The Municipal Services Committee met 03/07/2022 and devoted around 50 minutes of the meeting to discussing and voting on Resolution 3-R-2022, the Weeds and Wild Growth resolution. As originally proposed, this resolution would have permanently added “No Mow May” to Appleton’s Municipal Code and also made the maximum height for yard growth a uniform 12” across the city instead of being 8” on developed lots and 12” on undeveloped lots.
This resolution was discussed extensively at the 02/21/2022 Municipal Services Committee meeting where it was eventually held until this most recent meeting. Ahead of this meeting, city staff recommended to the committee that the resolution be denied and that they continue to review No Mow May annually because doing so provided “a perfect opportunity to promote the program and educate on the ‘WHY’ behind No Mow May” and “the current ordinance language provides staff with some beneficial discretion that could be eliminated with the proposed ordinance changes.”
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) started out making a motion to deny. After much discussion the committee voted against that motion by a 2-3 vote with Alderpersons Doran and William Siebers (District 1) voting for the denial and Alderpersons Brad Firkus (District 3), Denise Fenton (District 6) and Joe Prohaska (District 14) voting against it.
They then voted on a motion to approve the resolution, and this also failed by a 2-3 vote with Alderpersons Fenton and Prohaska voting in favor of it and Alderpersons Siebers, Firkus, and Doran voting against the approval.
Alderperson Firkus had appeared remotely and, apparently, his image on the screen was frozen so he had not been able to get the attention of Alderperson Prohaska, who was chairing the meeting, before the vote was called on the motion to approve. He had, however, actually wanted to amend the resolution by substitution “for us to enact a No Mow May for 2022 consistent with the rules that we have used the previous two years.”
There was a brief discussion as to whether it was procedurally acceptable to do that since the resolution had already been voted on twice, but City Attorney Behrens confirmed it was appropriate. The amended resolution then passed 3-2 with Alderpersons Siebers, Firkus, and Prohaska voting in favor of it and Alderpersons Fenton and Doran voting against.
Now, for the more detailed recap…
Alderperson Doran made a motion to deny the resolution and was seconded by Alderperson Siebers.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) who was the main sponsor of the resolution started out the discussion by saying that Professor Israel Del Toro [who was a coordinator of Now Mow May and had authored a study that had been discussed at the previous Municipal Services Committee meeting] had reached out to No Mow May participants and asked if there had been conflicts between those who had participated in the program and non-participating community members. Alderperson Schultz acknowledged that they were anecdotal, but he still wanted to share them.
- One person practices No Mow May and most of their neighbors didn’t. They had all been respectful of each other’s choices and it hadn’t caused any issues.
- Another participant allowed their yard to grow quite long last year. None of their neighbors made any comments. They liked their neighbors, and, although most didn’t participate in Now Mow May, there hadn’t been any hostility.
- A third was part of the pollinator project, fully supported No Mow May, and had a front yard garden full of mostly native plants that looked quite wild. Folks stopped all the time to chat with them when they were out working on their yard, and they had no problems.
- A fourth person had done Now Mow May before it was Now Mow May. They stopped putting chemicals on their lawn ten years ago, and their neighbors have been supportive of it as well. There were no confrontations.
- A fifth person intended to participate in No Mow May for the third year. Some neighbors had questions, but they seemed more curious than confrontational and were supportive when they talked. The yard signs about Now Mow May helped convey intent and spark discussion.
Alderperson Schultz thought that was a probably a decent representation of the community and suggested that people who like to keep their yards well trimmed tolerated the neighbors who participate in No Mow May. The signs the Pollenablers group provided regarding Now Mow May also really helped.
He thought they might hear some arguments during the meeting that once grass reached a certain height it interfered with bees ability to reach flowering plants, “and there is evidence out there that, after 8 to 10 inches, that if you have strictly like a Kentucky bluegrass yard and that’s the only thing you’re growing there, that indeed that grass height can be counterproductive and might be an obstruction for pollinators to get at low flowering plants”.
