The Common Council met 03/20/2024. The last item of business they took up was a request to reconsider proposed hours of operation changes for the Glendale and Whitman yard waste sites. The proposed changes had been voted on during the 03/06/2024 Common Council meeting where it failed by a vote of 6-6. The Council’s rules allow it to reconsider previous votes and they utilized that option at the 03/20/2024 meeting.
The proposal was to modify the hours at the Glendale and Whitman yard waste sites to reduce costs and balance services and staffing needs. The changes included closing the sites at 5PM in the summer and 4:30 in the winter instead of the current 5:45PM closing time and eliminating weekend hours in the winter. During the summer, however, service would be available 7 days a week at at least one location.
Some alderpersons opposed eliminating all weekend hours because they had received feedback from their constituents opposing that change, and Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) proposed an amendment that would have added back one Saturday a month in November, January, February, and March, but it failed to pass after staff pointed out that there is low utilization on weekends in the winter and will be even less in the winter after the garbage dumpsters are removed. Staff also noted that eliminating weekend hours would allow staff to assist with other priorities like snow removal.
Ultimately, the original proposal to provide 7 day a week service in the summer staggered across both sites and Monday through Friday service during the winter at the Glendale site was approved by a vote of 14-1 with Alderperson Meltzer casting the dissenting vote.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) expressed some concern about the proposed shortened hours of operation. Currently, the sites stay open until 5:45PM, but this proposal changed that close time to 5PM in the summer and 4:30PM during the winter. However, he was comfortable moving forward with the proposal because he had been told that staff would be monitoring site usage and the hours could be adjusted in the future if need be.
The loss of weekend hours during the winter was something that alderpersons mentioned as being a concern voiced by their constituents. Alderperson Meltzer proposed an amendment that would keep the Glendale site open one Saturday a month in November, January, February, and March. That amendment was voted down 4-11 due to a few factors. (1) Currently, the site only receives an average of 13 customers a day in the winter on weekends, but most of those were people utilizing the dumpsters which were already slated to be removed at which point it was expected that people utilizing the site would drop down to 1 or 2 a day in the winter. (2) There was the potential that a staff would have to be paid overtime pay in order to staff the site on the weekend. (3) In the winter, it was a better use of a staffer to have them available to assist with plowing streets rather than keep the yard waste site open.
Alderperson Schultz noted that while the proposed change was considered to be revenue neutral, it did end up reducing the weekly hours of operation by a few hours a week. Director of Public Works Danielle Block explained that, while the site would be closed to the public, a staff member would still be doing the end of day work of cleaning up and shutting down the site for the evening.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) also pointed out that even though the city owned yard waste sites would be changing their hours and would not be open on the weekends in the winter, the Outagamie County Resource Recovery Park on Holland Road was open on Saturdays throughout the year.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1171630&GUID=0FD6CC44-548D-406A-8681-BBD549FF0A19
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