During the 08/04/2021 the Common Council took up the connected issues of the allocation of the excess general fund balance and Resolution #9-R-21 regarding a Transportation Utility Study. This was discussed extensively by the Finance Committee on 07/26/2021 which ultimately voted to recommend approving changes to the allocations to include funding for a transportation utility study and also voted to recommended approving the resolution that called for funding a transportation utility study.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3), one of the transportation utility study sponsors, said he wanted to separate out the item because they had a bit of discussion about it at the previous Common Council meeting and then also at the Finance Committee meeting. The item did require a 2/3rds vote in order to pass, so he asked his colleagues to support the item as amended which would allow the city to take on a number of interesting opportunities with the excess funds.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) said that he would not be supporting the item because it had removed money from enhanced crosswalks and he thought Appleton needed more enhanced crosswalks throughout the city. He thought they should focus their attention on people walking, biking, and riding scooters rather than on roads and suggested that there could be innovations or a transportation budget passed by the Federal government that could help Appleton with that and then we wouldn’t need the transportation study after all.
Mayor Woodford said, “I’d like to offer a point of clarification, which I have offered each time this item has come up before the Council and before the Finance Committee, which is that this proposal as amended does not change the 5-year Capital Plan, meaning that it does not add or remove crosswalks from the 5-year Capital Plan. It simply addresses the funding mechanism that we’ll use to pay for those projects. And before I move on to the next speaker are there any questions outside of the speaker’s queue related to that point? If so, please raise your hand and ask, I would be happy to address it or to clarify if I can.”
Nobody raised their hands and the discussion moved away from the issue of enhanced crosswalks.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) said she had attended the Finance Committee meeting and was thrilled with the discussion. She thought everyone had gone over things really well, raised some good points, and ironed things out really well. She encouraged her colleagues to vote for the item as amended by the Finance Committee because it opened up a way to potentially manage the city’s streets in a more equitable and sustainable way.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) said she had two concerns when she had referred this item back to the Finance Committee. One of those was specific to her district and related to the enhanced crosswalk, but the other related to questions that she had about the process [which I took to mean the process of vetting and approving the transportation utility study and the changes to the recommendations regarding allocating the excess fund balance]. Although she was not supporting this item because of her district specific issues, she wanted to thank the mayor and Director Paula Vandehey for answering her questions regarding the process so that she did get the information she was looking for.
[Alderperson Van Zeeland’s district-specific issue was that she has been fighting for three years to get an enhanced crosswalk installed that would allow people to safely cross Calumet Street to Lion’s Park, and it would be a hard sell for her to tell her constituents that, after three years of fighting for that, she was going to vote to redirect this fund allocation from enhanced crosswalks to the transportation utility study.]
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15), one of the transportation utility study resolution sponsors, thanked Mayor Woodford, Director Vandehey, and Directory Dean Gazza for their understanding of what they were trying to accomplish by including funding for the transportation utility study in the allocations of the excess general fund balance. He thought it was an important opportunity for the city to advance the timeline of figuring out if a transportation utility would be valuable for the city. He reiterated what Alderperson Firkus had said that 10 votes were needed to pass the item, so he cautioned his colleagues with concerns about individual pieces of the excess funds allocations that a no vote could impact their ability to pass the entire item and could have greater consequences beyond just one particular project.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) gave what I thought was a good overview of the issues involved. “For those who maybe weren’t at the Finance Committee or for the public, I just want to go over some points that we went over at committee, and I encourage my colleagues to support this. At the committee during our discussions, we established that if we were to try to move the money around in different ways from what’s available for the excess allocations, we end up pushing projects back. One of the great things about the crosswalks with the CIP [Capital Improvement Plan] is that they are there in the CIP so this affects whether or not we’ll be borrowing for them or not, but we can borrow for them. If we were to try to fund this study on the transportation utility without using some of these excess funds that have become available then it would be competing with operational expenses, so really, we have an opportunity here that is fiscally prudent. We have an opportunity here that is efficient and that will save time and I think be the best way to steward the tax dollars of these excess allocations to build multiple synergies, so I would encourage my colleagues’ support. Thank you.”
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) appreciated the work that had gone into creating this proposal and the discussion the Finance Committee had held regarding it. She said they all acknowledged that the city has a problem funding its road construction projects and they had to start thinking outside the box. The transportation utility proposal was a great example of two alderpersons working together to try to find out if something might work. But in order to determine if a transportation utility would work, they had to commit the dollars. She thought it was important for them to start looking at the big problems that the city faces and try to get creative in how to solve them. She fully supported doing this study to see if a transportation utility could really help the entire community.
Alderperson Denise Fenton: (District 6) said she also would be supporting the allocation for the transportation utility study. Her concern had primarily been over the process. She had supported the transportation utility study resolution when it was first introduced, but when it was harnessed to the fund allocations, she was concerned that it had not gone to committee before the proposal was presented to the full Common Council. She did attend the Finance Committee meeting and was impressed with the careful, thoughtful discussions that her colleagues on that committee went through.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) had a question not about the allocation for the transportation utility study but for the city brand study and implementation. He wanted to know how the dollar figure of $450,000 was arrived at.
Mayor Woodford said that, as was included in the materials for the Finance Committee and as he shared with Alderperson Schultz earlier that day when he responded to his question on this matter, the allocation for city brand project was in two parts. One was for the study which is $50,000 and the other was for the brand implementation. As he shared with the Finance Committee, he brought the recommendation forward in this way because if the city conducts a study but hasn’t committed the resourced to implement the results of that study, then they’ve wasted time, effort, and tax payer dollars. The $450,000 figure was an estimate derived by consulting with communities that have recently gone through a rebranding process. Fortunately, there are a couple examples from right here in Northeast Wisconsin. The city’s senior communication specialist called her colleagues and counterparts in those cities and got that estimate.
The mayor acknowledged that it was just an estimate. Included in that estimate was the implementation of all of the collateral that comes with updating a brand anywhere that a logo appears. They also intend to include in the rebranding updating the website, something that he thought they could all acknowledge was due for some work.
He said there was no question that it was costly, so they would be taking up the project in a careful way and making sure that they steward their resources wisely. He noted that the city rebranding project was the work of the Council. It was initiated by a resolution submitted by a member of the Common Council [former alderperson Chris Croatt, prior to his departure] and the recommendation before them was the executive branch’s response to that Council resolution. There was documentation in their materials, which he added had been there for some time, that outlined the parameters of the study and what they hoped to accomplish, but of course they would work on that together and there would be ample opportunities for the Council and the community to give input going forward.
Alderperson Schultz thanked him for that in-depth answer and apologized for not getting his response earlier that day. He was 100% in support of the brand study.
There was no further discussion regarding the allocations of the excess general fund and they were approved 13-2 with Alderpersons Van Zeeland and Wolff voting no.
The Council then took up the Resolution 9-R-21 regarding the Transportation Utility Study. They had no further discussion and voted 15-0 to approve it.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=873331&GUID=05E94B95-E8A1-4761-82D5-5668A4FB8932&Options=info|&Search=
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