Common Council Approves Resolution 2-R-22 Which Includes Funding For A Comprehensive IT Analysis And A Pedestrian Safety Study

The Common Council met 03/16/2022 and took up Resolution 2-R-22 the Resolution to Improve Communication, Technology, And Pedestrian Safety.

This resolution was amended during the Finance Committee meeting to reflect the recommendations of staff. Those recommendations were:

• Allocate $75,000 to hire a consultant to provide recommendations regarding the enhanced crosswalk program and city-wide pedestrian safety enhancements
• Allocate $60,000 to hire a contractor to provide a comprehensive analysis of the city’s IT systems
• Hold $100,000 for website re-design
• Hold remaining $100,000 for Enhanced Crosswalk program
• Hold remaining $90,000 for technology upgrades

The Common Council made one minor amendment to clarify that the $75,000 was to hire a consultant to provide recommendations on “pedestrian safety” not on the “enhanced crosswalk program”. They then voted 10-3 to defeat a motion to remove the pedestrian safety portion of the resolution, with Alderpersons Matthew Reed (District 8 ), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), and Chad Doran (District 15) being the only ones voting in favor of the removal. The Council then voted unanimously to approve the resolution.

Now for the full recap:

Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) started the discussion by amending the resolution to clarify that the $75,000 and the remaining dollars held were to to go to “pedestrian safety” study not the “enhanced crosswalk program”. She thought she knew where the issue arose from and explained that when she made the motion to amend the resolution during the Finance Committee, “I specifically said ‘pedestrian safety’ instead of ‘enhanced crosswalk’ and reiterated that later in the meeting, but when Attorney Behrens asked ‘is this as written?’ I assume he meant as the money.”

No one had any questions or comments on the amendment, and it passed 13-0.

The Council then moved on to talking about the amended resolution.

Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) left speaking about the pedestrian safety portion of the resolution to other alderpersons but did want to comment on the website redesign and technology upgrades portion of the resolution. She said that she had the opportunity recently to meet with the city’s new IT Director, Corey Popp, and, “I came away massively impressed with what he—his vision for the department, his analysis of where we are as a city I.T. department, what our needs are as the department. And it was very clear that we have some immediate needs. And in the committee, Director Popp very eloquently explained those, possibly more than some of our non-IT nerd colleagues on the committee were interested in, but very—explained very well the need for the immediate allocation. And based on the services that we’re getting for that allocation I think it is a bargain and will be money well spent, and so I strongly support this.”

She also felt that they needed to make the city’s website more accessible and said that 20% of the questions she answers for constituents involved information that is on the website but just too hard to find.

Alderperson Kristin Alfheim echoed Alderperson Fenton’s comments. She thought Director Popp’s rundown of what those dollars would be spent on was extremely well laid out. She loved the fact that he was utilizing what the city had as much as possible to keep the cost down.

Regarding the pedestrian safety study, she agreed that $70,000 was a lot of money. She thought that the initial intent was the safety of crossing busy streets, but pointed out that many alderpersons had been concerned about traffic patterns, traffic noise, and speed etc. for a number of years. She supported funding this study because it would not just be looking at crosswalks. She wanted them to look at things like speed and whether there was more traffic in an area that they anticipated. She supported the resolution.

Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) asked wanted to know what the staff members of the Public Works Department envisioned the pedestrian study accomplishing.

Traffic Engineer Eric Lomexplained that pedestrian safety was really about Complete Streets (https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/complete-streets), sometimes referred to as “Vision Zero” (https://visionzeronetwork.org/about/what-is-vision-zero/). Crosswalks were just a small slice of the Complete Streets pie. There was a whole number of things that could be looked at ranging from pedestrian crosswalks, to neighborhood traffic calming, to the way arterial streets were designed, to enforcement. The vision for the study that had been discussed by staff was to look at the totality of where the city was going as a Complete Streets community and make sure that they were investing the limited funds that they have in the places that were going to benefit the community the most.

Alderperson Doran thought the IT study would be focused on things that they knew they needed to address now. They had talked about critical issues with the network and with security, and funding that study would give them problems that needed to be addressed right now and that they would probably be willing to commit funding to.

Regarding the pedestrian safety study, he did like that it moved away from focusing simply on enhanced crosswalks which the earlier version of the resolution had focused on. “I can tell you enhanced crosswalks are not going to solve reckless driving, and they’re not gonna stop speeders.” He agreed it was a bigger issue in how streets, sidewalks, and crosswalks were designed. He was not, however, sure that the allocation was a good use of city funds at this time when the study might sit on the shelf for several years.

