The Municipal Services Committee met 05/09/2022 and took up the Soldier’s Square Resolution. This resolution had been discussed during the 04/25/2022 committee meeting where the committee members initially seemed to be leaning toward denying the resolution but then put ultimately put it on hold for 2 weeks to allow city staff the opportunity to put together some ballpark cost estimates for the least expensive design and the most expensive design.
At the 05/09 meeting, the committee did end up recommending that the resolution be denied but not until after a 30-minute discussion.
For some reason the memo regarding the design cost estimates did not get attached to the agenda, so Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey went over those briefly with the committee. She stressed that there was no actual design for a potential Soldier’s Square project because there had not been a design hearing and the city had received no public feedback, so she did not want people to grow attached to any of the options that were before them. Of the three options that had been presented at the previous meeting, she provided estimates for two of them.
Option 1 was the most basic. It consisted of installing a sidewalk in the space opened up by the newly constructed YMCA parking ramp and adding some grass as well as some colored and stamped concrete. This design could be an interim first step before doing something more extensive once the square needed to be repaved. The estimated cost of that was $25,000
Option 3 was a more complete long-term option that would eliminate 11 parking stalls and move the dumpster enclosure. It would have a larger area of grass and colored/stamped concrete. The design as envisioned by Alderperson Schultz included brick pavement, but the Director Vandehey said that did not include that in the design cost estimate “because we do not support using bricks for any kind of right-of-way road surface or sidewalk surface.” Instead, she included a picture of a memorial brick wall which has been done by other communities and which would not lead to tripping hazards like brick pavement does. The estimated cost of that design was $210,000.
Only one member of the public showed up to speak. Former alderperson Christian Williams explained that some other people had thought the item would be tabled, and she asked if it could be held to give her more time to meet with some of the nearby business owners to find out their view on Soldier’s Square.
She spoke highly of Amos and Sarah Lawrence and the impact they had on the founding of Appleton and Lawrence University. They had gifted Soldier’s Square to Appleton to be used as a walkway or promenade. She said that in the 1850’s people would have strolled there to take air, but in 1933 city leaders turned it into a parking lot. She thought it unlikely that the Lawrence’s would have donated this area to be a parking lot, and she did not think it should be kept a parking lot.
Although she didn’t think it had to be changed tomorrow, she did think the city should do something small now and then at some later point when the parking lot needed to be replaced, they could perhaps decide to not keep it a parking lot. She finished up by saying. “History does matter and this would not be city property if this wasn’t donated, and this is a time to right a wrong. And they screwed up in 1933. Please don’t screw up now.”
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) asked her what she thought “something small” was that the city could do.
Ms. Williams thought that Option 3 was something small but the acknowledged doing that would need to have the buy-in of Appleton Downtown Inc and some of the local businesses. She expressed some disappointment that no one else had come to the meeting and even Alderperson Schultz was not there. [He did come later and explained that he had thought it was going to be denied so his presence wasn’t necessary.]
The problem was that the project simply wasn’t in the city’s 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan. They wouldn’t want to have to borrow money to put an additional project in that so something else would have to come out to make room for it, but doing that wasn’t really justifiable given that Soldier’s Square was in really good condition and the streets that were on the 5-Year CIP were mostly on there because they were in poor condition.
Additionally, they kept butting up against the issue that came up during the previous committee meeting. In order to attracted donations for a potential project, there needed to be a project and a design. In order to have a design created, it needed to be on the 5-Year CIP; however, the Square didn’t need to be replaced so it wasn’t on the 5-Year CIP.
Alderperson Siebers said it seemed that somebody needed a fire set underneath them to get something moving, but he didn’t necessarily know that it was the city’s responsibility. The city had already helped by providing cost estimates.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) said, “I think that part of the problem is that we’re all in support of honoring veterans and we want to do the right thing, but it doesn’t seem like we have anyone outside of here who’s willing to pitch in on that. And that’s a problem for me because I think there are funds and things out there that, if the Historical Society or whoever—you know, what group gets together—I think that they could probably find funding for that, and I think that it’s important that those are checked out before we start talking about taking things from an already tight budget.”
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6), who attended the meeting but was not a committee member, asked if private groups raised money, what would have to happen in order for those funds to be used to on a Soldier’s Square project. She drew a parallel to the pickleball complex, a majority of which was funded by Mary Beth Nienhaus.
Director Vandehey said that the project would have to go through the design process and get a Council-approved design.
Alderperson Fenton asked if the money appeared would that be a big step toward starting the design process.
