation utility study this year. It was an opportunity they shouldn’t pass on because it could accelerate the timeline for them to figure out whether this would be a good option for Appleton. A transportation utility would replace the wheel tax, not be in addition to it. They didn’t know at this point if such a utility fee would be the right option, but he thought they needed to be looking into it because the wheel tax has not been raised since 2015 and it was not providing the amount of funding the city needed to stay on top of our roads to the standards the community expects. Doing this study would give them more information as to whether a transportation utility fee would be a good option or not and whether it was something they wanted to institute. With that, he made a motion to change the allocation to the language in Mayor Woodford’s memo, i.e. “reducing the allocation for enhanced crosswalks by $50,000, the allocation for Parks by $25,000, and creating a new line under Pedestrian Safety, Infrastructure Maintenance, & Public Spaces for Transportation Utility Study in the amount of $75,000.”
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) reiterated what she said at the Finance Committee meeting regarding the issue. She was extremely uncomfortable budgeting money for something that had not yet been discussed at a committee. They do committee work for a purpose and they always have the opportunity after an item goes through committee to suggest that money be moved around, but she did not think they should be budgeting for items that they have not even discussed or done committee work on.
Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) asked his colleagues to approve this and start laying the groundwork for removing the wheel tax. He lot of people drive our roads who don’t live in Appleton, so he thought they should investigate this option. He applauded Alderpersons Doran and Firkus for bringing it forward.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) said he understood what they were with regards to the allocation but wanted to know if they would also be doing anything regarding resolution 9-R-21.
Mayor Woodford said the resolution itself would be taken up under the “Other Business” portion of the agenda. He acknowledged that it was a little bit complicated in that they were currently dealing with an item from the Finance Committee regarding the excess fund balance and the resolution was a separate item from that. They were separate but connected actions.
Alderperson Siebers asked if amending Resolution #9-R-21 should come first before taking up the fund allocation.
Mayor Woodford said he tried to be clear about this in his memo. The spirit of the resolution as his office understood it, was to authorize the process or engaging in a study. The Council could certainly wait to handle the allocation but where these two items fell on the agenda was really just where they happened to play out on the agenda. He added that any actual contract for a study would go through the standard procurement process which would involve a committee just as under ordinary circumstances.
Alderperson Firkus asked his colleagues to support the amendment. He realized it was an unusual situation to be in—to have a resolution come in, shortly followed by an opportunity to fund the study it called for. This was not a normal route, but he thought that they have an opportunity for getting the ball rolling on looking at alternative options for funding the city’s transportation system. The amount of excess funds available gave them a great opportunity to get into this. As far as background on the topic went, he had been in conversation with city staff about it since late 2019 and considerable thought had already been put into it. He knew this wasn’t the most orthodox way of handling it, and they normally do committee work in committees; however, they did have that opportunity during the Finance Committee meeting, but it was kicked to Council without having an amendment or any real discussion on the merits of doing this. So tonight was there opportunity to discuss the merits of using the excess funds to get the ball rolling on a transportation study.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) said she agreed with Alderperson Van Zeeland and she had some concerns. When the resolution came before the Council, it was referred to the Mayor’s office, so it was not on a committee agenda, and they didn’t have the chance to do the research on it. The thing she was most interested in was the choice to reduce the pedestrian crosswalk allocation. They have excess funds in their capital budget and they have a number of those enhanced crosswalks scheduled out further than many alderpersons might like. She personally had been talking with Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) about getting a specific crosswalk on the list. She suggested that they not take $50,000 out of the crosswalk allocation and instead, if necessary, take the full $75,000 for a transportation study out of the parks allocation.
Mayor Woodford wanted to clarify that this allocation did not adjust the city’s 5 year Capital Improvement Plan. It was just about where the funding would come from some of those projects. [So, essentially, the same number of crosswalks would be enhanced whether they were funded with this excess fund allocation or by bonds or something else. Additionally, the excess funds allocation was not going to increase the speed at which these crosswalks were enhanced. Approving this allocation would not cause a crosswalk to be enhanced, and removing the allocation would not cause a crosswalk to not be enhanced. It also would not add to the number of crosswalks that were going to be enhanced.]
