On 08/18/2021 the Appleton Common Council took up and ultimately approved Resolution 12-R-21 regarding health mandates and the hiring of a health officer. This resolution was sponsored by Alderpersons Joe Martin (District 4), Matt Reed (District 8), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), and Chad Doran (District 15). As previously posted, this resolution had been heavily amended during the Board of Health meeting.
Cathy Spears, former District 11 alderperson and current Chairperson of the Board of Health, spoke during the public comment portion of the Council meeting. She said, “Good evening. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, but first, I’ve been in your seats, and I just want to say thank you to Mayor Woodford, to the directors, and to all of you who are alderpersons. It’s definitely a thankless job. You get all the calls; you take all the abuse. So, I’d just like to thank you for your public service. I do appreciate it. I was elected to be chair of the Board of Health and when the resolution came that we’re all gonna discuss tonight, before me, I saw it on the website and I got my emails. I went ‘Oh, this is a no brainer. I’m not gonna approve this,’ and then I thought, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. We are actively searching for a great health officer. We had a fantastic health officer and we have big shoes to fill.’ So, the easiest thing to do would be to, like, say just vote it down, so I made some calls and I’d like to thank everybody who answered my calls. I wanted to see where we were in the hiring process. I knew that Sonja Jensen had been Interim Health Officer–named Interim Health Officer as Deputy Director. And I knew she met the requirements that the state of Wisconsin was looking for, so I felt like we aren’t in a place where we’re desperate. There are 5 other communities just in Wisconsin that are looking for health officers, so I stepped back. I thought about it. I prayed. I said, ‘What should I do?’ And I came up with–I think we need to amend this resolution. Because if you are someone looking for a job in a health department, aren’t you gonna go to your Board of Health meeting minutes? Aren’t you gonna look at what’s happening in the community? We have so many great things that we have all done together to make health a priority in our community. We were the community that led the way with the smoke free Appleton. We were the ones that led on vaping. We were the ones that led on Health in All Policies. We have been actively a great community for health. So, I sat down and I thought about it. So, the amendments that you see to this resolution I thought were great positive amendments, to say, ‘Yes, we have a great Interim Health Officer.’ The first part of this resolution made it look like we didn’t have one. It was vacant. There was nobody doing that job, and that’s not true. Then I felt like we owed it to say that we had a health officer that stayed on for another year, so that’s in the second paragraph. Then we wanted to say the health department–I know people who work in it. They have been working very, very hard. So, when a negative resolution comes forward questioning their judgement, their guidance to the community they feel devastated. They feel down. They feel unappreciated. So that’s why I put in that about both the Board of Health and you as the Common Council positively say to that Health Department, ‘You are doing a good job; we appreciate everything you’re doing.’ This other resolution never said that. This other resolution didn’t say anything other than ‘We don’t want you to tell us what to do or what to mask or anything.’ Well, I think our citizens need guidance from our health department. I think our citizens need guidance from our interim health officer, because, as we know, we’re actively in a pandemic. There are people dying that don’t need to die. There are people, because of misinformation, aren’t getting a vaccine, and that’s their choice, but their death is terrible. It’s preventable.”
Mayor Woodford told her, “You have about 30 seconds remaining.”
Ms. Spears continued, “Okay, so, if I was someone looking to come to our community, choosing some place in Wisconsin, would I go to a place that had a negative resolution or would I go to a place that had a positive resolution? So, I’m asking you tonight to put your personal feelings aside and think about how we can best present our city to potential candidates, and I’d like to thank the Health Department for all the things they do. Thank you, Mayor Woodford.”
When the resolution was brought to the floor, Alderperson Hartzheim spoke first. “As one of the authors of the original resolution, I am concerned that it no longer expresses or reflects the original intent or spirit of the resolution. I was fortunate to attend the Board of Health meeting where it was discussed and, during that period of time, some of the Board of Health members openly expressed, including Dr.–I cannot remember her name…Vogel. She openly expressed that she did not know anything about resolution crafting or amendment and approval process etc. So, it concerns me that something that we are voting on is coming through a Board of Health that some of the members are not fully versed on those sorts of things. The “Therefore Be It Resolved”–the first “Therefore Be It Resolved” goes from an expression of concern–which I don’t feel is detrimental to the city. We can have concern and we can express concern. But it goes from concern to appreciation, so it feels like it’s a complete one hundred and eighty degrees. So, again, I’m concerned that this, again, doesn’t reflect what the original authors brought it to the table for. In fact, the author of the amendments clearly stated earlier that ‘this other resolution’, so I would like to ask please for clarification from Attorney Behrens whether this can be–whether we can suspend the rules to request for this resolution to be withdrawn.”