City Attorney Christopher Behrens pointed out that there was a difference between the pickleball complex and Soldier’s Square. The city didn’t have a pickleball complex when the donation for that was made. Soldier’s Square, on the other hand, existed and was in good shape. Asking for donations to replace something that had already been relatively recently replaced was different than asking for donations to fund a thing the city didn’t have at all. It was challenging to ask if the money showed up could they do the project because the area was not in need of a redesign at this point.
Alderperson Fenton said, “So it seems like we’re stuck in a difficult position here because we have people in the community who are eager to do this project and to raise funds for this project, but we don’t have any—we don’t have a way to say ‘if we raise this much money this project will happen.’”
There was discussion about the Historic Preservation Commission, which is a city committee that meets infrequently, and what if any role it could play in helping this project along and raising funds. It was possible that the commission could write grant applications, but beyond that fundraising and soliciting donations from the public was outside of their scope. Per Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) who had served on that commission, it had a very small box in which it could operate.
Things seemed complicated by the fact that although there were individuals who were interested in restoring Soldier’s Square to something more in line with what it appears the original intention of the space was, there was no group, per se, or group effort. For example, there were multiple people associated with the Historical Society who had their own thoughts about what should happen, but the Historical Society as a whole had not met together and determined a group plan or goal.
There was also some discussion as to whether denying the resolution would result in the Council not being able to take the issue up again until the next Council year starting April of 2023. A new resolution this year would have to be substantially different than the resolution that was denied. It sounded like that would be achievable, and even Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) who had made the motion to deny, stated that a resolution that included funding and required a plan would be substantially different in his opinion.
Alderperson Siebers was worried that holding the item instead of denying it would just result in it being held indefinitely with no action taken. “I don’t have any problems denying this if it means setting a fire under somebody’s posterior and so we can come to some kind of resolution.”
At that point Alderperson Schultz arrived. He apologized for being late and explained that he had understood that there was a motion to deny and had thought that the discussion would be over before he had even had a chance to get to the meeting.
They briefly reviewed the discussion that had happened up until his arrival.
They then discussed Resolution 5-R-19, a previous resolution regarding Soldier’s Square that the Council had passed and what the purpose of that resolution had been. Alderperson Schultz explained that it had been focused on the restoration of another war memorial that had once been in Soldier’s Square and then had looked forward to when the YMCA ramp would be reconstructed and the surrounding space changed. At the time the resolution was passed, they had thought that the parking ramp project would be a much larger project that resulted in an opportunity to revitalize the space. However, in reality, that opportunity did not end up happening which was why the current resolution had been brought forward.
Alderperson Schultz thought there was still an opportunity to do something and thought that the city could get behind moving the dumpster enclosure to a less prominent spot and that was not something that should wait until the entire street needed to be reconstructed. He would love to see the resolution held a bit longer to see what sort of fundraising options there were now that they had firmer numbers. “I do still think there’s a conversation to be had about finding funds within the CIP to get this in the works as a city project, not as an entirely outside funded restoration project, because the responsibility I think is on the city to remedy some of that situation.”
Alderperson Doran responded, “I for one would not be supportive of spending city dollars on this project at any point in the near future just given all of the other infrastructure needs that we have that we’re not currently keeping up with.” He also thought the resolution called for something which they had never done before which was to put a project in the 5-Year CIP with no funding and no plan. “I just don’t think that’s a smart decision for us to create a precedent for.”
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) agreed with the idea that when the area was up for a total reconstruction that it should be restored back to what the Lawrences had envisioned when they gifted it to the city. Until that point, the numbers that Director Vandehey had provided could help community members and groups who were serious about it to raise funds to do a smaller project.
He thought it made sense to deny the resolution and then over the next 12 months get a temperature of the community as to their level of support for the project. If support was quite high and fundraising could happen rapidly then they could take a look at the project during budget season when the 5-Year CIP was being put together. “I am not optimistic that that’s gonna be the case, but if that is the case, we could look at it at that point I think.”
He thought the resolution and discussion around it was moving everything forward even if the resolution was denied. He also didn’t think denial was meant to be the end of the discussions about Soldier’s Square. But, for the foreseeable future he thought they should hold off on a project at this time.
There was no further discussion and the committee voted to deny the resolution 5-0.
[I don’t know how feasible this would be, but I was idly curious if a private group could raise funds to buy the land from the city so that they could restore it the way they wanted and in their own timeframe.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=964910&GUID=FCA80820-D9E7-4731-9F6C-84A85ED0F65B
Be the first to reply