The Common Council held two organizational meetings last week, an informal meeting on 04/19/2022 and a formal meeting on 04/20/2022. During those two meetings, particularly the informal meeting, they discussed proposed rules changes for the Council and then during the formal meeting they voted on whether or not to implement the changes.
They also elected a Council President and Vice-President. Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) who served as Vice-President last year, was elected at Council President, and Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2), who previously served as Vice-President during the 2019-20 Council Year, was elected at Vice-President.
The Council took up 7 potential rule changes, but only voted to approve two of them.
The first rule they approved was one that allowed resolutions to be withdrawn by the author either (a) at the committee level if no action had been taken on it or (b) at the Council level subject to the consent of 2/3 of the Council members present.
This was approved with minimal discussion. Alderperson Meltzer encouraged the alderpersons to approve it noting that they had already essentially assumed that such a rule existed and it was important to have this rule so they could continue conducting business effectively.
It passed 12-1 to with Alderpersons Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) voting nay.
The second rule that they approved regarded committee meeting times. Previously, committee meetings started no earlier than 4:30PM, but this rule change allowed them to move a meeting time to 4PM under special circumstances and was intended to help give more time to committees when they have a lot of items on their agendas.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) thought it would be worth giving the rule a try because there have been scenarios where it would have been useful. He hoped that they wouldn’t use it on a regular basis, but he wanted to at least give it a try for this year and see how it went.
Alderperson Van Zeeland appreciated the wording of the rule that stated it was for special circumstances which she thought was important. She supported the rule change.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) wasn’t sure how the rule would work in practice. Typically, on Mondays and Wednesdays the city had committee meetings start at 4:30PM. If the Chairpersons of those committees saw that the agendas were long it would be relatively easy for them to move their meetings to 4PM to give extra time. However, he didn’t know how this rule would work in practice for the meetings at 5:30PM and 6:30PM. The rule seemed like it would only benefit the first meetings that met at 4:30PM.
Mayor Woodford understood his question about the logistics but said that what they were talking about was the allowable start time of committee meetings, so Alderperson Schultz’s questions were not really germane to what they were voting on.
Alderperson Meltzer pointed out that a recent example of where this rule would have been useful to have in place was that the Finance Committee had needed to schedule a special meeting outside of normal times which interfered with the schedule of the Library Board. If this rule had been in place, the Finance Committee could have gone ahead and met at 4PM without inconveniencing the Library Board.
There were no further comments or questions and the Council voted 11-2 to approve the rule with Alderpersons Joss Thyssen (District 8 ) and Chris Croatt (District 14) voting nay.
The remaining 5 proposed rule changes were all voted down.
The first of those proposed rule changes regarding remote participation and would have changed the notice period to appear remotely from 24 hours to 48 hours.
There was minimal discussion on this, with only Alderperson Melter mentioning that requiring 48 hours’ notice instead of 24 was restrictive and compromised the Council’s ability to utilize remote access.
The rule was voted down 13-0
The second rule they voted down related to calling the question. It would have allowed a motion to call the question to be made once per item being considered and would have required a unanimous vote to call the question instead of a simple majority.
This also was discussed minimally during the formal organizational meeting. Alderperson Meltzer [rightly] noted that restricting calling the question in the manner that was being proposed completely compromised the function of calling the question and opened the door to the tool being abused.
The rule was voted down 13-0
The third proposed rule they voted down was one that would have taken committee appointment power away from the mayor and placed it in the hands of the Council President
Alderperson Van Zeeland opposed the rule and believed it would cause disharmony amongst the Council.
Alderperson Meltzer also opposed the rule and noted that, in addition to causing disharmony among the Council, it could also undermine the significant relationship building and hard work that the mayor does regarding how directors and staff interface with the Council through the committees.
The rule was voted down 13-0
The fourth rule they voted down would have created a new rule for how items were held. Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) had introduced this rule out of a desire to avoid instances where items get held indefinitely either at committee or Council. He thought this had happened in the past where the former mayor had assigned things to the Mayor’s Office that he didn’t agree with and then sat on. Committee chairs also had the option to not bring items forward. He thought that if someone brings forward an item it deserved consideration and it was something that should be taken up regardless of whether alderpersons agreed with it or not. This rule was an attempt to make sure that things kept moving along.