However, he wanted the committee to keep in might that not everyone has strictly managed and manicured yards or used chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides to create a golf-like space. A lot of people had yards that they let go and manage only by mowing, and those can go a bit longer because there is a mix of native species sharing the space like violets, Creeping Charlie, dandelions, and other flower plants in May that will help pollinators. “So, it’s a little tricky just to make generalized statements about long grass at 8 inches no longer being productive for bees.”
He thought it would be fine if they all started mowing the third week in May instead of waiting until June 1st. “The program itself is meant to get people to start thinking a little bit differently about mowing and allow some time—some time before that first mowing,”
Although there were yards that would grow over 8 or 12 inches if there was an early spring, most of the time people took care of their yards when they felt like it was getting too long. The last seasons of No Mow May, he had noticed that a lot of lawns (probably 70% of lawns he was monitoring) were mowed the second or third weekend in May because the were getting long and it made the property owners uncomfortable even though they were actively participating in the program. “I’m just trying to make the point that, you know, we have this very defined date for No Mow May, that June First, but that’s not necessarily what most people are chasing. There are a few diehards that’ll go to that June First.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) who was not a member of the committee but was in attendance said that she supported denying the resolution and thought it would be better to renew the program annually rather than making it a part of the Municipal Code. (1) She thought that there was good reason to renew No Mow May annually for the reasons spelled out in the memo from the Department Of Public Works. (2) She thought there was still some contentiousness regarding the success of the program and that another year or two of more research would be helpful. [I took her second point to be a reference to the study authored by Professor Del Toro. That study seemed to indicate No Mow May was successful, but, during the previous committee discussion about this resolution, some alderpersons expressed some doubts about the methodology used in the study and the small size of the study.]
Finally, regarding the raising of the maximum grass height to a uniform 12 inches for all property types, she thought that while it had been said that this would make things less confusing, she had a lot of faith in the people of the city and in the municipal code and believed that people were smart enough to know what the height limit was for their particular type of property.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) who was not a member of the committee but was one of the sponsors of the resolution, opposed the denial of the resolution and thought the program the last couple years had gone great. “The community definitely embraces and supports it with a very vocal majority.
“As far as questions about the success of this program, the No Mow May project or practices have been promoted and advocated in Science Daily since 2019, the Guardian in 2019, Sierra Club 2020, Now Toronto 2021; even Better Homes and Gardens was promoting this in 2020, so this isn’t a practice that is surrounded by a lot of controversy or contention in the scientific world. Rather, these are practices that are being promoted based on sound science.
“The taking up of these practices and the practical application of them is where the controversy is; whether or not neighbors and communities want to do this is where the controversy is. So, I think that unless we have some more detailed studies brought to us saying specific examples of how No Mow May has caused any sort of harm, I think instead we’re—in the absence of that, we are left with a lot of evidence that No Mow May is doing really good things in our community.
“I want to remind everybody that the rusty patch bumblebee made its home in Appleton. […] We are living in a time where a lot of species that we rely on are dwindling in number, are experiencing rising sickness, and are migrating to find better habitats, and our area in the mid-west is one of those sort of refuge or sanctuary areas which gives these endangered species a chance, and the presence of the rusty patch bumble bee, I think, really tells us just how important our community is and how important it is for practices such as Now Mow May to be taking place here.”
Alderperson Siebers wanted to clarify, “We are not saying that we’re not gonna have No Mow May month. We’re gonna have it, but we’re just not gonna make it permanent.”
Alderperson Meltzer asked, if the resolution was denied, how would No Mow May be able to happen?
A staff member responded that in past years it had been brought before the Municipal Services Committee for annual approval. That had not happened yet this year, so he assumed that if this resolution did not pass then that annual approval process would have to be started.
