The Municipal Services Committee met 04/25/2022 and took up Resolution 6-R-22, the Soldier’s Square Resolution.
The committee ultimately ended up voting to hold the item for two weeks until the next Municipal Services Committee meeting to give time for staff to provide some cost estimates for a potential project. My understanding was that the cost estimate would be for Option 3 of the three design options that had been presented at the 04/11/2022 committee meeting.
Essentially, there’s a little bit of a Catch 22 going on. The street does not need to be reconstructed at this point and so is not on the 5-year Capital Improvement Project Plan. Alderperson Alex Schultz’s (District 9) resolution calls for the project to be added, but for that to happen either money would have to be borrowed or another project or projects bumped off the 5-Year-Plan; however, because Soldier’s Square is not on the 5 Year Plan no design hearings have taken place and they don’t know how much it would cost to redo the street so they don’t know how much they would have to borrow or which other projects could potentially be bumped off in favor of it.
Alderperson Schultz indicated that there was the potential to raise money to cover at least part of the cost of reconstruction, but without a design they don’t have a cost estimate which makes it difficult to attract donors. And, again, there’s been no design hearing because the street is still in good condition and doesn’t need to be reconstructed.
Ultimately, the committee decided to ask staff to provide a cost estimate for the most expansive design that had been reviewed during the 04/11/2022 meeting, in order to have some kind of numbers to work with. But it was acknowledged that there hadn’t been a design hearing and there was no community buy-in for that design.
That was the short version. Below is the longer recap…
Alderperson Schultz addressed the committee and said that he has been trying to work his way thought this process as a representative not of the district where Soldier’s Square is located but of the community members who have been watching what has been happening in that space over the last decade and have been trying to take some sort of action to recapture the former glory of that space.
He personally had been working toward that goal for a number of years, and he thought now was a good time to move forward on this project given the new parking ramp that was being constructed. He hoped to get it into the CIP so that they could begin having conversations on what was and wasn’t possible and how much parking spaces they could convince the community and the local business ventures to give up. He also hoped to move the dumpster enclosure.
It wasn’t a large project in his mind because they were only talking about a third of the space on one side of the street and 8 or 9 parking stalls. He wanted to add a grassy space for reflection and possibly incorporate some recaptured brick from the former College Avenue pavers.
Former Alderperson Christine Williams attended and gave public comment. She said that when Amos and Sarah Lawrence donated the strip of land in 1851, they stipulated that it would be a public walkway. Since that time the city has continued to erode and pick away at this public space so that now it is no more than a concrete parking lot with a really nice sculpture on it. There are not too many opportunities that the city has to make things right, but this is one of them.
George Schroeder, the Executive Director of Hearthstone Historic House Museum also spoke in favor of the resolution. The second owner of Hearthstone, Albert Priest, was the one who donated the money to create the sculpture in Soldier’s Square. He did so to honor both his brother who died during the Civil War and all veterans from Wisconsin that perished during that conflict. He also donated all the land for Memorial Drive and Memorial Street Bridge right after World War I to commemorate everyone’s sacrifices during the Great War. He asked the city to continue this legacy of preservation and commemoration of sacrifice. Passing the resolution would be an important first step in revitalizing Soldier’s Square.
Alderperson Siebers asked Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey to speak on the item. She said that Council approved the 5-year CIP, so if they wished to add something to it than one of two things would need to happen to cover the costs of the new project. They would either need to increase the amount of funds available or they would need to push back a different project to make room for the new project. That was part of the direction staff would need from the committee. They have not put this item in the executive committee budget because they are trying to curb the city’s borrowing. “So, to spend, you know, taxpayers’ money to reconstruct a portion of a street that is in excellent condition was just hard to do when we have so much infrastructure that needs work. So, that’s why the staff and the mayor’s office did not include this project in the executive budget that went to Council last time. So, I think this resolution is trying to get it put in to the five-year CIP even though it’s not something that staff would put in just based on its condition.”
Alderperson Siebers asked for her to comment on the “first part” of the resolution. [It wasn’t clear to me exactly which part he was referring to.]