This did garner some discussion. Alderperson Hartzheim was in favor of it and thought that the changes that had been made allowing items to be held for a longer period at the request of staff improved the original version of the rule that Alderperson Doran had submitted.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) believed the rule was a solution in search of a problem and that it would add an unnecessary level of complication to committee work which generally runs quite smoothly.
At Alderperson Van Zeeland’s request, Clerk Kami Lynch explained how Granicus, the city’s public meeting and record management software, dealt with held items.
Clerk Lynch said that Granicus did have a type of action “To Hold” which allowed a date to be specified. Even if they didn’t specific the date an item would be held to, the agenda item would appear every time an agenda was generated until there was action on it. Held items would not be forgotten in Granicus and it took no additional work to manage held items. They also had the option to input action notes which was particularly useful for items that were held for long periods of time because they could specific when it was next scheduled to appear on an agenda.
Alderperson Van Zeeland thought that was important to know because there had been discussion and concern during the informal organizational meeting that things might get dropped or unable to be brought to the table. However, given how Granicus handles things, that did not seem to be the case.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) had asked during the informal organizational meeting about the status of Resolution 14-R-21, the Excessive Vehicle Noise Resolution. During the formal meeting he asked if they had a chance to follow up on that.
Mayor Woodford answered that the resolution had been held by the Safety and Licensing Committee. Alderperson Schultz had been a part of that discussion and had indicated that he understood it would take time for staff to work through that. The committee had not set a date for when the resolution would return to the committee for action, but the resolution could be revived at any time for action.
Mayor Woodford said that his understanding was the staff had continued to work on that resolution and respond to the issues outlined within it. One of those actions included a pilot program on traffic enforcement through the Police Department.
Alderperson Schultz had been aware that things were being worked on, but he appreciated the clarification and knowledge that the resolution was being held and worked on versus not being addressed anymore.
He went on to say that he didn’t see any reason to change the rule. He knew that staff was doing an excellent job with everything that comes at them and that some things just take time. He didn’t think things were getting lost in the shuffle.
There was not further discussion and the rule was voted down 11-2.
The final proposed rule change that was voted down would have increased the number of members on the Finance Committee from 5 to 7. I didn’t get an opportunity to watch the entire informal organizational meeting, but this does not seem to have been a rule that was brought forward or discussed at the informal organizational meeting but instead only appeared at the formal organizational meeting. Alderperson Doran was the alderperson who submitted it; unfortunately, he had had some sort of emergency with his house and was not able to attend the formal organizational meeting, so he wasn’t present to explain his reasoning being submitting this rule.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) started the discussion out by asking if anyone could explain why this rule change could be beneficial or not beneficial to the committee.
Mayor Woodford answered that he believed that was the purpose of the body’s deliberation.
Alderperson Meltzer opposed the change given that there hadn’t been sufficient discussion regarding the intention behind it and also because the rule suggested that the Finance Committee was more important that the other committees which wasn’t necessarily true. Setting up one of the standing committees to have more members than the others would upset the balance and didn’t seem appropriate.
Alderperson Hartzheim could not speak director for Alderperson Doran but he had mentioned some of his intent to her. The Finance Committee and the actions of the Finance Committee touch all other committees which gives more gravity to that particular committee. That was why it might be better to have more involvement by other alderpersons on that committee.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) asked if the City of Appleton had ever had more than 5 people on the Finance Committee.
Mayor Woodford believed there had been, but Appleton had also had more alderpersons at that time as well.
Alderperson Alfheim asked if the mayor, as the person appointing people to the committee, found it challenging to spread the membership around the committees and boards. Would it be challenging to appoint two more people to the Finance Committee.