Attorney Behrens answered that under Robert’s Rules of Order, the resolution had been amended by the body and was in the hands of the body now, so an individual member couldn’t automatically withdraw it. In answer to Alderperson Hartzheim’s specific question as to whether the rules could be suspended to allow its withdrawal, he said there are some examples within Robert’s where motions presented before they’ve been read by the chair and certainly before they’ve been acted on by the body, with unanimous consent of that body, can be amended or withdrawn. If there was a desire to withdraw the resolution, he thought it would be a multi-step process. The first would be to suspend Robert’s Rules of Order initially, because once something is in the hands of the body, Robert’s doesn’t favor its removal. That suspension would require a 2/3rds vote of those present. If that passed and the rules were suspended, then, following some of the examples in Roberts, his opinion is that the Council would then need to vote unanimously to withdraw the resolution. If one or more members didn’t consent to the withdrawal, then his opinion was that it would need to be acted upon. He noted that motions could be made to restore it to its original form or some other version.
Alderperson Doran made a motion to suspend the rules. That motion failed by a 6-7 vote with alderpersons Martin, Reed, Alex Schultz (District 9), Hartzheim, Joe Prohaska (District 14) and Doran voting “aye”, and alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Vered Meltzer (District 2), Brad Firkus (District 3), Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), Denise Fenton (District 6), Maiyoua Thao (District 7), and Kristin Alfheim (District 11) voting “nay”.
They then returned to discussing the resolution.
Alderperson Alfheim said that, without question, the Board of Health had restructured the original resolution. “‘Restructuring’ is probably a soft term. I think we can all agree it is a 180 from what the intent of the resolution was by the authors. Their actions, however, I think, were meant to be positive. It was without question a negative resolution in my opinion–the way that it was written, it questioned the legitimacy of our leadership and staff as a kneejerk reaction to the mayor’s city mandate which was following the direction of the CDC. I do not appreciate the resolution as it stood. I would have voted down the resolution as it came up. However, I do not think that the right choice is to have an amendment or a resolution completely rewritten into something on an opposite pole. I mean, you now have a resolution that reads, with the authors names still being the same, reads something contrary to their own beliefs. I think it’s an interesting situation that we now have because we now have the opportunity to vote through something that gives the positive recognition to the staff for doing everything in their power to do the right thing by finding a replacement to our health director, by having a wonderful interim, by having a mayor trying to make decisions in a very difficult situation. The resolution now says, ‘We know you’re all doing a great job.’ And it says ‘We expect you to continue to do that and to make good decisions.’ I believe in that, one hundred and eighty percent. I do not however like the fact that it was completely redoing a resolution that had a different mindset. I look forward to hearing more feedback from this Council on whether the right answer is to approve this amended resolution and leave the positive comments hung on the authors, or the right answer is to vote it down and make it go away.”
Alderperson Hartzheim said that she had made it clear to Human Resources Director Tony Ratchman that she did not think the resolution should, in any way, be condemnation of the work that has been done by the health department or the HR department during this period of time. The authors had crafted the resolution to urge a continued effort in that respect. She was very uncomfortable, as Alderperson Alfheim mentioned, with her name being at the top of “this other resolution”. She also pointed out that, as amended, the resolution was made into a non-action resolution. “And those always concern me, and I am very uncomfortable having a non-action resolution on the table. If there isn’t action to be taken then why do we have a resolution?” She encouraged her colleagues to think about that when voting on it.
Alderperson Firkus said that, definitely, they had to acknowledge that this amended resolution was a 180 from the original. The resolution before them was not the one that was submitted, but he wanted to point out that that was not without precedent. Back in October of 2020, Alderperson Smith introduced a resolution to cancel Halloween. They debated the item quite thoroughly in Council and ended up passing a resolution that did not cancel Trick-or-Treating but instead said it would take place and recommended following the guidelines provided by the health officer and the Health Department. While this was definitely unusual and he understood it was not what the authors intended, this type of action and vote was not without precedent. [For what it’s worth, the two situations played out somewhat similarly. Alderperson Smith was displeased when his Trick-Or-Treating resolution was amended to state the opposite of what he had originally proposed, and he asked the city attorney if he could withdraw it from consideration. When that was not permitted, he abstained from the final vote.]
Alderperson Firkus finished up by thanking the Board of Health and Cathy Spears for creating a resolution that was more positive, expressed appreciation, and did a better job of showing the Appleton community in a positive light, which he thought would be much more beneficial and productive in relation to their search for a permanent Health Officer.
Alderperson Siebers said it was his understanding, although he could be wrong, that there was nothing that prohibited the authors from withdrawing their signatures of the resolution.
Attorney Behrens said he thought the distinction was that the authors of the original resolution were noted but once the resolution is submitted, it becomes property of the Council body. Those names technically are attributed to the original resolution as submitted but any amendment subsequent to that is a product of the Council and not the original authors necessarily.
Alderperson Siebers pressed his question as to whether the original authors could remove their names from the resolution.
Attorney Behrens answered that their names were attached to what was originally submitted but not necessarily associated with what was ultimately acted upon by the body. He didn’t believe there was a process for that, and in this case if there were four authors and all four authors requested that their names be withdrawn would it even be a resolution without any authors? He thought they were getting into some technicalities that they didn’t need to get into.
Alderperson Siebers said they could talk later.