Attorney Behrens added that the memo prepared by Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey included a recommendation that if the resolution were denied that they continue with the annual review of No Mow May which implied that there would still be a review process to have it again this year.
Alderperson Siebers asked, if it was denied, did they need to make a motion to have No Mow May continue this year.
Attorney Behrens recommendation was that if they denied it they should bring forward something separate at a future meeting regarding No Mow May for 2022. That would both keep it clean and also allow staff some time to put together any recommendations they may have regarding it.
Alderperson Prohaska had a couple of questions. Point 2 in the memo stated “The annual request provides a perfect opportunity to promote the program and educate on the ‘WHY’ behind No Mow May.” Was the city actively promoting No Mow Many. Had the city actively promoted it in the past two years, or had only the Pollenablers promoted it?
A staff member answered that the city had not actively promoted it, but simply the process of going through committee made it more noticeable. It had appeared in newspaper articles in the past. One of the reasons staff supported an annual review was because doing that would bring the topic up on an annual basis which would get it in front of the public, whereas if a permanent change were made everything would happen silently.
Staff was not against No Mow May, but they preferred the current process that had been used the last two years. The program had been successful, and they didn’t feel that change was warranted.
Alderperson Prohaska clarified that the city hadn’t been actively promoting it. Promotion had only been a result of public interest in the committee process. He wondered, were the resolution to pass, would it be hard for the city to put something on its website annually to let people know No Mow May was happening.
The staff said that was beyond the scope of the Public Works Department and the city had a separate arm for promoting that type of thing.
Alderperson Prohaska moved on and wanted to know what the “beneficial discretion” was that staff was worried about losing if the resolution was passed.
The staffer thought that the discretion was primarily related to the height of the grass.
Attorney Behrens also added that if the height limit was changed and the Inspections Department came across a nuisance property that was clearly not participating in the program the Inspections Department would not be able to address the problems with that property until June 1st, whereas under the last couple years of operation, if that type of property was identified and Inspections could establish that they were not participating in the No Mow May program, they had the ability to take enforcement actions before June 1st.
Alderperson Prohaska asked if there had been any situations in which a nuisance property had been cited during the past two No Mow Mays because they had been found to be not participating in the program. He was trying to see if this was an actual problem or if it was simply something they were worried might happen.
The staffer answered that they had been called out to properties. He didn’t have any numbers and he didn’t have any specific examples, but he suspected there had been cases where it was obviously a vacant property.
Alderperson Prohaska asked if there had been any fines issued during No Mow May in the past two years.
The staffer responded that he didn’t know specifically but he suspected that there had been a few instances where that had happened.
Alderperson Schultz asked if staff would be amendable to the resolution including separate enforcement language on properties that were deemed vacant or delinquent or would that make things more convoluted?
He went on to say that Appleton’s partnership with Pollenablers – Fox Cities was a requirement for Appleton to maintain its Bee City affiliation from the Xerces Society. [They do require the establishment of a standing Bee City USA committee to advocate for pollinators in order for a city to become a Bee City affiliate.] He said that for the last couple years the Pollenablers group had done most of the heavy lifting and they would be eager to work more with the city on this partnership, covering fees, and working on spaces to try to educate the public a little more broadly. He thought they did need to be promoting No Mow May more by sharing information on the city’s website and in the spring and fall mailers.
Regarding the height, he was amendable to removing the height increase portion of the resolution. “That was really an attempt to sort of bring us in line with other communities around us who have just a straight 12-inch height restriction, and there’s a number of them.”
What they were trying to do with the resolution was to encode it into the city’s municipal code so that it didn’t have to come before Council every year and endure contentious arguments because that was what had happened every single year.
[I wasn’t following local politics closely back in the spring of 2020 when they first implemented No Mow May, but I followed it last year and this year also. My impression is that the contention last year and this year was not about No Mow May itself but about the changes that the proponents of it tried to implement each year. Last year they wanted to create a one week grace period so that people who had not yet mowed their lawn by June 1st would have an extra week to do that before they received a citation. This year they wanted to both put No Mow May permanently into the municipal code and also increase the height limit on grass from 8” to 12”. Those changes all warranted discussion and scrutiny, and I suspect that without them the No Mow May approval process would have been less contentious both last year and this year.]