Director Vandehey responded that, in terms of the first “Therefore be it Resolved” all of Soldier’s Square including the area where the monument was located was in the right of way which is why it was under the jurisdiction of the Municipal Services Committee instead of Parks and Rec or a different committee.
In terms of the “Be It Further Resolved” paragraph, once the project was in the 5-year CIP, they would do the design in-house. They would not be going out for an RFP for a different engineering firm to do the design. City staff would do the design and hold all the design meetings with the neighborhood per their usual process.
Alderperson Siebers asked for a motion on the item. Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) made a motion to deny, seconded by Alderperson Firkus. The committee then started discussing the item.
Alderperson Firkus asked Alderperson Schultz if there had been any talk of private funding for this project. There have been other instances where private donors have offered assistance, such as with the pickleball complex at Telulah Park.
Alderperson Schultz said there had been numerous conversations about that and a fundraising effort was currently underway. If the project were to actually be approved, then they would be able to target donations once they had a sense of what the cost would be. The challenge right now was that they had no idea how much the project might cost, and without knowing what the number was it was hard to ascertain what kind of community commitment they could expect. He said that he had had conversations with some old and distinguished members of the community who were very supportive and would contribute some significant dollars to it. He said that some of the older veterans in the community had deep pockets. He would love to see a 50/50 split between the cost covered by the city and the cost covered by community members.
Alderperson Doran supported seeing Soldier’s Square revitalized and thought it was an important piece of the city’s history, but given what they had heard, he felt the resolution was premature. He didn’t like the idea of asking staff to put something in the 5-year CIP without having any source of funding. He applauded the efforts to find some private donations for the project, and said that if they could get to 100 percent funding, he was sure they could get the project moving right away. Hopefully, they would get to the point of having some sort of plan ready, but they weren’t there are this point.
Alderperson Siebers said that to put this in the 5-year plan they would have to either kick something out of the 5-year plan—and he had no idea what that would be—or borrow some more money, and he wasn’t sure he was in favor of borrowing more money. He wondered if Alderperson Schultz had an idea of what he would like to see moved out of the 5-year plan to make room for this or if he was thinking that they should borrow more money.
Alderperson Schultz hadn’t taken time to look at what was in the 5-year CIP to start figuring out what might potentially be replaced by the Soldier’s Square project. His challenge was he didn’t know what it was going to cost, whether it was $1 million, $250,000, or $2 million. Without knowing that, it was really difficult to figure out what could be pushed out. Additionally, there had been some funds available but those have now been earmarked for other things. It would be really helpful to him if he had at least a broad number to chase.
To Alderperson Doran’s comment about having 100% funding, he said that he wouldn’t say that they could get to 100% funding outside of the city, but he thought there would be significant support available.
In terms of the resolution, he said at this point they could do some more work or they could kill it, whatever the committee felt like.
Alderperson Siebers asked if he was aware that if they voted the resolution down without any significant change that they would not be able to take the issue up again until the 2023 Council year.
Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) (who was not a member of the committee) agreed with the concerns expressed about putting this into the 5-year CIP now and moving something else out. He also pointed out that if they were going to borrow money for it, not only would they be borrowing more money but they would be doing so for a project that has not been identified as a high priority by staff, which was a concern. At the same time, he did understand the challenge that came without knowing what the project might cost and therefore not being able to look at potential next steps.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) (who was not a member of the committee) asked if they would consider referring the item back to staff. She wondered if there was some sort of mechanism, given the intent of the original donors, to work on a plan to vacate part of the right-of-way so that it could be just the memorial itself. She would hate for the resolution to go to Council with a recommendation for denial and then not be able to do anymore work on it until 2023 when, she thought, the whole community agreed it was important.
Alderperson Siebers kicked around the idea of sending it to Council with a recommendation to deny but then Alderperson Schultz referring it back to committee based on the idea that he had some new information that the committee would be interested in. That would put the onus on Alderperson Schultz rather than staff to gather that info, although he could talk to staff in the process.
Alderperson Firkus asked what kind of effort and how much time staff would need to provide Alderperson Schultz with at least a rough cost estimate for him to target.
