The Municipal Services Committee met 05/08/2023. One of the items they took up was a request from a resident named Rachel to have her snow removal fee of $75 waived.
Rachel did not attend the meeting to plead her case, and in the email correspondence included in the agenda packet, her reasoning behind asking for a waiver were not outlined. As a result, the committee ended up voting 3-1 to deny the waiver request, while noting that Rachel had another opportunity to make her case at the Common Council meeting on 05/17/2023.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for your downloading pleasure.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), the chair of the Municipal Services Committee, noted at the start of the discussion that this residence was in District 6 which was Alderperson Denise Fenton’s district. Alderperson Fenton was not able to attend the meeting, even though she had hoped to do so; however, she had emailed a question asking whether the photos that were included in the agenda packet had been taken before or after the inspector had put down blue salt on the sidewalk. Director of Public Works Danielle Block responded, “It looks like the photos were taken before it was blue salted.”
[After looking at the pictures, I would say that was incorrect. The bottom two photos with a timestamp of 11:00 AM appear to have been taken prior to blue salt having been laid down, while top two photos with a timestamp of 11:02 AM appear to show blue salt on the sidewalk; however, if this series of photos was printed out on a 8.5”x11” piece of paper, the presence of the salt in the top photos probably wasn’t easy to see. At any rate…]
Given the lack of Rachel’s presence, the lack of Alderperson Fenton’s presence, and the lack of any sort of explanation as to the reason for the requested waiver, Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) was in favor of holding the item until the next committee meeting on 05/22/2023.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) questioned the purpose of holding the item. Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), who was not a member of the committee, pointed out that the complaint regarding the sidewalk had come in 441 hours after the end of the snow event which was a lot of time, and she didn’t necessarily think the city should be holding this for more time. She also noted that Rachel would still have the ability to come forward and speak at the Common Council meeting. Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) felt that the correspondence between Rachel and city staff indicated that she would have been aware of the meeting, so it wasn’t due to a lack of notice that she didn’t appear. For that reason he was comfortable voting on the waiver request then instead of holding it for two weeks.
The committee voted 3-1 to deny the waiver request and uphold the fee with Alderperson Meltzer casting the dissenting vote and Alderpersons Siebers, Van Zeeland, and Doran voting in favor of the denial.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1101912&GUID=C1E0645D-659F-4353-83F0-5604FA4EDA67
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