The Municipal Services Committee met 06/10/2024. One of the issues they took up and voted on was how to proceed with Bird scooters going forward.
The committee ended up voting unanimously to cease negotiating with Bird Inc for a scooter program in 2024. This formalized a desire that had already been voiced during informational discussions at previous meetings.
The committee also voted unanimously to direct staff to create an ordinance that would prohibit short-term rental of electric scooters to the general public in the City of Appleton. This will close a loop-hole in the municipal code that would allow a rental business to operate in the city even without a contract with the city.
These actions do not, however, mean that rental scooters will never be able to operate in the city again, and some alderpersons have expressed interest in working to create a more robust scooter program similar to Milwaukee’s, but if that happens that will not happen this summer because staff would need time to gather input and create a program.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Adam Davis, the Principal Government Partnerships Manager for Bird Inc attended the meeting remotely and expressed a desire to still get Bird scooters in Appleton this summer. He said that Bird actually had an agreement with Appleton that ran through the end of 2024 which they found out before launching this year that Appleton had entered into incorrectly. [As you may recall, back in 2023, the agreement that had been initially brought forward to the Municipal Services Committee had been for a 2-year term, but the committee amended it to reduce it to 1 year. It sounds like the language in the agreement that was signed may not have been updated to reflect that change.]
He said that they didn’t find out about the city’s concerns about the scooters or learn that they were bad enough that the city did not want to continue with the program until they were putting their launch plans together. In fact, they learned that through the media because the city didn’t inform them.
He complained that they were working with “a Director of Public Works that had zero interest in managing the program. We’ve proposed these solutions. It just hasn’t been, I think, conveyed to the general public and members of this committee how involved Bird has been in trying to propose the solutions.”
He said that Bird had been trying to deal with complaints even if they had not taken the most aggressive solutions, and they wanted to help Appleton achieve its goal of having multimodal transportation and safer streets.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) responded, “I don’t believe anyone is denying that Bird has tried to work with us. I do—in her absence, I have some objections to the statements that the Director of Public Works didn’t have any interest in sharing. She did share the information as it was given to those of us, to the chair of the committee and those of us who are on the committee.”
The committee proceeded to vote 5-0 to formally cease all negotiations with Bird.
The committee then went on to vote 5-0 to direct staff to create an ordinance to prohibit short term rental of electric scooters to the general public in the City of Appleton. This was necessary because the Municipal Code currently does not prevent companies like Bird from coming into the city and setting up shop even if they do not have an agreement with the city to do so.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) thought this was a prudent action. “I think it gives us the time and the space to set our own parameters. I think that given that there are portions of the community that very much want the scooters not to come back and there are other portions of the community who are missing them and are eager for them to return, I think that this will also give us some time to have some more of the needed community conversations around this topic.”
City Attorney Christopher Behrens assured the committee that the city would be able to come back at a later date and amend this newly created ordinance language to provide exceptions should they choose to do so.
Once the new ordinance language is crafted it will come before the Municipal Services Committee and the Common Council for a vote.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1204510&GUID=F1ACC645-005B-418E-A37A-22C88BE54C67
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