Director Vandehey said that the reason they haven’t been able to give that estimate is because they don’t know what the scope of the project is. They had shared several different options at the previous committee meeting. The most minimal option was just putting the sidewalk back, which the YMCA was going to do anyway as a part of the parking garage project. The most extensive option, that Alderperson Schultz had designed, involved removing 11 parking stalls and making that part of the memorial. A third option involved relocating and rebuilding the dumpster enclosure. Without knowing the scope of the project, it was hard to give costs.
She said that she could work up the cost estimates for Alderperson Schultz’s ultimate design, but she wanted to make it clear that there had been no outreach to the neighborhood and no buy-in from the neighbors to losing around 1/3rd of the parking stalls. The design was also not approved by Council after having received neighborhood feedback.
Alderperson Doran acknowledged that the Soldier’s Square land and the monument were initially donated for “this” [which I took to mean, donated to be a “hallowed space” as the resolution described it], so it had been a community-led effort. Certainly, the city played a role in that, but he was concerned about where Appleton was financially and the infrastructure issues it was currently facing. “This is to me more of a want than a need for the community, although I think it’s vitally important. I think as we’ve all sort of stated, we appreciate and support this project, but if the community wants to see this, I think the community needs to step up and 5-year really help make this happen.” He thought that the people at the core of the Soldier’s Square revitalization effort could do a little more leg-work to some of the businesses to see how they feel about a potential project so that the council could have some more information to help them figure out how to move the project forward.
Alderperson Joss Thyssen (District 8 ) mentioned Resolution 5-R-19 that was passed a couple of years ago and said that she felt that if they didn’t move forward on this project that they would be keeping it at a standstill. She supported putting the project in the 5-year plan because not doing so would result in Alderperson Schultz not getting the monetary number that he needed for the fundraising effort. She believed if he had city support, that the fundraising support would also be there and would cover a good chunk of the project without the city having to borrow any money.
In answer to a question, Director Vandehey said she could have cost estimates available by the next Municipal Services Committee meeting in 2 weeks.
Ms. Williams asked to speak again. She said that the Lawrence’s donated this land. At some point it became city property, and that was wrong. This land was donated to the city to be a park or park-like walkway. The parking stalls should not be there and the city needed to right a wrong, whether they did that this year, in 10 years, or in 30 years. But, if there was no mechanism to keep it in front of the Council, it was going to be lost just like it was lost at some point in the past when it was turned into a parking lot.
Alderperson Firkus appreciated the three options that Director Vandehey had brought to the committee at the previous meeting because they built upon each other. He thought they could perhaps do the more minimal option now and then endeavor to do a more robust option later. Going with Option 1 in the short term wouldn’t prevent them from doing something more in the future. He was amendable to holding the item until the next meeting to give time to figure out some cost estimates.
The committee went ahead and voted 4-0 to hold the resolution until the next committee meeting.
[The history of the conveyance of land and the purpose of Soldier’s Square looks like it was talked about extensively during 2019 in conjunction with Resolution #5-R-19: Rededication and Revitalization of Soldier’s Square. This was before I started recapping local government meetings. The agenda packet for the 01/29/2020 Community and Economic Development Committee meeting included a lot of documents related to Soldier’s Square. It looks like the City Attorney determined that it was within the bounds of the conveyance agreement for the land to be used for parking as is currently happening.
I liked Alderperson Firkus’ thought about doing something simple now and then something more extensive in a number of years when the street legitimately requires reconstruction. It doesn’t seem like the city has any legal requirement to make any changes, and it’s really difficult to justify spending money to tear up and redo a completely functional street when money is tight and the city has other legitimately pressing concerns. For that same reason, the idea of a 50/50 split between the city and private donors to cover a more extensive redesign of Soldier’s Square doesn’t sit right with me either. Yes, the city would only have to cover half of the project, but that’s still money that it doesn’t need to be spending at all right now. Unless enough donors came forward with enough money to cover 100% of the cost, it doesn’t seem to make financial sense for the city to approve moving forward with the project right now.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=958481&GUID=DB391CE6-023C-43C7-B18D-2817C175EB6C
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