Technology in this area of pedestrian safety alone has changed a lot over the last few years. He was worried that three years from now when the current enhanced crosswalk program ended that the results of the study would be outdated. He made an amendment to remove the funding for the pedestrian safety study at this time and leave the $75,000 in the fund where it currently sat.

Alderperson Hartzheimagreed with what Alderperson Doran said. She also thought that after the IT study was conducted that they might find that some of the pedestrian safety dollars were urgently needed for IT needs. She encouraged the other alderpersons to vote for the amendment. “The worst that it does is leave those dollars for now, and we can move them forward for pedestrian safety later should we need to do that.”

Director of Public Works Paula Vandeheyhad a point of clarification. She thought city staff had a good history not doing study and then letting them sit on the shelf. “There will be things that would come out of the study that we can implement right away.” It might just be to alter street designs in a certain way moving forward. Whatever it was, they would want to learn from the study and implement the pieces they could immediately.

Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) said that, setting aside emails on hot topics, when she received emails from constituents expressing concerns about a problem “90% of them have then traffic and noise related. […] The real person in my district that’s calling up isn’t about trying to solve a world problem, it isn’t about trying to change something across the country. It’s ‘I live here and I have a problem here’, and in in my downtown area the issue is speed and noise.” She wanted to figure out how to make these problems better. They did not have the resources to ticket their way out of it and needed to find an engineering solution to the problem. If staff was saying the best use of city funds was to bring in somebody who understood municipal traffic flow to look at the big picture, then she thought that was warranted. She was going to vote against removing the pedestrian study from the resolution.

Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2)agreed with that, saying, “My constituents as well are extremely concerned about this,” and went on to express the thought that there had been a sense of inequality among the city’s districts in terms of the enhancements that they were or were not receiving. “So, I think the study is exactly what we need in order to resolve that bottleneck, in order to really take a big bird’s eye view picture of how to more efficiently implement the right safety features that we need. I hear about this regularly from my constituents. I have heard from constituents who are very, very happy that this has been introduced as a resolution.”

Alderperson Fenton said that she and some of the other even numbered alderpersons were in the middle of campaigning. As she had talked to people bike safety and pedestrian safety had come up multiple times. She thought that the technology changes Alderperson Doran had mentioned were a reason to conduct a study because the current enhanced crosswalk policy was over 5 years old. Given that development had changed in a lot of the city’s neighborhoods with the addition of some large apartment complexes, they had done a lot of street redesign, and the policy had not changed since 2016, she thought an updated study was a wise investment.

Alderperson Van Zeelandsaid that everybody knew how she felt about this and how her district felt about it. “When I hear my colleagues say ‘enhanced crosswalks aren’t going to stop speeders’ I think ‘well maybe it won’t but does that mean we don’t try anything else?’ You know, how do I—how do I defend that to my constituents? What happens if a child gets hit by a car in the area where we’re having trouble? I just tell them ‘We didn’t know what to do?’ That’s not acceptable. So, I would ask everyone to defeat this amendment.”

Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) who is not running for reelection and whose term is up in a couple weeks spoke. “This is my last go around on Council for a while at least, and one of the most disappointing aspects of this job was not being able to get a neighborhood a safer crosswalk because of the rules that we have and the lack of funds that we have. All they wanted was a sign that said ‘Slow Children Playing’, but we don’t think they work. They do. They’re the ones that live there; they’re the ones that need to feel safe; we don’t. I also had the—had myself told that if we put them there, we have to put them everywhere in the city. Not everywhere in my district was asking them for. One intersection. That was that it. One. And it couldn’t be done. I beg you, please, defeat this, and let’s get this passed and get some money on this, and let’s get public safety our top priority.”

Alderperson Firkusfinished out the discussion by saying, “When I think about what we can be as far as pedestrian safety, I think about Appleton being the kind of city where a family with young children can hop on their bikes and go get ice cream. I think about this becoming a city where empty nesters that are semi-retired can hop in their electro cargo bike and go get groceries. I want to see us become a city where those become easy and viable options, and if this study will help us get there then I support it, and I do not support this amendment.”

No alderpersons had any further comments or questions on the amendment and they voted 3-10 to deny the motion, with Alderpersons Reed, Hartzheim, and Doran being the three votes in favor.

The Council also had no further comments or questions about the main item, so they immediately went on to vote on the main item and approved it 13-0.

[I do like the broadening of the focus from enhanced crosswalks to pedestrian safety in general, and overall, it seems like a much more beneficial use of funds than a city rebranding effort.]

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=917290&GUID=0B782C69-BC42-4B96-8C02-C9B0DF17B8BB