The Common Council met 08/20/2025. The item that took up most of the meeting was the public comment and Council deliberation on the design for the Oklahoma Street reconstruction project. City staff was recommending that the street be narrowed from 32-feet-wide to 26-feet-wide which would necessitate the elimination of parking on one side of the street. This street narrowing was in line with the city’s Complete Streets Design Guide that had been passed by the Common Council last year.
Nearly 50 residents of Oklahoma Street had signed a petition for the street to be reconstructed at a width of 32 feet so that parking on both sides of the street could be maintained.
When the item came before the Municipal Services Committee, the committee voted to amend the design to reconstruct the street with a 32-foot width in line with residents’ desires, but the committee then failed to recommend the amended item for approval.
When the design came before the Common Council, the Council ended up voting 8-4 to approve the design recommended by city staff which narrows the street to 26 feet and removes parking from one side.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Nine residents of Oklahoma Street addressed the Common Council. Eight of those residents expressed a desire for the street to be reconstructed at 32 feet wide. They expressed frustration at the lack of timely communication from the city on the project because the city had provided only a 2-week notice regarding the project and design hearing. They felt the process had been rushed and their concerns as homeowners/residents were not adequately taken into consideration.
Christine Williams, a former alderperson, noted that prior to Covid, the city had conducted in-person, open house meetings where residents could come in and review proposed street designs face-to-face with city staff. Those meetings had been cancelled once Covid hit and then had not resumed due to staffing and time considerations. She believed that those meetings should be started again.
There was a general concern that the decreased parking would result in an increase in parking problems, particularly given that the street was located near West High School and that those parking issues would be exacerbated because the Police Department already does not adequately enforce existing parking regulations. There was also doubt expressed that narrowing the street would result in drivers decreasing their speed.
One resident felt that a lot of what the other residents says was “hyperbole at best,” and he was in favor of the design proposed by city staff.
During the Municipal Services Committee meeting on 08/11/2025, Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) had made a motion to amend the item to reconstruct the street at 32 feet rather that 26 feet but started the discussion at the Common Council meeting made a motion to restore the item to its original form and reconstruct the street at 26 feet wide, saying, “I feel that keeping the street at its current width causes problems, especially if we are looking at a timeline. My colleague, Alder Firkus, is not here today, but something he said at committee really stuck with me. Are we—are we really thinking in the long term? Are we really thinking about, you know, 75 years from now, and I think that narrowing the street is the right way to go for this. I encourage my colleagues to support the amendment. I think that we have been very, very diligent with exploring all of the alternatives. And I do think that the original proposal from staff is the best one.”
Later in the meeting, Alderperson Meltzer expressed the belief that narrowing the street and allowing parking on only one side would actually improve parking conditions, in addition to increasing safety, stating, “I believe that parking on only one side of the street will alleviate a lot of the parking congestion that residents have spoken about. I believe that a narrower street will slow speeding,” and toward the end of the meeting expressed concern that the street’s 100-year-old infrastructure was so old that the reconstruction project should not be delayed. “The street is 100 years old. These water mains are very old. When infrastructure fails, the catastrophic impact that that can have on the people living there is much worse than the other impacts of the emotional level impacts of being unhappy or angry or influenced by these changes.”
Alderperson Adrian Stancil-Martin (District 4) who, along with Alderperson Meltzer, had been in favor of the 32 foot width at the Municipal Services Committee meeting, also expressed concern about the age of the street and the need for a quick reconstruction. “I empathize with the residents and their frustration over not being heard and communicated. But I also agree with my colleagues that this isn’t just about the difference in cost. This isn’t even just about considering the state of the street, as my colleagues have mentioned, decades from now, a century from now. As Alder Meltzer has mentioned, these streets are a century old. If, God forbid, something were to happen to the infrastructure sooner than later because we did not address this soon, it will be affecting the current residents. We cannot continue to push this back.”
Alderperson Martyn Smith (District 4) was in favor of the 26 foot wide design proposal and stated that he really liked the idea behind the Complete Streets design guide and having a uniform look and standard for Appleton’s streets.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) was also in favor of the 26 foot wide design, stating, “The Complete Streets policy wasn’t just something that the Council adopted without any thought. There’s a lot of research by professionals that went into this and the incidents of crashes. And I was reading one today that came from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where they studied 1,117 streets in seven different cities and found overwhelmingly that narrowing lanes in a street decreased the number of accidents and decreased pedestrian casualties, and they were careful to examine all sorts of streets, neighborhood streets.”
She also noted that there were cost considerations. “[I]n an era where there are no assessments for street reconstruction, we are asking that the citizen—all of the citizens of Appleton, all of the property taxpayers, pay that difference, so that the people who live in one neighborhood or on one street still get to keep their parking. And I don’t think that that’s the kind of decisions that we need to be making as a council.”
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) seemed to waffle on what to do. “I was in favor of keeping the street wide with the notion that maybe there were some opportunities in between that we could do something to help slow traffic. But in the process of deliberation and hearing from staff, really those options don’t exist. And so we’re really left with do we leave it wide, lose all the trees, and take on an additional 160,000 in cost to build the street at its current width, or do we reduce it, get some traffic flowing remediation, save some trees, open up one side of the street for maybe some a little bit easier snow plowing, leaf removal and street cleaning if that side is clear of overnight parked cars? And so that’s the decision we’re faced with. It’s not easy for any of us. My gut wants to go with the community, because I hear their concerns, but I also have to respect that we have really good staff, and they do […] really deep dives on these projects. None of these decisions are made lightly.”
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) indicated he would vote against the narrower street design in support of the residents.
Alderperson Vaya Jones (District 10) is the alderperson of the district in which Oklahoma Street is located. “I have been told that the constituents, many that are here tonight, are unhappy with me as their alderperson. They feel that I have not fought hard enough for their needs on the street, and feel underrepresented. It has also been kindly pointed out to me that 2026 is an election year for me, and if I don’t work hard enough on this, there may be consequences, but I really need to say that I represent all the residents, and as I said in previous meetings, there has been an overwhelming amount of outreach on both sides of the issue.”
She believed that the Complete Streets Guide was a good policy, but she highlighted the residents’ concerns about the lack of dialogue and communication and encouraged the Department of Public Works to change its planning timeline going forward so that future design decisions could be done in a slower and less rushed manner.
Alderperson Patrick Hayden (District 7) and Alderperson Meltzer also expressed a desire to see communication changes made going forward and residents engaged in a more timely manner.
The Council ended up voting 9-3 to approve Alderperson Meltzer’s amendment to restore the design to the 26 foot wide design initially proposed by city staff. The Council then voted 8-4 to approve the amended design with Alderpersons Schultz, Jones, Wolff, and Denis Dougherty (District 15) voting against.
Once the item was approved, Mayor Woodford made some remarks. He thanked the residents of Oklahoma Street for their engagement and acknowledge their concerns about the city not providing enough opportunities for dialogue. “I acknowledge it, and it’s something that we will, we will take to heart, and we will, we will work on with staff as we move forward with future reconstruction projects in the community. Sometimes timelines are driven by factors that that don’t allow us to have detailed conversations too much earlier in this process. However, when we when we do have that information, and we have the opportunities in the time to create those spaces for dialog, we certainly what will work toward that.”
He also noted that the recommendations made by staff were not personal preferences but were rather “recommendations that are aligned with the policies that the council itself has established. […] [T]hese are not emotional recommendations from the staff or matters of personal feelings or opinions about what should be done. These are best efforts to execute on the policies, priorities, and the ordinances pertaining to a given project.”
He finished up by reiterating, “I appreciate our residents from Oklahoma Street for your advocacy coming forward, and I can assure you that your input will shape the way we approach these projects in the future, certainly with respect to the ways that we engage with our neighbors because you have a beautiful neighborhood. I’ve been to your neighborhood; I’ve been your block party; and very much appreciate our Oklahoma street neighbors, and I thank you for your feedback and participation.”
[It was well fought, but, realistically, for the residents of Oklahoma Street to have had any chance at making change, they probably would have had to get the entire Complete Streets Design Guide overturned and to do that, they would have had to get a lot more people from outside their neighborhood on board, possibly by reaching out to residents of streets that are slated to be reconstructed in upcoming years and will be facing similar narrowing and loss of parking. They would have also needed to get the Post Crescent and other local news media to focus on the issue and write a number of stories/run news segments about it to build local interest. That was basically how the John Street residents were able to get Special Assessments overturned a decade ago. But doing that would have been very difficult for the Oklahoma Street residents to pursue given the short timeline from design hearing to final approval. Still, they put up a good fight and managed to get 4 alderpersons to vote for them which is more than a lot of streets facing undesirable design changes are able to do. So, kudos to them.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1328001&GUID=12824D44-7AC7-4861-BA69-311C377EBDED
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