The Common Council held an organizational meeting prior to the regular Council meeting on 04/17/2024. One of the items they took up was Resolution 2-R-24. This resolution was introduced by Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) back in February of this year and called for the merging of the Utilities Committee meeting with the Municipal Services Committee meeting.
The resolution ended up being voted down by a vote of 14-0.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Most of the discussion related to this resolution took place during the informal organizational meeting of the Common Council that took place 04/16/2024. The video for that meeting has not been posted, so the particulars of that discussion are not available to the public. However, there were a couple comments made during the meeting on 04/17/2024 that suggest why it was voted down.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2), the Chair of the Utilities Committee, said the change would cause problems for the Municipal Service Committee, would not do justice to utility rate payers, and even if meetings were sometime short the city did still need to allot an appropriate amount of time to handle utility-related issues in order to maintain transparency and avoid having to deprioritize things.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) stated, “I think we all should be open to ideas of finding efficiencies and condensing things. My problem is when a colleague decides what would or would not construe efficiency without talking to the staff. The staff has made it very clear that this in no way helps them.”
The Council voted 14-0 to deny the resolution.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1182536&GUID=77004DFB-DBC3-45EF-A8B4-A0C0E360CE42
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