The Common Council met 11/20/2024. The item that took up most of the meeting was the public comment and then discussion and vote on the request to award a $300,000 contract to Brown and Caldwell to perform and evaluation on the Northland Creek and Bellaire Watersheds.
This item generated a lot of public feedback when it appeared at committee from residents on Viola Street who experienced catastrophic flooding in July of this year. Those residents fully supported the study and believed that neglect by the city of ongoing issues in the area was what resulted in the severe damage some of the homes experienced during the flooding incident.
A number of the residents who spoke at the Utilities Committee also spoke at the Common Council meeting and again recounted their experiences of flooding and home damage and expressed concern that actions by the city had contributed to that damage. They voiced support for the study as a first step toward fixing the ongoing drainage issues in the area.
The Common Council voted unanimously to approve the study contract.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Six residents who were impacted by the flooding in July spoke during the public participation portion of the meeting.
Lisa lived in the area since 2001 and had documented the flooding over the years. She had talked with city employees over the years, and it was acknowledged that the area around Viola Street was prone to water ponding and that sewer systems built before 2004 were not designed to handle intense rain events. She was frustrated with the lack of action to fix these problems.
Jim owned a business on Northland Avenue which he built 55 years ago. He had never had any water damage or flooding until the city re-landscaped Memorial Park a few years ago. In July, the entire basement of his business flooded causing over $200,000 worth of damage to equipment and materials. At the time of the event, he was told that the engineering department would come back the next day to do an evaluation, but then they never showed up. Jim was told that it was too wet to go back there, but he saw Parks and Recreation workers in the same area mowing the law.
Rachel believed the event was “tragic but entirely preventable.” The foundation of her house was broken in two places by the rainwater and she suffered $80,000 worth of damages, none of which was covered by insurance. At the time of the incident, she watched city employees clear drains and open manhole covers, and within an hour of them having done that the water in the street that had been waist high was completely gone. “At first, I was relieved when I saw the water was gone, but then I asked myself, ‘If it was so simple for the city to clean the storm and sanitary sewers, why wasn’t it maintained?’” She believed it was unacceptable that the city continued to allow this flooding issue to exist.
Skip’s basement had flooded and he and his wife had been evacuated during the storm. They had lived in the neighborhood for 50 years and had never feared warnings from meteorologists about significant rain or possible flooding, but now those warnings worried them.
Mary purchased her home in 2019. The basement was completely finished and served as a living space for a man who needed adult foster care services. Their basement did not flood because of the rain but flooded when the sewer system backed up into their house. She believed that this was caused by the actions of city workers because the sewage backup coincided with the removal of manhole covers by city employees. She was not happy with the city’s lack of communication after the event. “I understand the city’s take of you know you were not able to speak because legalities were raised and lawyers were, you know, suggesting that we not talk about, you know, whose fault things were. But I think people can show that they care and can give support without, you know, lean—laying claim to blame. And I really feel like that was missing, and I felt like the silence was pretty deafening right after this event.”
Tracy’s basement filled with 9 feet of water and she suffered more than $60,000 worth of damage. She also lost many possessions. Her two-year-old son was also traumatized by the event. The damage was not covered by homeowners insurance, and, in fact, the type of insurance that covered flooding was not even available for purchase because the home was not in a flood plain.
When the item came forward for discussion, Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) who represented the area that experienced the flooding thanked the residents for coming forward and speaking about how the event impacted them. He also thanked staff for bringing the study forward now instead of waiting until 2025.
Although approving the study was an obvious thing to do, he noted that once the study was conducted and recommendations were made there would be tougher decisions to make about what actions to implement. “As everyone can imagine, none of these solutions are inexpensive. They’re typically very, very expensive—in the millions and millions of dollars.”
He asked for a timeline of events related to the study and solutions.
Director of Public Works Laura Jungwirth said that they hoped to have their kickoff meeting in December of 2024. Going forward, however, it was difficult to put together an exact timeframe. “It’s going to take months to assemble, pulling from historical data that we have, flood data, and then building those models and then also coming up with viable alternatives. We want to make sure we provide our due diligence in it, and come up with, like I said, viable solutions. So, we anticipate many months before that will come back for approval.”
Regardless of the fogginess of the timeline, she did indicated that they hoped to come up with some smaller scale projects that they could start tackling before the full study was completed. “We also have other items that we’re working on in the interim, maybe not a full-scale tackle, but things such as changing out yard drains, upsizing storm sewer pipes, that we will continue making progress on. So, we’re not halting citywide progress as we work on this. We’re going to be working on a multitude of relief projects in conjunction with it.”
The Council voted unanimously to approve the study.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1245451&GUID=D212C424-9ED1-4FF9-9A58-7FD9CCBC1E7B
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