The Common Council met 10/18/2023. One of the items separated out for an individual vote was the Mental Health Awareness and Services Resolution. This resolution essentially states that Appleton recognizes the importance of mental health and the impact of mental illness, commits to promoting mental health awareness, supports increased access to mental health services, and will continue to work with local organizations to address gaps in mental health services.
The resolution was discussed and amended by the Board of Health to reaffirm the $1 million ARPA allocation to mental health would be divided amongst organizations in the community. It was also amended to clarify that the Council clerk was to forward a copy of the resolution to NEW Mental Health Connection and its affiliated organizations rather than to “the Mayor, local mental health organizations, the Wisconsin State Legislature, and members of congress in Wisconsin” as was called for by the original resolution language.
The resolution was amended again by the Common Council to clarify that the $1 million in ARPA funds were allocated not only for mental health related concerns but also community wellness and violence prevention. The resolution was then passed very narrowly by a vote of 8-7 with Alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Vered Meltzer (District 2), Israel Del Toro (District 4), Denise Fenton (District 6), Patrick Hayden (District 7), Joss Thyssen (District 8), Alex Schultz (District 9), and Nate Wolff (District 12) voting in favor of it and Alderpersons Brad Firkus (District 3), Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), Vaya Jones (District 10), Kristin Alfheim (District 11), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), Chris Croatt (District 14), and Chad Doran (District 15) voting against it.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
Alderperson Jones reiterated some of the disagreements she had with the resolution that she had raised at the Board of Health meeting, namely that the resolution did not call for any actions and she believed the Board of Health needed to know more about what local organizations were conducting in order to truly understand what needed to be done. She disliked the idea of passing an actionless statement resolution, saying, “[I]n my opinion, we’re not truly committing to those we say we’re supporting. We don’t hold ourselves accountable to something. We need to make our words into actions. We are already supporting mental health in the community.”
She briefly recounted her discussions with Alderperson Wolff when he was writing the resolution. The initial version had said that the city of Appleton would “begin” working with community partners collaboratively, but she was able to convince him to change that to “continue” to work collaboratively. She had also asked him if there were specific activities he would like to Health Department to do that they were not already doing, but he had indicated to her that he had no specific activities in mind.
She finished up by saying she and Alderperson Wolff had “both agreed that the department was currently fulfilling the spirit of the resolution during our discussion. With that I am confident that this resolution would not change what the department is currently doing. The people of this community deserve us to put actions behind our words, and with that, I ask that you vote against this resolution.”
Alderperson Hartzheim agreed with Alderperson Jones’ concern about the non-actionable nature of the resolution. She also expressed concern that Board of Health had amended the resolution to dedicate ARPA funds to mental health but those ARPA funds had been dedicated to other items besides mental health.
Alderperson Fenton made a motion to amend the resolution to state “we reaffirm the $1 million ARPA allocation to community wellness, mental health and violence prevention,” and to remove the part that said “and we will divide this money amongst organizations in our community.” She made this amendment “to make it factual in terms of what the money had been allocated for and to clarify that the Board of Health or the Council is not sitting here divvying up funds—that this is a grant funded process.”
That amendment passed by a vote of 8-7 without any discussion.
Alderperson Van Zeeland opposed the resolution. She is finishing up a degree in Health Science and Biomedical Science and had started to hear from community members involved in the health care field who were confused about what the purpose of this resolution was. Some were concerned that they were missing a grant opportunity and, additionally, per Alderperson Van Zeeland, to some “this felt to them like they were being told they weren’t doing enough by someone who was not educated on the things that they were doing.”
She went on to say, “that made me take a step back and really consider what I would be voting on and how people may feel that they must vote in favor of something like this because it’s called Mental Health Awareness and services, when in fact, we are not dealing with any awareness beyond the resolution itself and no services beyond what we’re already doing. So, I would ask my colleagues to not vote in favor of this because the message I’m receiving from professionals in the area are that this makes them feel less valued.”
Alderperson Alfheim believed that it had already been confirmed by the Health Director that Appleton was doing everything it could. She did not believe the resolution had value other than the fact that it have prompted discussion for a few months. “I humbly ask that we vote this down while still enjoying the fact that we are making progress in the discussion and our partners in our community continue to move us forward in that direction. And we should be asking the professionals, in my opinion, to be giving advice as to what we should be doing better or different in the city as opposed to Council members who are not professionals in the case.”
Alderperson Meltzer felt the resolution had value. “I’m at a loss for words as to any reason why we would vote against this. I think that this is a great statement and I would like to see us all vote in favor of it.”
Alderperson Wolff, the author of the resolution explained that the purpose of the resolution was “to help people in a dark corner somewhere thinking that they have no reason to live. In my past, I’ve had moments where I’ve questioned whether or not I should continue to go forward, and in those darkest moments, I’ve always told myself that I’m going to make the world a better place for someone else in my position. That’s always kept me motivated. It’s always kept me going. And here on Common Council, although we have a limited scope of what we can do as alderpersons, we still need to push those who can do more to do more, and to learn from them, and to build off of that. This resolution is my attempt to bring a conversation forward, and it’s done that. This resolution, hopefully will continue that conversation. Because I intend to continue that conversation, and I will not stop until I’ve helped more people than what I’ve already had.”
Alderperson Schultz felt that mental health related problems continued to increase and one of the action items in the resolution was to try to identify gaps in mental health services and develop strategies to address those gaps. “What’s the harm to say we recognize this and we should try maybe a fuzz harder to see if there’s something we’re missing, continue working and sort of asserting that we as a city value, understand this problem and want to keep our focus on it?”
Alderperson Hayden appreciated the work that people like Chief Polly Olson at the Police Department were doing regarding mental health and thought they needed to do more to support those efforts. He also thought that the amendment Alderperson Fenton had put forward put more teeth into the resolution than it had initially. [I didn’t understand that, and he didn’t elaborate as to what exactly those teeth were.]
Alderperson Van Zeeland pointed out, “Nothing is stopping any one of us from helping people in our community with mental health struggles. Just because we’re not all putting out a resolution doesn’t mean we can’t help every single day.”
Alderperson Hartzheim noted that the resolution did require work on the part of the clerk so there was some cost associated with the resolution, and she did not feel that was negligible.
The Council proceeded to vote and passed the resolution by a vote of 8-7.
[If I were struggling with depression right now, I would find this resolution to be incredibly patronizing. The best thing the city government could do to improve the mental health of its residents would be to simply manage the functions of the city to the best of their ability, keeping taxes and crime low while providing reliable service in their other core areas. If everybody just focused on doing their best to if not excel then at least be competent in their own domain, the world would be a better place.
In terms of actions, I can think of a few that actively promote poor mental health such as closing all the playgrounds, shutting down the schools, and cutting off social the social connection that comes with being able to see someone’s facial expression. Perhaps before charging forward on new initiatives to combat mental illness, the city should review past missteps and commit to not making similar mistakes in the future.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1114841&GUID=F3ED4725-C245-4727-B8AD-CE4601954EAC
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