He went on to say, “I’m unsure why we want to repeat this on an annual basis when the numbers that we’ve seen, the complaints that we’ve seen, have not grown.” When compared to 2019, the number of complaints had not increased since the implementation of No Mow May. They didn’t seem to have a lot of contention between neighbors; they hadn’t heard of houses starting on fire because they were letting their grass grow so long it became a fire hazard; they had not heard of rat or rodent infestations.
He thought an increase in insects had created a chain reaction resulting in more birds of prey such as hawks and owls. “And I think it’s in part due to us sort of naturalizing the way we treat our lawns and giving them a little bit more space to be what they would be if we weren’t here. And that’s really the goal of this program is to get us to start thinking—it’s not just to let your lawn grow ’til June 1st.”
No Mow May was a gateway into other conversations about reducing the amount of fertilizers people were putting on their lawns so it doesn’t end up in the Fox River and reducing the amount of herbicides and pesticides they use so that they’re not killing off everything and creating dead zones where pollinators don’t have a chance to thrive. “With a 60-70% decrease in pollenating insects, we have got to do something.”
He said that the study Professor Del Toro did demonstrated scientifically that this small thing Appleton did as a community had a significant impact on pollinator numbers. “He did a study last year; it wasn’t the same study, so it’s hard to compare those numbers, but we suspect that this is a good thing. And we’ve heard from other communities that it’s a good thing.”
He didn’t understand the fear about putting this permanently into the code. He said he would be open to removing the language about the height limits. He also said that if June 1st was a problem, then they could make the deadline May 20th or 23rd. The purpose was to give the low flowering plants some time to grow. “It doesn’t have to be No Mow May; it can be Slow Mow May, but we’ve got to get beyond having to come here every year to go through this conversation when [it’s] already been demonstrated that it works, that the community’s engaged, they like it, and that there really hasn’t been an increase in additional staff resources, time, or significant community complaints between neighbors.”
Alderperson Hartzheim agreed that there might not have been many formal complaints on the record but she thought that there was probably more than one alderperson in the room who has received informal complaints. People sometimes don’t want to necessarily come forward and make a big stink between each other, but they do have problems and questions that they talk about with each other. “Even though we don’t have a record of formal complaints, I think that there’s still a lot of contention among neighbors just in that regard. I personally have heard many things from my neighbors in this regard, and they’re very concerned about this particular policy. And if nothing else, the last two years has shown us that science does change.” She believed that if the program worked and was fully supportable, there was no reason they couldn’t come back each year and make sure that they were reaffirming and pushing the initiative forward. They should always be following up and making sure that it was tweaked to be satisfactory to all the residents of Appleton.
Alderperson Fenton had a question about enforcement over the last two years. Her recollection was that for the previous two years they had just said that they wouldn’t enforce the weed ordinance until June 1st, but, as far as she was aware, the city had not kept a registry of who was participating. Some people posted signs indicating they were participating, but others may not have. She didn’t recall there being any language in the resolution that said anything about selectively enforcing the municipal code if someone wasn’t participating in the program. She wondered how making No Mow May a part of the municipal code would result in a loss of flexibility and if someone on staff could talk about how that would happen. [I thought that was a good question and something I had been wondering about the entire meeting.]
Attorney Behrens responded first to her use of the term “selective enforcement” and said that he wanted to be really careful about throwing that term around.
Regarding the flexibility staff had, his point was that if a 12” maximum height was codified then that was what staff was limited to. The last two times No Mow May had been held, there had been a general agreement that staff would exercise their discretion in not enforcing the weeds and wild growth code, but if they ran across a property that was particularly problematic, they would still have the discretion to enforce under those circumstances. “The point I’m making here is that if you change that, that discretion will go away. It starts now at 12 inches vs the 8 inches, which is okay for you to do if that’s what you want to do. I just want to make sure you understand that.”
