The Common Council met 04/06/2022. This was the last meeting of this Council cycle. On 04/19/2022 the newly elected council members will be sworn in ahead of the first regular Council meeting on 04/20/2022. The Council lost 4 current members. Alderpersons Joe Martin (District 4), Matt Reed (District 8 ), and Joe Prohaska (District 14) all chose to not run for re-election, and Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10) lost his election (although he did win a seat on the Outagamie County Board of Supervisors).
At the end of the April 6 meeting, Mayor Woodford and the Common Council took time to say goodbye to their departing colleagues. Rather than recap their words in the third person, I think the heartfelt nature of their various statements will come across better in the first person. Below is a loose transcription of their statements. They have been cleaned up a little bit and are not word-for-word transcriptions but they are generally representative of what was said.
Mayor Woodford: This being the first meeting of April and the last of this council year we have the bittersweet opportunity to send off those who are leaving the council. So first I just want to start off by thanking committee chairs for your work over the last year. That’s one of the notes that went around. If you chaired a committee, I just thank you very much for your leadership. We appreciate it. None of the work of the Council would be possible without committee chairs managing these meetings and working with staff to set agendas. Thank you very much for your leadership. A lot of great work was done in this last year.
I also want to take the opportunity to thank our Council President [Alderperson Reed] and Vice President [Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5)] for the trip over the Council year. It was certainly a complicated year in many ways for us, and I really appreciate the partnership and work together to keep us all move in together. Thank you very much for your leadership.
And as is a bit of tradition, I have a gavel for you Alderperson Reed so if you if you want to come up, we’ll get a picture. Thank you for your service.
[Somebody off microphone made a joke about Alderperson Van Zeeland having broken the gavel, and the people present laughed.]
Mayor Woodford [lightheartedly]: I heard about that. I heard about the broken gavel, but you put it back together so it’s good. So, Matt, this is this is a gavel recognizing your services as council president.
I also have tokens of appreciation for those of you who are leaving the Council. I have these here, so make sure you stop by before you head out so I can give you a token of our appreciation and recognition for your service on the Council. But now I’d really like to open the floor for those of you who are at your last meeting with us. If you’d like to say anything, this is this is your time, and also for Council colleagues if you’d like to say something about colleagues who are leaving the Council, we’ll really open up the floor. I’ll just ask that you seek recognition we’ll keep the queue just so we stay in order so just use your speak button on your tablet, and we’ll set up a queue.
Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10): I Thought I’d be in the queue not to in the lead. I just want to say it’s been six years since I’ve dusted these chairs, and it’s been a good two years—very strange with Covid. We didn’t have a chance to bond like we would have under normal years so that was a big miss. But it’s been fun. Working with you for the last two years has been quite enjoyable. I’ll miss that. But I am moving onto the big apartment in the sky and moving on up. So, it’s not that I won’t have a home for the next two years.
I want to thank my colleagues for their help, for their support, and for their friendliness over the years, even though sometimes it’s been a little curt, but, hey, if you don’t have friction, you don’t get anywhere. So, thank you all.
And to the department heads, I’m gonna miss Paula [Vandehey, the Director of Public Works]—course I’m gonna be out before Paula which surprises me. But the I’m gonna miss a lot of the department heads, ones that I’ve known for years and ones I have gotten to know these last two years. It’s been fun talking with them and getting their guidance and help when I needed it too. It’s been a good two years. Thank you.
Alderperson Martin: Thank you mayor. I started off my invocation with a lot of thank you’s. It really has been a joy of a ride or role as I call it, and I can’t say enough about the staff.
A lot of people pointed fingers at me over the years that I was a yes man for everything the staff wanted to do. What I did do is I did my due diligence. I did my research. I got the answers I needed from staff.
