The Board of Health met 10/11/2023. They spent around 40 minutes discussing the Mental Health Awareness and Services Resolution which signaled Appleton’s support of increased access to mental health services and also called Appleton to continue to work collaboratively with to identify gaps in services and address those gaps. It would also signal that Appleton encourages employers and schools to provide mental health resources to their employees and students.
The board had previously approved this resolution unanimously, but for some time afterwards, the video of the meeting had not been available. As a result, at the request of several alderpersons, Council President Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) had asked that it be referred back for further discussion so that everybody could see what the discussion had been. The video from the 09/13/2023 meeting does now seem to be available. At that meeting, the board spent five minutes on it and voted unanimously to approve it with no amendment.
When the Board of Health took it up the second time, they spent 40 minutes on it made two amendments. The first amendment added an additional “therefore being resolved” clause stating “we reaffirm the $1,000,000 ARPA allocation to mental health and we will divide this money amongst organizations in our community.”
This amendment passed 5-2 with Mayor Woodford and Alderperson Vaya Jones (District 10) casting the dissenting votes.
The second amendment replaced the requirement that the clerk forward a copy of the resolution to “local mental health organizations” with more precise language calling for the resolution to be forwarded to “N.E.W. Mental Health Connection and its affiliated organizations.” This resolution passed unanimously.
After the two amendments, the resolution was approved by a vote of 6-1 with Alderperson Jones casting the dissenting vote.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
[I’m not convinced this discussion needed to take 40 minutes. The conversation didn’t seem that productive to me, but perhaps that’s just because I don’t really see what this resolution is accomplishing.]
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12), the author of the resolution asked that it be amended to affirm that the city’s $1million allocation of ARPA funds to mental health would be given in grants to organizations in the community. Mayor Woodford opposed this amendment. He explained that the money had been broadly allocated to the programmatic areas of mental health and violence prevention but it had not been directed to specific projects or funds at this point. He also noted that the city had found distributing funds through grants to be challenging from an administrative perspective because of the guidelines from the Department of Treasuring regarding how ARPA funds could be used.
All of the ARPA funds needed to be obligated [i.e. designated for specific projects] by the end of 2024, although they did not have to be fully spent at that time. Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) was worried about what would happen if they were not obligated by that point. Mayor Woodford clarified that the Common Council had already voted that any funds left unobligated at the end of 2024 would be redirected to city purposes so that they would not be lost.
Alderperson Jones felt that that it would be helpful if the Board of Health received more education surrounding mental health resources in the area and suggested having different organizations come in and give presentations to the Board of Health.
Alderperson Wolff intimated that passing this resolution was just the beginning of working on mental health and that he had further plans.
Ultimately, Alderperson Jones opposed the amendment and the resolution because she thought it made a statement without action. “I know that Alderperson Wolff has plans, but they’re personal plans. So, I don’t know what they are. I just know that we as a city have no action to follow up, just keep doing what we’re doing. And that’s what—that’s what worries me.”
Other board members thought this was a “both/and” situation in which they could make a statement with the resolution and the resolution might also open up a path for further action in the future.
The board ended up approving the amendment to designate the $1 million ARPA funding to be used for mental health grants by a vote of 5-2 with Mayor Woodford and Alderperson Jones opposing it.
The board then unanimously approved an amendment clarifying that the “local mental health organizations” the resolution was supposed to be forwarded to would be “N.E.W. Mental Health Connection and its affiliated organizations.” This change was prompted by Mayor Woodford who felt the added clarity would make the clerk’s job easier.
Finally, the board voted on the resolution and amended it and approved it by a vote of 6-1 with Alderperson Jones casting the dissenting vote.
[So, again, even after listening to the board discuss this for 40 minutes, it was not clear to me what this resolution actually does of substance. I also don’t see how requiring $1 million in ARPA funds be given as grants to local mental health organizations is actually going to actually improve mental health when, our entire society has decided that it actively wants to be batshit insane. A basic thing that could improve mental health on an individual level and a society-wide level would be for people to just start living in a responsible manner. For example, the mental health in this country right now could have been vastly different if in 2020 school administrators had chosen to keep their doors open, if teachers had chosen to continue teaching in person, if government officials hadn’t declared millions of people to be “unessential” and not worthy of earning a living, if government leaders hadn’t try to shut down parks and events and lock people in their homes, if pastors had not shut down their churches, if AA and NA meetings hadn’t all shut down, if mental health providers had decided to continue meeting with people in person, if ever single major institution had not decided to just completely abandon all of their core responsibilities in favor of going completely insane.
But, sure, $1 million in grants is going to make a dent in society’s collective mental health issues.
On another note, I would have appreciated a more robust conversation around how requiring these funds to be used for grants will impact the overall distribution of ARPA dollars and why exactly it is believed that grants to local organizations is the best use of these funds.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1119165&GUID=9AE509EC-813A-4794-9FAA-48F51C5CE2B0
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