The Municipal Services Committee met 05/23/2022. One of the items they took up was the Soldier’s Square Resolution. The committee had previously voted to recommend the resolution be denied, but after it went to the full Council Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) requested it be referred back to the committee.
Alderperson Schultz and members of the public who are interested in returning the square to some of its former purpose as a pedestrian byway and place to honor veterans, was hoping that the resolution could be held instead of out-right denied. After determining that denying the resolution would not prevent city departments from interacting with or assisting the members of the public as they worked to raise funds an come up with a design for the square and also that denying the resolution would not prevent the Council from voting on a project for the square this year, the committee voted again to recommend the resolution be denied.
Alderperson Joss Thyssen (District 8) started things out by making a motion that the resolution be held. She was seconded by Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3).
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) said, “I guess at this point, short of some new information, I would say the resolution itself hasn’t changed, which, as I think we talked before, asks us really for nothing because there’s no plan and no funding, and I wouldn’t support holding that, I guess, because that’s not a practice we’ve done before.”
Alderperson Schultz, who was not a member of the committee, explained that he referred the resolution back because it had been his understanding when the committee last voted on it that there was going to be a motion to hold it in order to provide more time to the community members to work on finding private funding and look into working with a private design firm to discuss parking issues in Soldier’s Square. Given that the meeting was nearing its close, he said that he was going to yield his time to George Schroeder who was chairing that private committee that was trying to move forward with this project so that he could give the committee some additional information on why they wanted the item held.
City Attorney Christopher Behrens asked for clarification on how long the hold would be. He also noted that, from a Robert’s Rules of Order standpoint, the Chair of the committee decides who speaks and someone whom the chair called upon did not have the right to yield their time to another person.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1), who was the chair of the committee asked Alderperson Thyssen how long she would like to hold the item. She looked in Alderperson Schultz’s direction and appeared to wordlessly ask him for direction on how long the hold should be. He started to answer but Alderperson Siebers reached a decision on his own and stated that they would hold it for two weeks.
He then allowed Mr. Schroeder to speak.
Mr. Schroeder told the committee that he was the Executive Director of the Hearthstone Historic House Museum and that Hearthstone was involved in Soldier’s Square because the war memorial in Soldier’s Square was donated by Albert Priest, the second owner of Hearthstone, in honor of his brother who had died servicing in a Wisconsin Regiment during the Civil War.
He said that all of the people associated with the Soldier’s Square revitalization effort appreciated the work the Department of Public Works had done in providing cost estimates. They realized it was just a starting point, but they had already made some substantial progress because of those preliminary cost estimates.
In response to the committee’s desire that the private people/groups involved with the revitalization effort do more legwork on the project in areas such as the design, parking concerns, and community involvement, they had taken that to heart. They had begun detailed discussions with the Parks and Recreation Department to incorporate their feedback into any plan. They had begun mapping out their fundraising efforts and were using some of the resources at Hearthstone to list out potential grantors and draft preliminary funding requests. They had reached out to the YMCA and, from their initial response, were cautiously optimistic about the availability of public parking in the new YMCA parking ramp. They had also contacted a noted local architect, Terrence Martin, who had a long history of working on historic rehabilitation and restoration project. He had agreed to do pro bono work crafting a range of design options for Soldier’s Square.
They were also engaging the public and had a very preliminary discussion with at least one merchant on the block by Soldier’s Square. They were also meeting with the Fox Valley Veterans Council to solicit their input.
With all of that in mind, they were asking that the committee hold the resolution while they continued to do the legwork that the committee had asked them to do.
Alderperson Schultz said that he thought a two-week hold might be a little short given what they were attempting to do and he asked that the committee consider holding it for a longer period of time, four weeks being the minimum amount of time for stakeholders to have conversations and bring back something substantial. He also mentioned that they were looking at ways to not take up 11 parking stalls with the design and were going to do their best to lose as few parking spaces as possible.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) asked if the resolution were to go away would there be any issue with the Public Works Department still working with the community members who were working on this project.
Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey responded that the problem they were facing was that there was nothing in the 5-year Capital Improvement Project plan regarding Soldier’s Square, and at some point, a funding source would have to play a play a part in moving forward. But they could certainly still work with the group. “We don’t need a resolution to work with any group.”
Alderperson Van Zeeland also clarified with Attorney Behrens that if the resolution went away, there would still be no issue adding an amendment to the budget regarding Soldier’s Square. He told her that was correct and that with the proper number of votes (2/3rds) they could make a budget amendment any time.
Alderperson Firkus said, “We don’t need to keep this resolution alive just for the work to be done. This work can be done without this resolution being kinda kept alive and just on hold and brought back every couple weeks for us to relitigate.” He also thought it would take longer than 2 or 4 weeks for the project to really get legs and it might not even be ready to come back by the end of 2022. Additionally, whatever ended up coming out of all the work that was being done might look very different than what was submitted in the original resolution. Although he had seconded the motion to hold the item, he didn’t really think there was a reason to keep the resolution alive at this point. Work could still happen all the same.
Mr. Schroeder explained that his concern was that voting down the resolution would prohibit them from coming back with an updated plan during the rest of the Council year. [That concern had already been raised and discussed during the previous committee meeting, and they had generally determined that it would still be possible to bring it up again during the current Council year.] As long as they were not procedurally prevented from bringing it back when they were ready then he didn’t mind the resolution being denied. He acknowledged that they would need time to work on things.
Attorney Behrens said the one-year rule was not a hard and fast rule. The mayor had the ability to override it if there was a substantial difference between the two items that were brought. Although Attorney Behrens couldn’t say what the mayor’s ruling would be, it seemed like there would be a good case in this situation to come back earlier that a year if they had everything together. He also noted that a budget amendment could be made mid-year and did not have to be made only at the time when the budget was set.
Mr. Schroeder asked if there was any precedent on what a “substantial difference” was, but Attorney Behrens told him there was not.
The committee then voted 1-4 against the motion to hold with Alderperson Thyssen being the only alderperson voting in favor of holding.
Alderperson Firkus, seconded by Alderperson Van Zeeland, then made a motion to deny the resolution.
Prior to voting, Alderperson Van Zeeland stated “I just want to make clear that the motion to deny is based off the questions I’d asked, which is we don’t need to have this resolution in order to move forward with this project. So, I want to express my support for the project and my many, many thanks for the work that has been done in just a very short period of time. But that’s why I would vote to deny this.”
There were no further comments or questions and the committee voted 4-1 to deny the resolution with Alderperson Thyssen again being the lone dissenting vote.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=978355&GUID=EE014CCE-AB65-49E7-BE91-DAA800F296CE
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