Municipal Services Committee Approves Lighting Upgrades To Intersection Where Recent Shooting Took Place

The Municipal Services Committee met 02/26/2024. They took up two items related to improving safety in the downtown area, one was a request to utilize $15,000 in ARPA dollars to install updated lighting near the intersection of Walnut Street and College Avenue and the other was a proposed modification to the Central Business District Street Vendors Ordinance that would require street vendors to end sales at midnight rather than 4AM.

After discussing the need for improved lighting in areas beyond merely the Walnut/College intersection, the committee ended up approving the request as written but raised the possibility of further researching other areas that needed similar improvements.

The meeting ran over an hour, so the committee ended up voting to hold the ordinance change until the 03/11/2024 committee meeting in order to allow enough time to properly discuss the item.

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

The intersection of Walnut Street and College Avenue was the location of the 12/24/2023 shooting that resulted in the death of Elijah Dodson. No one on the committee took issue with the premise that that intersection could benefit from increased lighting; however, Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) perceived the intersection of State Street and Lawrence Street to be more problematic and hoped that it would also be looked at.

Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) also though the State/Lawrence intersection was a problem area and wondered, since they were using ARPA funds to cover the cost of the updates to Walnut/College, if they might expand the project to State/Lawrence also. She did, however, acknowledge, “If we do two, then we’re gonna wish we had three and four. If we do three and four, we’re gonna wish we have seven and eight. So, I understand there’s no end to where this project could go.”

Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked if there was data that demonstrated that lighting changes did result in reduced crime incidents. Police Chief Polly Olson responded, “I think lighting is probably one of the simplest ways that we can try to prevent some crime, and I think that is, quite honestly, just a common-sense way of thinking in terms of if you have an area that is well lit, it’s less likely that you’re going to have some type of criminal activity happening there.”

Alderperson Doran asked what the ongoing maintenance costs would be for the updated lighting and was told that after the initial $15,000 in installation costs, the ongoing lease from WE Energies for all the updated lights averaged out to around $350 per year total for the next ten years.

There was some discussion about whether the cost would decrease if the city did a larger project with more lights all at once versus making improvements piecemeal intersection by intersection, but staff indicated the cost for materials would not decrease by volume. As a result, the committee ended up not amending the item to expand the proposed project, but they did express a desire to look further into other areas in downtown that could benefit from similar lighting improvements. Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) commented that it sounded like the intersection of State and Lawrence was already a contender for that further review.

The committee approved the request to make lighting upgrades at the intersection of Walnut Street and College Avenue by a vote on 5-0.

The committee also briefly took up the request to update the Central Business District Street Vendors Ordinance which would decrease the hours sales could be made from between 8AM and 4AM to between 8AM and 12AM(midnight). The meeting had already run over an hour and the committee members did not want to rush a decision without having adequate discussion, so they voted 5-0 to hold the item until the 03/11/2024 meeting.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1169994&GUID=BA83847B-C8F0-4D2B-9FF9-002967CA5014