Alderperson Van Zeeland said that she thought this should serve as a reminder that when any of them bring something like a resolution of any sort, that they’re bringing it to the body in the spirit of cooperation and that means that their words may change and the meaning and the outcome may change. Although she understood how some of the authors felt about it, that was the job of the Council to look at something and work together. She wanted to make sure that they voted on it as currently presented and made amendments as necessary per the spirit of the resolution.
Alderperson Martin who was one of the authors said, “Chair, thank you for stepping down from the voting on this issue. I applaud you for the professionalism. However, I am going to call for a point of order, and that is you often hear in this chamber ‘executive, administrative, and judicial’. This was by far a meeting of the administration. It should have gone to HR and never should have gone to Health. Thank you.”
Alderperson Hartzheim responded to Alderperson Firkus’ earlier point about the Trick-Or-Treating resolution and said that, in that case, both the original resolution and the amended resolution were calls to action either stating that Trick-Or-Treating would be cancelled or Trick-Or-Treating would go on. However, as amended, the Health Officer resolution was not a call to action, so in her opinion there was no need for a resolution at this point.
Alderperson Doran, another of the original authors, said, “I guess at this point I’d just remind our colleagues we sat in this chamber a few months ago and spoke to some of our other colleagues reminding them that—or chastising them, for wanting to make an amendment to a resolution, to offer some suggestions to a resolution. And those council members were soundly spoken down to, told that that is unacceptable to offer amendments to a resolution. So, I think we have to be careful about how we pick and choose. We don’t really get to have this both ways. If we’re gonna say—and this is well within the right of any committee here to make amendments to a resolution, I support the opportunity for that to take place. But we can’t say at one juncture because we support a resolution that it can’t be changed, and then when we find one we don’t like that it can be changed. I think that just sets a poor precedent for the body going forward. If we don’t like a resolution, let’s vote against it. But again, changing the meaning of a resolution from completely what the authors had intended, whether we agree with it or not, I think just really is just gonna make it challenging forward for us to work together on other resolutions in the future. So, I would encourage us at this point to vote this resolution down. Thank you.”
Alderperson Meltzer said, “I think that it’s interesting that we are bringing up the example of a previous resolution where it was argued that it was inappropriate to make amendments due to the language of that resolution coming from lived experience. I think it’s in the same way as one could say it’s inappropriate to amend—as we did say it was inappropriate to amend the language of that resolution—one could also say that it is inappropriate to support language in a resolution that is misleading and incorrect. So, the first, ‘Therefore’ where it says, ‘express their concern that the city has undertaken health initiatives and enacted a public health mandate while the position of health officer remains vacant’—the position of health officer is not vacant, it is being filled by the interim health officer. So, this is something that was incorrect, and it is our responsibility—it is my job as one of the members sitting on the board of health, to make sure that our resolutions come forward for us to vote on them without factual errors and without misleading information. So, I feel that in the same way that we can argue about amending resolutions, the authors of the resolution certainly are welcome to attempt to amend it again on the floor right now. No one is stopping them from doing that. We have an amended—we have an amended document that came out of the Board of Health. We have it before us. I believe that the way it is written as amended is something I can support and if the authors feel they can no longer support it then they have all of the tools that Robert’s Rules gives them tonight to do something about that, but at the end of the day, how the votes fall, that is, that is our responsibility to do our jobs. Thank you.”
[The idea that it is desirable and within the authority of the Council to amend resolutions to correct errors is 100% non-controversial. In fact, the Council has broad authority to amend their resolutions for any reason or even for no particular reason. However, the idea that it’s somehow inappropriate to amend a resolution if it sprang from “lived experience” seems to me like a recipe for governmental dysfunction. Either the Council has the authority to amend a resolution or it doesn’t. Either an alderperson has the authority to make motions to amend or they don’t. That doesn’t mean every resolution will be amended or every motion to amend will be approved, but that option needs to be available for all resolutions regardless of who submitted the resolution or what prompted the resolution. Setting different rules for how government functions depending on who submits a resolution does not seem like something that would result in effective law-making. Taken to it’s most extreme, we’d end up facing a situation where an alderperson could submit a patently ridiculous or horribly offensive resolution but because they have the right personal background with the right “lived experience” none of the other alderpersons would be able to even suggest much less actually vote for necessary changes.]
There was no further discussion and the Council voted 8-5 to approve the resolution as amended by the Board of Health.
Voting “aye” were alderpersons William Siebers, Vered Meltzer, Brad Firkus, Katie Van Zeeland, Denise Fenton, Maiyoua Thao, Alex Schultz, and Kristin Alfheim.
Voting “nay” were alderpersons Joe Martin, Matt Reed, Sheri Hartzheim, Joe Prohaska, and Chad Doran.
[It will be interesting to see how long it takes until Appleton is able to secure a permanent Health Officer. The amendments to the resolution were made, in part, specifically out of concern that the original resolution would make it difficult to attract a new Health Officer to Appleton, but the original resolution is still public record as is the fact that 5 alderpersons voted against the amended version.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=884418&GUID=A13625CD-F654-41F7-8989-89E327C1D442
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