The Municipal Services Committee met 02/06/2023. A majority of the meeting was taken up with discussion about the proposed College Avenue Lane Reconfiguration; however, the committee did also vote on a number of action items and get updates on several information items unrelated to the College Avenue proposal.
I’ve prepared a transcript of that portion of the meeting for your downloading pleasure.
ITEM 23-0092: Approve State/Municipal Agreement for a State-LET Urbanized Area STP-Urban Program Project, Lawe Street (College Avenue to Wisconsin Avenue)
This was approved unanimously with no questions or comments from the committee. Later in the meeting, however, Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) asked for an update on Resolution 10-R-22 which called for exploring removing the Truck Route designation from Lawe Street between College Avenue and Hancock Street and finding an alternate route for truck traffic to travel north and south. Director of Public Works Danielle Block said that, if the Council approved the agreement between the city and the state for the Lawe Street reconstruction, the city would work with the Department of Transportation on selecting a design consultant for the project. Part of the design process would include a truck route analysis, and, in fact, determining whether that street should remain a truck route was one of the first questions that would need to be answered in order to move forward with the project’s design.
ITEM 23-0091: Request from Elizabeth H. to have her sidewalk snow removal assessment of $118.50 waived
The committee continued its well established practice of denying the request to waive the assessment. The resident did not attend the meeting to plead her case. Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6), though not a member of the committee, was in attendance. The residence in question was in her district, so she asked if the homeowner had provided any sort of documentation to support her request to have the fee waived. Director Block said that the resident had submitted a request via email and had referenced illness as the reason the sidewalk had not been cleared in the time set by municipal code. For some reason, the email was not included in the agenda packet. [Property owners are always going to have an uphill battle in getting assessed fees waived, and, honestly, I can’t even come up with a hypothetical scenario in which an assessed fee might be waived. I mean, the Houdini’s Escape owner couldn’t get an assessment waived even though he attested that he was the one removing the snow in front of his property and not the city, and they denied the appeal of a tire removal fee even though the city had removed a tire that the property owner didn’t even want to have removed. But, even though the chance of getting an fee waived seems to be around zero; it seems to me that that chance will be definitely zero if the person doesn’t even show up to make their case.]
ITEM 23-0110: Fifth St/Prospect Av Proposed 6-Month Parking Trial
Prompted by two years of off and on requests from her district’s residents, Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) requested a 6-month trial removing the 2-hour parking limit on the south side of Prospect Avenue just east of the intersection of Prospect and 6th Street and on the north side of 5th street between Walnut and Elm streets.
At the committee meeting, she told the committee members that after receiving some more feedback from residents, she wanted to remove the request to do the parking trial on 5th street and only run a trial on parking changes on Prospect Avenue. The committee amended the item as requested and recommended the amended item for approval.
INFORMATION ITEM 23-0111: Inspections Division Permit Summary Comparison Report for January 2023.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) noted that there were some significant increases from 2022 to 2023 and wanted to get a better idea of what might be the cause of those changes. Director Block did not have a definitive answer and thought that some of the permits might have been things that were planned in 2022 but were just coming through now.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1078646&GUID=10C7FB47-DA0D-431B-A9FC-3064E48DE414
Be the first to reply