In regards to Alderperson Schultz’s suggestion that some other enforcement language could be added, Attorney Behrens didn’t think that was necessary. If the Common Council was comfortable with 12 inches then that was what staff would work with. He just wanted to make the point that if they change the code then that is what is going to apply. Staff would no longer have the level of discretion that they had previously if they would have needed it. He wasn’t sure if there had been any instances in which staff had actually needed to use that discretion, but if the code was changed whether they had used it or not, the option to use it would disappear. He wanted everybody to understand that.
A staffer added that during the last committee meeting, Inspections Supervisor Craanen had shared some examples of situations where the property was not participating in No Mow May, such as a property being vacant and abandoned and the next door neighbors know that the property is not participating in No Mow May and would like to have the grass cut.
[I actually went back and looked at the language of the resolution from 2020. It read, “for the duration of the month of May, the City of Appleton shall suspend the enforcement of Municipal Code Chapter 12, Article III – Weeds and Wild Growth, permitting all residents to voluntarily delay law-care and liter removal practices until June, allowing pollinators to emerge and early flowering grasses and forbes to establish, which may result in ground-cover exceeding established ordinance height restrictions.” I’m not a lawyer, but my impression is that it would allow a lot more flexibility, and one could make a solid argument that the suspension of enforcement was specific to residents who were taking steps to help pollinators. The language of the current resolution, however, nowhere mentioned that the intention was to help pollinators and instead just made a blanket change to the municipal code.]
Alderperson Fenton said that there still existed the noxious weed requirement that prevented people from having those. She asked if, in the case of abandoned properties, that gave some more leeway in requiring them to mow their yards even during the program period.
Attorney Behrens responded by first saying that regardless of whether or not this resolution was passed and the municipal code updated, the city was still going to receive complaints and investigate them. Their reluctance to the permanent change was that it took away their flexibilities. He didn’t think the process used in the past had been a bad process. It had been a very successful program. They would just prefer that it be approved annually because circumstances and environmental conditions change. They could not assume that because it had worked perfectly for three years that it would continue to work great forever. Staff was more comfortable with the program as it currently existed than which the proposed changes.
Alderperson Michael Smith (District 12) who was not a member of the committee but was present said he liked the idea of keeping it an annual event that gets discussed yearly. Instead of looking at it as being complaint driven and something that needed to be debated and argued, he viewed it as an event like Octoberfest or the parade that have to brought forward and voted on every year. If No Mow May was catching on and, like Alderperson Schultz said, there were not many complaints about it then bringing it out every year did let them promote it. If things changed down the line, reviewing it annually would allow them to act on those changes without having to modify the municipal code again.
He agreed that alderpersons had not gotten many complaints but rather more questions about what was going on.
His one concern was with the grass clippings not being properly disposed of and ending up on the street which was a safety hazard for bicyclists and motorcyclists. He also didn’t know how many grass clippings ended up getting washed down the drains, causing problems for the water/sewer utilities.
Alderperson Meltzer wanted to clarify that changing the maximum yard height from 8” to 12” was “not to avoid confusion in the sense of people being confused about how long their lawn should be. It’s more the confusion as to ‘why are we an outlier?’ Why are we not more consistent with other communities?
“And I think that when we are positioning ourselves as champions of environmental initiatives, I think that that’s an important part of the context. We can’t say ‘hey, we’re trying to find a better way’ but we’re actually doing this one small thing in a way that all the other communities around us are doing better, and we don’t care. So, I do think that that is perhaps more of a sort of a philosophical question, and as one of the authors of this resolution if the committee finds the whole thing more palatable to make an amendment and take the changing of the height restriction out of this altogether, I’m very comfortable with separating those things. I understand that that could be its own entire discussion.”
