Municipal Services Committee Votes 3-1 To Recommend Lawe Street Truck Route Resolution Be Denied

The Municipal Services Committee met 10/09/2023. One of the items that they took up was the Lawe Street Truck Route resolution. This resolution had initially been amended and approved at the 09/25/2023 committee meeting, but this second time around it was recommended for denial by a vote of 3-1 with Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) casting the one opposing vote.

I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:

This resolution called for city staff to investigate the feasibility of removing the truck route designation from Lawe Street between College Avenue and Hancock Street. Prompted by the resolution but without the resolution being passed, city staff investigated and came back with a recommendation to maintain the truck route designation and to approve the resolution as having been fulfilled by that investigation and recommendation. Rather than follow that recommendation, the Municipal Services Committee initially voted on 09/25/2023 to amend the resolution and require staff to conduct some more detailed investigation into specific issues.

As a result of that action, city staff submitted an updated memo in which they answered some of the additional questions and also pointed out that investigating further would require the city to pay outside consultants to conduct studies. They also noted that removing the truck route designation could result in the city losing $2.8 million in grant funds for the Lawe Street reconstruction project.

When the item came before the full Council, Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) referred it back to committee for further review because he had heard that the resolution’s authors intended to try to amend it further, and he preferred that discussion to take place at committee. However, at the committee meeting, the authors did not put forth an additional amendment but rather requested that, instead of being voted down, the resolution simply be received and filed which essentially meant that the committee would not act on it at all and it would sit in limbo not to be discussed again.

Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) believed receiving and filing was the prudent course of action given the fact that if the truck route designation was removed the city could lose $2.8 million, so it would be better to not bring the resolution before the Council and run the risk of it being approved. [Although, it should be noted, the resolution would not remove the truck route, and only ever called for staff to investigate removing the truck route.]

Alderperson Israel Del Toro (District 4) argued that it should be received and filed because the research had already been conducted and there was nothing else that staff needed to do in this specific instance, although he did suggest he was going to introduce a resolution calling for a broader look at all of the city’s truck routes and how they meshed with the city’s Safe Streets initiative. He also asked that the resolution be approved saying, “I’ll be coming to Council in a few weeks with a recommendation to open up further exploration on truck traffic and Smarter Cities initiatives throughout the city of Appleton. So with that in mind, I still encourage you all to vote in support of this. If we’re going to vote to keep this in discussion and Council, then vote to support it.”

Alderperson Siebers opposed not clearly voting on the resolution for the sake of the Appvion representatives who had spent a lot of time attending meetings regarding the truck route, fielding questions about their trucks’ use of the route, and explaining the issues related to removing the truck route designation. He believed they deserved to have an up or down vote on the resolution instead of having it put in limbo where it could, theoretically, come out again at any time.

The committee voted 3-1 to recommend the resolution for denial with Alderpersons Siebers, Kristin Alfheim (District 11), and Chad Doran (District 15) voting in favor of the denial and Alderperson Meltzer voting against the denial.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1119175&GUID=E7DCBC50-F4CC-41E9-9305-DB8032F34682