The Common Council met 06/21/2023. One of the items they separated out for an individual vote was Resolution 5-R-23, the resolution for Appleton to join the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition (WLGCC).
During the Parks and Recreation Committee meeting where this resolution was initially reviewed and voted on, the resolution was heavily amended. The original resolution included multiple paragraphs laying out Appleton’s history of climate change responses and sustainability activities. The amended resolution removed all of those, keeping only the paragraph that stated “WHEREAS, The City of Appleton Advisory Panel on Sustainability and Climate Resilience has recommended the City of Appleton join the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition,” before jumping down to the final paragraph which they amended to remove the final three words so that it read, “NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by the Common Council of the City of Appleton that the City of Appleton officially joins the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition,” and no longer included “in their efforts” at the end of the paragraph.
This was done in an effort to get the final resolution approved unanimously, recognizing that while all of the alderpersons could support joining the WLGCC, not all of them could support joining it for the specific reasons laid out in the whereas statements of the resolution.
At the Common Council, Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) made a motion to amend the resolution and return it to its original form. The amendment passed by a vote on 9-6 with alderpersons Vered Meltzer (District 2), Brad Firkus (District 3), Israel Del Toro (District 4), Fenton, Patrick Hayden (District 7), Joss Thyssen (District 8), Alex Schultz (District 9), Vaya Jones (District 10), and Nate Wolff (District 12) voting in favor of the motion to amend and alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), Kristin Alfheim (District 11), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), Christopher Croatt (District 14), and Chad Doran (District 15) voting against the motion to amend.
The resolution, now back to its original, lengthier form, then passed by a vote of 13-2 with alderpersons Hartzheim and Doran voting against it.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
During the committee meeting, Alderperson Hartzheim gave two examples of verbiage within the resolution that she had concerns about and was uncomfortable voting for even though she liked the ability to pool resources and work with other communities as well as apply for grants that would come with joining the coalition:
- The statement “Whereas the City of Appleton shares the goals of the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition,” because she didn’t know whether Appleton shared every single goal of the coalition or how Appleton would respond if the coalitions goals changed.
- The statement “Members [of the coalition] recognize that climate change poses severe risks to our communities and that we cannot avoid the worst effects of climate change without effective state policy,” which she found to be hyperbolic.
At the Council meeting, Alderperson Fenton made a motion to reinstate the old language, noting that, although she was a cosponsor of the resolution, the language within the resolution came from city staff. She thought that by amending the resolution as the committee had, they were, “in effect leaving a resolution that said, we’re going to have the city join the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition, but we don’t share the goals of the organization and we certainly don’t want to talk about the threats to our citizens, our infrastructure, and our way of life posed by climate change.” She went on to say the original text “does a great job of explaining why we are seeking to join with other communities to find ways to deal with the climate crisis together. The so-called compromise that resulted in the new resolution completely removes that stated goal.”
Alderperson Del Toro said, “By removing the language which my peers consider hyperbole, we send the wrong message to our community, while at the same time obscuring their voice and concern on the issue. There is nothing hyperbolic about this real—about the real threats and repercussions of inaction towards the most pressing threat to humanity in our lifetimes. So no, not hyperbole, I would argue that the language is appropriately tempered.”
Alderperson Siebers, the oldest and longest serving member of the Common Council, “I think it’s extremely important that we learn to listen, that we listen to learn, rather than listen to come up come up for a response to what is being said. I think it’s important that we respect our fellow alderpersons and their position. I think it’s important to learn to compromise—and this is extremely important—to work toward unity rather than division. I think it’s important that we never forget what unites us is far greater than what divides us. And this is something that sometimes gets me in trouble. I think it’s important to commit to governing, to action, and not just making statements.”
He briefly recounted the discussion and actions at the committee meeting and said that the actions were taken in order to hopefully get to a unanimous vote. He encouraged keeping the language brought forward by the committee.
Alderperson Schultz served on the Parks and Recreation Committee but had not been able to attend the meeting in question. He thought that if he had the discussion may have gone differently. ‘We have challenges in this city to move things forward with the speed that is necessary to abate some of the most challenging things that are going to—that will evolve and hit us from a climate perspective. And this one opportunity here to gain some valuable partnerships with our communities and insights and information to move us a little bit quicker to those goals. I’m not sure why we were even negotiating this stripping of whereas clauses in a resolution that I think was, to me, a no brainer.”
Alderperson Doran asked if the resolution as amended by the committee still met city staff’s stated goal of joining the WLGCC as was told by Mayor Woodford that it did. Alderperson Doran explained that he disagreed with some of the State of Wisconsin goals listed in the resolution that he thought were potentially unreasonable and possibly not even attainable. “But if this resolution, as amended, still helps us meet what the staff was hoping for, which is to be able to apply for other grants we may not be aware of and get assistance applying for other grants, if we’re passing the resolution as amended, I’m fine with that. I think it reaches the goal that I think we’re all interested in which is helping the city further some of the goals that the city has, so I would urge us to leave [the resolution from committee] as is.”
Alderperson Alfheim noted that she was a coauthor of the original resolution and had also served on the Task Force on Resiliency, Climate Mitigation, and Adaptation. While she agreed with the various statements that had been removed from the resolution, she thought that if removing that language resulted in a unanimous vote then that was good.