In regard to Alderperson Smith’s concerns about grass clippings, Alderperson Meltzer pointed out that it was already illegal to put grass clippings in the road and the city had enforcement mechanisms to deal with that.
Regarding bringing No Mow May back every year for an annual review, “It fills the community with anxiety. It—you know people look at this wonderful initiative that they’re doing, and then they have to ask, ‘but are the powers that be going to allow me to do this?’ And I don’t think that that’s a positive environment. […] We can have conversations as frequently as we want on any topic, but putting things into our municipal code to make sure that they are trust-worthy, those two positions are not mutually exclusive. We have an entire municipal code full of things that someone at some point—that some group at some point—agreed were worth codifying so that we don’t have to come back and reinvent the wheel every single time.
“So, I think that there is a great benefit to be gained by putting this into our municipal code for our own time as elected officials for the sense of peace of mind and support of our constituents as we work together as a community, and I think that the discussions that we can have as a community about how we can grow and how we can do things better could build on that as a foundation and then we could get farther each year with the environmental progress that we make instead of just doing the exact same thing every year and basically we never move an inch forward; we just hold our ground. That’s not progress. And if we don’t want the pollinators that we rely on for our food supply to die out, we need progress. Holding our ground is not keeping them alive.”
Alderperson Schultz said, “This is not an event, this is a change in mentality and practices for something we do throughout our summer.” It wasn’t a one-time opportunity to go out and drink. It was a change in what the city was allowing its residents to do with their property, and “I would think that members of this council who believe in personal property rights would sort of lean into this notion that people should have some jurisdiction over what they’re trying to do on their lawns.”
He pointed out that the city does pilot projects all the time and then once they have analyzed them and determined they worked they encode it into the municipal code. They have done No Mow May for two years without seeing any significant increase in complaints. The Pollenablers group had done a decent job of education the community and had stepped up to remove grass clippings of their own accord. They were simply asking that next year they not have to spend two meetings in a row discussing whether or not the program was worthwhile when they know that it’s worthwhile.
There were so many more important things that the Municipal Services Committee would need to be addressing as they started working on the recommendations of the climate task force. (https://www.appleton.org/government/common-council/committees/taskforce-on-resiliency-climate-mitigation-and-adaptation) No Mow May was one small thing that most of the community was embracing and loved to see happening, and he didn’t see the need to be reviewing it every year when they have seen the results and the scientific evidence, and there had not been a huge backlash to it.
If they had to change it next year because staff came back and said something was not working out then they could do that, but reviewing it every year created anxiety about whether the program was going to continue. “Appleton, Wisconsin was the first community in the United States to pilot this project. We brought it over from Britain; we started it here; and it is taking off like wildfire.” It had been mentioned in a lot of magazines and there would probably be more than 25 Wisconsin communities participating this year. “We started this and we need to continue to move forward and take the lead in how we present it to the rest of the community.”
If there were issues after codifying it, they could deal with those. There were already codes and statutes locally and at the state level about noxious weeds. “So please, please, let’s just get this into the code and we’ll deal with ramifications next year or the year after if it becomes an issue which it has not.”
Alderperson Siebers made a successful motion to call the question. The committee voted down the motion to deny the resolution by a 2-3 vote with Alderpersons Siebers and Doran voting for the denial and Alderpersons Firkus, Fenton, and Prohaska voting against the denial.
Alderperson Prohaska then made a motion to approve the resolution, seconded by Alderperson Fenton.
He asked if there was any further discussion on the item and commented that he thought they had pretty much said everything they needed to say. The motion to approve, however, also failed by a 2-3 vote with Alderpersons Fenton and Prohaska voting in favor of it and Alderpersons Siebers, Firkus, and Doran voting against it.
Alderperson Siebers asked if alderperson Firkus was clear on his vote.
