The Board of Health met 03/13/2023. They had two action items on the agenda, neither of which took up much time. One was a request to update pool license fees and categories to align with new state categories and the other was a request to update the city’s rodent control ordinance to remove responsibility of the Health Department to mitigate rat infestations in private properties.
Each of the items was approved unanimously by the board.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH POOL FEES
In fall of 2023, the state updated the administrative code regulating public swimming pools, simplifying the fee categories for different types of pools. The City of Appleton was now required to update their fee structure to align with the new state standards.
The change in fee structure was essentially revenue neutral because it was expected to result in only $90 more in revenue to the city annually than was taken in under the old plan. Beyond that, the changes were not being made with an eye toward impacting revenue, but rather were being done to align with the new state administrative code.
It was noted during the meeting that the fees in question only applied to public pools and not to privately owned residential pools.
AMENDMENT TO RODENT CONTROL ARTICLE III
City staff requested permission to update the city’s rodent control regulations. The city’s current ordinance includes language that, when the city received a rat complaint at a residential property, requires the Health Department to place baits and exterminate the rats on that residential property. The proposed updates to the ordinance language would remove that responsibility from the Health Department and give it the ability to write orders and make it the responsibility of the property owner to exterminate the rats. The change would make the regulations governing rat infestations on private property more in line with what the regulations already are regarding rat infestations on commercial property.
Environmental Health Supervisor Steve Kihl explained that there were only 2 or 3 instances in the last 10 years in which the city had had to perform rat killing duties on private property. Their supply of the pesticides that they use to do that is now quite old and approaching the point where it should be discarded and replaced. Doing that would be costly because they were restricted-use pesticides that could not just be bought off a retail store shelf.
Rather than replace the city’s supply of pesticides; staff wanted to update the ordinance to put the responsibility of extermination onto homeowners.
Both of these changes were approved unanimously by the Board of Health.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1161533&GUID=6E095AF5-070D-4CD3-9AF2-A129DE725A81
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