Mayor Woodford responded, “My answer to the question may be frustrating, which is I’ll do what needs to be done and we’ll find a way to make those appointments. It is a challenge to meet all of the wishes of the group, and those challenges range from when folks are available, what meeting times are possible, but also where interests are, and there is significantly more interest in serving on the finance committee than we have available slots. That’s a fact. But that that doesn’t present significant challenges in making the other committee appointments work.”
Alderperson Alfheim asked if there had been any complaints in the last year by the Finance Committee that they didn’t have enough people to make rational decisions.
Mayor Woodford answered that he had not heard from the committee, but he had heard from other alderpersons who would like to be on the Finance Committee. As far as he knew, there were no issues with the ability of the Finance Committee to discharge its duties.
In light of that, Alderperson Alfheim wasn’t sure what the point of adding members to the Finance Committee was. Even if they weren’t on the committee, Alderpersons could still attend, ask questions, and make their points.
Alderperson Van Zeeland agreed with Alderperson Alfheim. As someone who served on the Finance Committee, she believed the conversations she had participated in were robust. They didn’t always have unanimous votes. She thought the committee did a good job of going through everything the way it needed to be gone through. “And I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but it makes me really uncomfortable to have a committee that’s half of the council.”
Alderperson Croatt liked the idea of expanding the Finance Committee. All committees did important work, but he felt that a lot of the very important things that they work on and approve that have dollars tied to them, come through Finance. The budget was a good example of that. They spend a lot of time going through the budget on Budget Saturday, and he thought more voices on the finance committee would be a good thing. He knew that there were a lot of people that wanted to be on the committee and would be disappointed that they weren’t placed on it. He didn’t see the negative to it, and he didn’t think it changed the important work that the other committees did.
Alderperson Israel Del Toro (District 4) did not like the change of power dynamics and thought it would cause items to be disproportionately influenced by the committee versus the Council.
Alderperson Fenton pointed out that committees do very important work. The work that comes out of committees are recommendations. Every recommendation then hits the full Council where it could be approved as recommended by the committee, or denied, or amended. So even those alderpersons not on a particular committee would have the opportunity to (a) participate as non-voting alderpersons at the committee meetings and (b) do the work again when the full Council met.
Alderperson Croatt, following up on her point that committee actions are recommendations, noted for the new Council members that the final decision does ultimately come to the full Council. That is their opportunity to debate. At the same time, at a committee meeting, alderpersons are allowed to contribute and participate but it’s not the same as being a voting member. He thought they should consider this change, and he didn’t really see the downside to it. He thought it would result in positives.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) thought that, from a practical standpoint, larger committees probably would result in longer meetings because there would be more members participating in that discussion. He knew that alderpersons not on the committee would come, talk, and ask questions, but typically there would be a point in time when the Chairperson would close discussion off to just members of the committee. He thought the likely outcome of more members would be longer meetings, and he thought this rule change would be at odds with the rule change they had implemented allowing meetings to start at 4PM which had been aimed at trying to deal with longer meetings.
Alderperson Van Zeeland wondered if rule would be precedent setting in that, if alderpersons don’t get on certain committees, the Council just expands that committee. It didn’t seem like a reasonable response to being unhappy with one’s committee placement.
Alderperson Hartzheim disagreed and did not think it was sour grapes to request more people on the Finance Committee. She thought more people on the committee would make it more robust. She also didn’t think it was helpful to curb discussion or make the meeting shorter. She noted that Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) who has served on the Council for a long time has said that all the Council work should be done in committee. She thought they needed more alderpersons to do the work of this committee and she encouraged passing the rule.
Alderperson Alfheim noted that they were not talking about lifetime appointment. She didn’t serve on the Finance Committee and has not asked to be on the Finance Committee and would not be put on the Finance Committee, but she still felt she had a voice. She didn’t think they needed seven people.
There was no further discussion and the rule was voted down 2-12 with Alderpersons Hartzheim and Croatt casting the 2 votes in favor.
View full Informal Organizational meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=937635&GUID=05E36FE4-4131-434B-9DB0-601E8353861B
View full Formal Organizational meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=937636&GUID=C7626685-C0B4-434F-86E5-73DAA9F71EEC
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