Alderperson Firkus explained that he had been trying to get the Chair’s attention before they voted which is why he voted against the motion. “I’m not in favor of passing this resolution as written. I do prefer that we would do the annual. If we—from the recommendation before is that we do a denial of this, but I would be willing to either entertain doing a substitute resolution to do what we’ve done the previous two years with an annual resolution here or to at the very minimum take out the changes to the height that would move everything up to twelve inches.”
Attorney Behrens asked Alderperson Firkus to confirm if he was making a motion by substitution.
Alderperson Firkus answered, “Well, yeah, I’ll make the motion by substitution for us to enact a No Mow May for 2022 consistent with the rules that we have used the previous two years.”
Alderperson Siebers seconded that.
Alderperson Doran had a point of order he wanted to clarify. They had voted twice, and the second vote was to deny so would not the recommendation to Council be recorded as a motion to deny? Additionally, since the item had already been voted on, were they allowed to go back and make an amendment to it?
Attorney Behrens answered that technically they had two motions, neither of which were approved. The chairperson had now called on a virtual member who couldn’t be seen because his image on the screen was frozen and how had been trying to get the attention of the committee. “Is the alder suggesting we ignore his ability to offer a motion by amendment because we couldn’t see him?”
Alderperson Doran responded that he just wanted to make sure they were following the proper rules.
Attorney Behrens stated that it was at the Chair’s discretion. The Chair had allowed Alderperson Firkus to speak, and Alderperson Firkus had offered a motion to amend while nothing else technically was on the floor, “so I’m inclined to allow this legislative process to continue rather than denying him the opportunity to offer him an amendment, and possibly get this moving on in an amended form.”
Alderperson responded, “Sure. Technology challenges aside, I guess I just want to make sure we’re—if it’s at the chair’s discretion that’s fine.”
Alderperson Firkus had not been aware that his image on the screen was frozen and that the other meeting participants could not see him. And the revelation that he had not been viewable cleared up why his efforts to be noticed and called on had not been responded to.
The committee voted for a third time on the motion to amend by substitution. This passed by a 3-2 vote with Alderpersons Siebers, Firkus, and Prohaska voting in favor and Alderpersons Fenton and Doran voting against.
[I would expect to see this undergo more discussion during the Common Council meeting. Honestly, I didn’t feel like either side made their cases very well. The side claiming neighbors were silently upset by long No Mow May yards really should have worked harder to actually bring some evidence of that and maybe convince some residents to actually show up and voice their concerns. I just don’t see much reason to believe someone who says “trust me; people don’t like this” when there’s no evidence for that.
It would also have been helpful if staff could have actually given some numbers as to how many times they needed to use their discretionary enforcement powers during the last two years.
It was also surprising to me how much grass length didn’t seem to actually matter to the authors of the resolution. Not only was Alderperson Schultz right off the bat willing to remove the language increasing the grass height to 12” but he even expressed willingness to decrease the length of No Mow May and end it on the 20th instead of the 31st.
From a property rights standpoint, I’m reflexively in favor of increasing the grass height limit because I think people should have a broad right to do what they want with their own property even if their neighbors think it’s ugly.
But viewing this from a program effectiveness standpoint, I didn’t see a compelling reason to permanently put it into the municipal code. It does appear that the current way of doing things gives staff more enforcement flexibility than this resolution, if it had passed unamended, would have provided. Beyond that, the health of the program itself seems very dependent on the involvement of the Pollenablers group. The Pollenablers is a necessary component for Appleton to maintain its status as a Bee City affiliate, and they’re the ones who have been providing signs and education about the program as well as collecting grass clippings. If they fall apart or their numbers decrease because interest has waned, it seems like Appleton could end up in a situation where there was no community group to manage a program that has now been codified into city ordinance.
So, in the end, I award no points to anyone in this discussion, and may God have mercy on their souls.]
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=922396&GUID=27202F2D-D165-44B3-BC74-314C0FADA15F
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