Same way with resolutions. I really never put in a resolution that I did not check and dot the Is and cross the Ts. And I can’t tell you, we are so privileged to have the attorney and his staff of attorneys doing the work they do for the city. I applaud the fact that the mayor reaches out to the attorney. Thank you very much. Thank you all for allowing me to be a part of your lives. thank you.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2): I would like to thank all of my outgoing colleagues for serving with me. I do want particularly to say some words for Alderperson Martin though. I feel that personally Alderperson Martin is one of the colleagues who mentored me when I first arrived on Council. I just got this wonderful thank you for chairing the Utilities Committee. I would not have been in the seat to chair the Utilities Committee without Alderperson Martin’s mentorship, and I just want to say thank you so much. Fourteen years is a really long time. You’ve built a really huge legacy and done some amazing things for our city and our community, and I am so honored that I was able to be there for part of your ride, and I have learned so much from you, and I will continue to carry forward the wonderful things that that you have put into place in Appleton. Thank you.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6): To my colleagues who are leaving, I want to paraphrase something I said during the campaign this week. Anybody who seeks to serve on the Common Council is doing it out of the desire to work for their community. Nobody gets rich or famous serving as an alderperson and you get a lot of flak sometimes, so I am grateful to my colleagues who are moving on to other positions or stepping aside, and thank those of you who were here before me for your mentorship and your guidance and especially for your desire to serve our community. Thank you.
Alderperson Maiyoua Thao (District 7): I just wanted to say thanks to my colleagues. It was a privilege for me to—an honor to serve with you. I learned so much from you. I would carry on many things that I learned from you and I’m looking forward to seeing you in the community and hoping to work with you, and, you never know, I may be calling you for something. Thank you so much.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3): I just want to say thank you to all my colleagues that are outgoing for their service. Whether it was a shorter span or longer span, I think the community is better because of all of you and all the things you’ve done. I enjoyed being able to work side by side with many of you through the committees and what not.
Definitely Alderperson Martin, I want to say your name probably comes up more quickly than any other person I’ve served with when I’m talking to people in the community, and it is almost always in good light. So, you have definitely, with your many years of service, made quite an impression on this community. And I know you’re not done with being involved, but this is I guess the jump up to the next stage.
Mayor Woodford: Is there anybody else? Alderperson Wolff, are you gonna call the question? [This was a joke because Alderperson Wolff is the alderperson who probably most regularly makes motions to call the question when discussions drag on too long, to the gratitude of at least myself if not other viewers and perhaps even other alderpersons.]
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) [lightheartedly]: Yeah. Don’t test me; I might.
So, let’s start with Joe. First you are a fantastic alderperson. You’re always there for people, you always listen to people. Yes, I’m talking to both of you at once. [Both Joe Martin and Joe Prohaska] It’s easier this way. You’re both great alderpersons. Your dedication to your craft has always been there, and you have always been there to help me and other people that you know who might need someone just to talk to or look over a resolution or something like that. You’ll both be missed and so will your work ethic.
Mike you’re probably one of the first people I talked to when I walked into this room for the first time. You were always nice to me, so I appreciate that as well, and you’ve helped the city with some very good resolutions as well.
Matt it’s been—sometimes we don’t always agree on things, but I know at the end of the day you do you care about the city, and I appreciate your dedication to the city. Thank you.
Alderperson Kristine Alfheim (District 11): Joe you were the first call I received a year ago and you yelled at me that day to make sure that I got on the noise and the speed and the traffic and the pedestrians, and you let me have it right away, saying this was important–to the point where I think you told me to CALL you—with capital letters—about five times. Now today being your last day, I find you just yelled at me from across the table again but this time congratulating everybody because we just had the mayor released his pedestrian and noise and all of that stuff. So, you you’ve been pushing for it since the day I got here and now you’re done, and congratulations to you. It’s been an honor. Thank you.
Mayor Woodford: Anybody else? All right. Thank you. It is bitter sweet; this meeting’s a bittersweet one. And we will miss our colleagues who are leaving and are truly grateful to everybody who stepped up to run.
Those of us who hold elected office know what it’s like to put ourselves out there, and so I just wanna say as somebody who’s experienced that too—and we all have—it’s a big deal to run for office. I deeply appreciate everybody who ran, everybody who serves in elected office. Thank you for what you do.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=937634&GUID=75F4EC26-68B4-4D7A-B3CB-F38192016A7E
Be the first to reply