Alderperson Hayden had been the one committee member who opposed the changes. “I don’t see this language being stripped as a compromise at all. I saw it as, you know, as everyone just looking to placate those that didn’t like the language and get out of committee as quickly as possible.”
He felt that an “anti-science tenor” was expressed by the removal of the original language of the resolution. “I find it particularly disturbing that we’re three years removed from Covid, where we saw millions of lives lost because of a similar anti-science tenor around vaccines. We’re seeing very similar anti-science language around flat earth today. Um, just this week, we saw anti-science language around people making claims that pollution in our water is causing kids to become trans. It’s disturbing in our country that we’re seeing this all around. And I think that this language that we’re stripping out, doesn’t match what I see reflects the values of the city of Appleton. I see us as a city that respects education and respects science.”
He particularly took issue with the removal of the last three words from the “THEREFORE Be It Resolved” clause. “We removed the language after we said we wanted to join the coalition because we agreed with the principles or the goals of that coalition. If you don’t agree with the goals of a coalition, what is the point of joining that coalition in the first place? It honestly does not make sense. So, I think the language needs to be added back to the resolution because I believe that really reflects the true spirit of our city.”
[Note (mostly for anyone who stumbles across this in the future because I suspect that even a year from now these references may be somewhat obscure): I’m assuming the flat earth comment was referencing Raven’s linebacker Patrick Queen’s Twitter post saying that the earth is flat and the comment about the water turning kids trans was in reference to claims about atrazine in the water that were made by Democratic presidential primary candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Jordan Peterson’s podcast recently.]
Alderperson Fenton had similar concerns and mentioned she “heard a report on the radio today that science classes in India are removing the periodic table because people have issues with that. So, I feel like it’s a really slippery slope.” [Based on this article from the Hindustan Times, it sounds like India is trying to get students caught up in school after Covid by removing the teaching of overlapping topics or things that were accessible to students in other settings.]
Alderperson Meltzer did not understand the purpose of a compromise. “I s the unanimous vote so important that we want people to close their eyes and hold their nose while they’re making that vote? That seems disingenuine [sic]. If people object to the preface, the author’s note, the reasons for bringing this resolution forward, the goals and objectives of this coalition–if you object to that, then you should vote against the resolution. Dissenting votes are a sign of healthy democracy. An enforced unanimous vote with compromise does not seem like healthy democracy to me. It seems like theatrics.”
Alderperson Croatt said he would vote for the resolution regardless of the form, but he opposed the motion to reinstate the original language and commended the work that the committee had done. “They did work to bring something to the Council that hopefully we can all get behind. That’s committee work. I knew we were going to do committee work tonight. I knew this was going to happen. I was hoping that anyone that had felt strongly about the resolution maybe would attend the meeting and express some of their concerns then. I’m going to support it no matter what because for me the only part that really matters is that ‘therefore it be it resolved’ part, and that’s the actionable part. The whereas part, don’t commit the city to anything. It is a bit of a feel-good part of the resolution I think, but the bottom line is the ‘therefore be it resolved’ part which is a very simple one sentence on this resolution.”
Alderperson Hartzheim said she did disagree with some of the language in the original version, “And I don’t consider that theatrics. I consider that being true to myself and many of my constituents.” She thought there was value in joining the coalition and thought “the amended version that came out of committee satisfies the requirements that I would see as acceptable. But this new amendment to return just to return to the original language does not. And again, I don’t see that as theatrics.”
Alderperson Schultz expressed opposition to removing the final three words of the “THEREFORE Be It Resolved” clause. He thought it was nonsensical to join the coalition but not support the coalition’s efforts.
Alderperson Del Toro finished up the discussion by saying, “I believe that there is a time and a place to compromise on language, but when removing language decreases transparency and obscures intention, that is not the time or the place to do that, or compromise. This is the situation before us today. Unanimous decisions are secondary to transparency.”
Alderperson Fenton made a motion to call the question. The committee went on to vote 9-6 to reinstate the original language of the resolution and then voted 13-2 to approve the resolution with the reinstated language.
[I do think that there is a substantial difference between joining a group because you want to collaborate on cost-saving sustainability measures and qualify for grants and joining a group because you believe “the overwhelming threats from climate change and human induced stressors to our environment, infrastructure, economy, and residents’ health require that we take bold mitigation and adaptation measures to address these consequences of climate change.”
Fear over environmentalism issues has prompted deeply concerning government actions such as threatened forced buyouts of Dutch farms, and Europe’s reliance on renewable energy has resulted in a major energy crisis which has only been exacerbated by the war with Russia. There are many average, ordinary people who are suffering because their political elite have pursued environmentalism causes to the detriment of the citizenry.
I think it would be worthwhile to have an open and public discussion about exactly what Appleton’s environmentalism goals are and what the costs have been and are expected to be going forward. I would expect that people are broadly in favor of pursuing cost-effective sustainability measures, but if the city ends up focusing on environmentalism issues to the point that it increases costs to the tax-payers, results in economic problems, or decreases the quality of life for Appleton residents then there would probably be less support for such measures.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1099774&GUID=B50E3228-D573-4299-9DD2-3DCD609F7077
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