The Municipal Services Committee met 11/21/2022. The open portion of the meeting was fairly brief lasting only around 15 minutes. All items were approved unanimously, some without any questions or discussion. Those items were:
- A request for a street occupancy permit for a construction site perimeter fence around the Merge apartment complex development through November 1, 2023
- A request to approve the Department of Public Works 2023 fee schedule
- A request to approve the Downtown Parking and Meter Bag Policy
- A request to approve the Outagamie County Northwest Landfill Expansion Agreement contingent upon approval by all municipalities.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the full discussion for your downloading pleasure.
The main point of discussion was the parking utility revenues. Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) was concerned that the city was down almost $200,000 for the year. He noted that a number of the Department of Public Works fees had not been updated recently and some had not been changed in over ten years. He wanted to make sure that they were at least covering the administrative costs to issue the permits.
Director of Public Works Danielle Block told him that Deputy Directors Buetow and Loper had reviewed the fees to ensure that administrative costs were covered.
She agreed that the parking ramp revenues were lagging behind where they had been prior to Covid. The 2023 fee schedule included a $5 increase to the monthly ramp permit cost. They estimated that that would increase revenue by $76,560.
Alderperson Doran was concerned that that was not enough of an increase given that they were already at least $200,000 behind for the year. Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) commented that fees could only be increased by so much before people would no longer use the parking ramps which would leave the city in an even bigger hole.
Director Block noted that the city’s parking ramp fees were in the middle for similar fees within the Fox Cities region, being neither the lowest nor the highest. They were going to continue monitoring the situation and perhaps make small incremental increases more often than they had in the past.
Alderperson Siebers thought that they should ask themselves why people weren’t using the ramps more because figuring out the answer to that question could help them determine if there were actions they could take.
Alderperson Doran wondered if the city should consider getting out of the parking ramp business and possibly sell the ramps to a private developer who could operate them more efficiently or cost effectively. [I did not get the impression he was wedded to that idea but was rather just trying to come up with an idea to consider.]
Alderperson Siebers noted that there were apartment complex developments being built that could potentially impact the use of the ramps and he thought the situation might look difference once that development was completed.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) was not a member of the committee but she was in attendance. She wondered if it would be possible to work with the Finance Department to come up with a better way to present the Parking Utility Revenue Report. Although she was an accountant, she found the current report laying confusing. It was not clear if the numbers reported were Year-To-Date or only for the current month; additionally, deficits would typically be shown in brackets or red. It was a difficult to read report, and she hoped that they could figure out a better way to show what the numbers were.
[I’ve always found it a confusing report, but, not being an accountant, I figured the problem was with me not the report. I’m glad to hear that someone with actual accounting experience also finds it confusing.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1057322&GUID=633A64C4-9A33-4FB0-83F3-CC8C79370F91
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