The Common Council met 03/19/2025. One of the items separated out for an individual vote was Resolution 2-R-2025 which updated the city government’s emissions reduction goal to a target of reducing net emissions by 50% (13,600 metric tons of CO2e) by 2034 and maintaining as “aspirational stretch goal” of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 “contingent upon our electrical utility supplier meeting its Scope II target.” This resolution only applies to city owned facilities and property and does not pertain to private residences and commercial property.
The resolution was approved by a vote of 11-3 with Alderpersons Brad Firkus (District 3), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), and Chris Croatt (District 14) casting the dissenting votes.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Alderperson Hartzheim expressed her opposition to the resolution by saying, “I think it was made clear in the Parks and Rec committee meeting that there isn’t a clear plan or estimated costs as yet as to how the city would reach this new goal. I believe the current goal of 2050 or sooner already does what this quote new goal would do.” A member of the Appleton Sustainability Advisory Panel had stated in a comment to the Common Council that the panel was planning to submit a report at the end of 2025 on how the city might meet the emissions reduction target listed in the resolution. Alderperson Hartzheim thought that without the information in that report, the resolution was putting the cart before the horse.
Alderperson Firkus opposed the resolution, saying, “This resolution creates a goal, but none of us know how that goal is going to be reached. There is no plan in this resolution. People may be working on a plan, but there is no plan. We don’t know what we’re walking into. A goal without a plan is just a wish, and when we do stuff like this, we put opportunity out there for us to lose some of our credibility with folks, especially people that want to see us do something on climate action. If we don’t deliver but we do stuff like this, we start to lose that credibility with them that we are actually going to follow through on things like when we say we do things like this.”
Alderperson Patrick Hayden (District 7) who was the author of the resolution thought that the resolution, based on the advice of the Sustainability Panel, “has given us a very clear direction for the next step for the city of Appleton to take to reduce emissions. I think it will help the city keep pace with places like Sun Prairie, which have been much more aggressive than the than our city, and I’m excited for the work that they’ve done and to see what we can do moving forward.”
Alderperson Martyn Smith (District 4) felt the resolution was the statement of an aspirational goal and such statements have value. “When choices come up in the future which are hard to predict, we will have sometimes the option to kick the can down the road and continue doing the same thing or to invest in a long-term solution that we’d like to do. And this kind of a resolution can be a reminder that we can hold up for ourselves and think about what would be the best thing that we can do.” He did not believe the resolution would be taken as a license to overrule the city’s budgeting framework. “I think we as a city have a record of being safe and following and staying within our limitations, and that would continue, but when it comes to hard choices, we can together look back on the fact that we made this kind of a choice, and that could be something that would guide our decisions as they come up […] over the next decade.”
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) pointed out that the city already had a different resolution passed in 2019 that established a goal of having net zero emissions by 2050, a goal which was not attainable.
Additionally, she asked if city staff had any information on what kind of savings they anticipated from cutting the emissions at the water treatment plant. Director of Parks and Recreation Dean Gazza did not have that information. He said it would take time to assemble and would depend on what kind of actions were taken to mitigate and reduce those CO2 levels.
Alderperson Van Zeeland felt his answer reinforced the idea that any project that would be taken to reduce emissions would likely have to come to the Common Council for approval.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) agreed that the goal in the 2019 resolution of net zero emissions by 2050 was not feasible. This new goal was more actionable. She said that the projects the city had undertaken to reduce emissions such as solar panels on city buildings, the geothermal system at the library, and the bio digesters at the wastewater treatment plant not only reduced emissions but also reduced costs. “So, all of the projects that we take up under, say, the guise of this alleged do-nothing resolution, we have a goal in mind, and because we can talk and chew gum at the same time, we reduce emissions, but we also take into account the taxpayers and the cost to the city.”
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) felt that this resolution was one of the first actionable items that had come out of 6 years of work by the Taskforce on Resiliency, Climate Mitigation and Adaptation and the Sustainability Panel. He thought one of the values of the resolution was that it showed the public they were concerned about this issue and doing something. “It does make an impact if we take an action in this body, and the public becomes aware of the fact that, yes, we’re listening to our climate panel and the recommendations they’re bringing forth and this is one of the things they’re asking us to do.”
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) thought the resolution had value because it focused the city on the things that were within its control. “[I]t’s not perfect, but we’ve got something now that is more black and white, that we can be good stewards to both the taxpayers and our planet in our city, and move forward towards a goal that we actually can accomplish because we’re in control of all of the levers where we haven’t been in the past. So yes, it’s imperfect. Yes, it could be better, but it’s a damn good job, and I think we should pass it.”
The Council voted 11-3 to approve the resolution.
[It is one thing to mention budget constraints during the discussion of the resolution. It is another thing to actually put something in the resolution itself indicating a desire to avoid negative impact on taxpayers and utility customers. As a statement of the city’s aspirations I think it is problematic that they did not include any fiscal goals but only included carbon reduction goals.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1254914&GUID=43F2E1EF-D349-49B9-90AF-1FCEF906F9FD
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