Municipal Services Committee Approves Street Occupancy Permit Extension For Trout Museum Project, Discusses Impact Of Changes To Yard Waste Site Service And Hours

The Municipal Services Committee met 10/21/2024. They had one action item on the agenda which was a request to extend the Lawrence/Trout Museum project’s street occupancy permit for College/Drew through 06/01/2025 and for Kimball Street through 08/04/2025. This item was approved with minimal discussion.

They also discussed the 2025 Public Works Department budget.

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

Deputy Director Pete Neuberger spoke briefly about the street occupancy permit extensions. He said that the College Avenue configuration would remain the same as it was prior to the entire street being temporary closed due to the large crane—i.e. the sidewalk and bike lane would be closed and the sidewalk would be routed into the street. Kimball Alley would remained closed until August of 2025. However, the Drew Street hill would actually be opened up to two-way traffic although the sidewalk would be closed.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend the street occupancy permit be extended.

The committee then went on to briefly discuss the 2025 Public Works Department budget.

It was Director Laura Jungwirth’s first year working through the budget process in Appleton. She mentioned that it was very helpful getting email questions from alderpersons in advance. She asked if there was anything specifically the alderpersons wanted to receive a larger explanation on.

Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) said that he would like to know what sort of impact the recent changes in service and hours of operation have had on the yard waste site. He wondered what the resident feedback had been and if they had been adjusting to not being able to take bulky overflow garbage to the site.

Director Jungwirth said that one positive was that Appleton was not too far from the county facility, so it was not super difficult for residents to go to an alternate location, but she acknowledged that it was still a transition that took some getting used to.

Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) mentioned that when the changes had first been made, residents had struggled to dispose of mattresses and there had been concern that people were going to start dumping trash around the city. Had there been an issue with that?

Deputy Director Neuberger said that in the past the dumping of trash had been an issue in the Southpoint Commerce Park area; however, now that that area has been more built up, the problem has taken care of itself to some degree. He was not aware of dumping being a chronic concern in other areas of the city.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1232747&GUID=62EF6DE3-99F7-4AE7-A6E2-2EBB7F3B5C39

Follow All Things Appleton:

Be the first to reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *