The Common Council met 09/03/2025. One of the items they separated out for an individual vote was the request to approve the renaming process for the neighborhood park that currently holds the name Veterans Park. This name change is necessary to avoid confusion now that Memorial Park has been renamed Veterans Memorial Park. City staff had recommended a process that required all submitted names adhere to the city’s Naming of Public Park Lands policy, but the Parks and Recreation Committee voted to recommend that the policy not be adhered to. This was done so that names such as Pride Park and Pollinator Park, that do not fit the policy could also be considered.
During the Council meeting, Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim made a motion to amend the item and restore the requirement to have the new name adhere to the existing Naming of Public Park Lands policy. This amendment failed by a vote of 6-8. The Council then went on to vote 9-4 approve the Veterans Park renaming process as originally recommended by the Parks and Recreation Committee which included disregarding the naming policy.
Mayor Woodford said that city staff would need to come back to the Parks and Recreation Committee and so that some parameters around potential names could be set “Because I’m frankly not comfortable opening a process without clarity around what’s actually going to happen or what the parameters are.”
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
During the Public Participation portion of the meeting, one member of the public spoke on this item. The recommendation by the Parks and Recreation Committee to disregarding the park naming policy come immediately on the heels of the Common Council’s decision to strictly follow the Complete Streets Design Guide policy as it pertained to the reconstruction of Oklahoma Street even in the face of residents’ clearly voiced opposition. This resident opposed discarding the park naming policy when the need to follow existing policies was heavily leaned on as a reason to not change the proposed design of Oklahoma Street to be more in line with the expressed desires of its residents.
Alderperson Hartzheim started discussion out by making a motion to require the parking naming policy be followed.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) thought that staff had indicated at the Parks and Recreation Committee that the park naming policy should be updated. He thought that not following the policy would allow for more park name suggestions from the community and more creativity in names. “They paid for it. It’s their park, right? So, I feel as though we should keep the amendment because it allows our community to have more leeway.”
Director of Parks and Recreation Dean Gazza told the Common Council that although the park naming policy had been approved/last updated in 1997 it was reviewed by staff every two years and compared to similar policies from other municipalities. Staff did not believe the policy needed to be changed and considered the existing policy to be up to date.
Alderperson Wolff apologized for misunderstanding what had been said at the committee meeting.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) supported following the park naming policy. “The policy exists so that these type of discussions don’t turn into a free for all. These are not just to put guardrails around what can and cannot be considered, but also to make sure that the process for naming this doesn’t turn into basically some weird middle-aged version of Lord of the Flies where we’re fighting over the conch.”
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) said that Ellen Kort Peace Park had been able to be named that because Ellen Kort’s name had been affixed to it. He didn’t like the idea that a peace park without her name affixed to it would not have been worthy of pursuing.
The Council voted on the amendment. It failed by a vote of 6-7 with Alderpersons Josh Lambrecht (District 1), Vered Meltzer (District 2), Patrick Hayden (District 7), Schultz, Adrian Stancil-Martin (District 11), Wolff, and Denis Dougherty (District 15) voting against the amendment and in favor of disregarding the park naming policy.
The Council then went on to vote 9-4 to approve the park renaming process as recommended by the Parks and Recreation Committee to disregard the park naming policy with Alderpersons Firkus, Denis Fenton (District 6), Hartzheim, and Chris Croatt (District 14) voting against the item.
After the item was passed without including a naming policy Mayor Woodford stated, “Wasn’t going to comment on this, but now this will be very interesting, because effectively, what you’ve done is, is you’ve set aside the policy that exists. So, I would expect we’re going to come back to committee, because I—we’re going to need to have some parameters around this. And so, if you’ve decided to jettison the policy, I still think we’re going to need some discussion at committee, just so that we have an understanding of what the committee’s expectations are going to be before we move into any kind of process. Because I’m frankly not comfortable opening a process without clarity around what’s actually going to happen or what the parameters are. So, we’ll talk about this, and staff will bring some items for discussion back to the Parks and Recreation Committee to make sure we’re all on the same page about this before anything get started. So just to manage expectations for constituents in the public, I would expect this can take a little bit more time.”
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1335556&GUID=6ECD5AF2-12E7-4E2B-969A-F176299B4E7A
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