Alderperson Fenton said she understood that, but she was really excited about the prospect of this addition $50,000 for enhanced crosswalks because they were great and off the top of her head she could think of 5 places where they were needed. She was really opposed to taking that money out of that proposal.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) said there had been no initial committee assignment because it had gone directly to the mayor’s office. She asked if there was going to be a committee assignment for this item in the future. [I’m glad she asked that because I had been wondering the same thing.]
Mayor Woodford said, yes, it would ultimately be discussed by Municipal Services. [Spoiler Alert: that’s not where it ended up getting referred.]
Alderperson Hartzheim encouraged her colleagues to approve the amendment. The mayor had indicated he was amendable to this change—not that the Council needed to do everything the mayor says—and she thought that was an important recommendation to take into account. She also understood and appreciated that enhanced crosswalks are very valuable and she was pleased that they would still be allocating enough to fund one even after the $50,000 was reallocated for a transportation utility study. At the same time, not to take away from who they benefit, enhanced crosswalks benefit a small area of our city, one little piece at a time. In contrast, a transportation utility study would potentially benefit the city overall to a much greater extent.
Again Mayor Woodford reiterated that this allocation would not change the city’s 5 year Capital Improvement Plan or add or subtract from the projects in that plan. It was solely about the source of funding.
Alderperson Siebers asked what would happen if the proposed amendment was approved and then the item was referred back to the Finance Committee.
Attorney Behrens said, if amended, it would be referred back as amended.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) appreciated the discussion on whether it should go through committee or not. In the end, they were in an odd situation. She thought they all acknowledged that the transportation budget and funding for that was a big deal. She would love to take care of one of the cross walks, but more importantly she wanted to see all of the transportation projects across the board get handled in a manner the city could afford. They could not change the system until they could measure the success that a transportation utility fee may or may not bring. If we don’t fund the study, they couldn’t truly have a conversation as to whether they should do it or not. She was going to vote for the amendment.
Alderperson Van Zeeland asked if they had the ability to refer it back to committee in order to do more digging into information before they set aside funding for this item. She thought there were a lot of things they could fund with the money. She wasn’t against funding the transportation utility study, but she thought they needed to do more due diligence before they decided to go forward with it.
Attorney Behrens told her a referback was always in order; although it would be subject the Council had imposed regarding the potential for an object to and vote on the referback.
Alderperson Van Zeeland said she wanted to refer the item back to the Finance Committee. She did not take issue with Alderperson Doran’s amendment, but she thought that if they were going to look at where this money should go, maybe there were other things that should be included as well. She didn’t feel comfortable just voting for this amendment and then finding out that they could have funded this thing or that thing. It didn’t even have to be a crosswalk; she just wanted to do more diligence with this amount of money.
Alderperson’s Doran and Firkus objected to the refer back which meant that the Council had to vote on whether to uphold or overturn the referback. A 2/3 majority was required to overturn the referback. Only 12 Council members were present at the meeting so a minimum of 8 of them needed to vote against the referback.
There was some kind of issue with the computer voting system, so they voted with a show of hands. I don’t see that vote recorded in the meeting minutes. It did fail, so the item was referred back to the Finance Committee.
Later on in the meeting, the “Other Council Business” included Resolution #9-R-21 the Transportation Utility Study resolution. If the allocation had been approved with the amendment Alderperson Doran had proposed, the resolution would presumably have also been amended accordingly and approved. Instead, it was referred to committee. Although Mayor Woodford had originally said it would be referred to the Municipal Services Committee, he, after confering with Attorney Behrens, decided to refer it to the Finance Committee since the Finance Committee was going to be discussing the excess fund allocation and the possibility of including funding for a transportation utility study in that allocation.
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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