Common Council Denies Jones Park Dumpster Request From Appleton Downtown Inc

The Common Council met 07/20/2022. The first 40 minutes of the 50-minute meeting was taken up with the Mayor’s Business. They only spent a few minutes at the end voting on the agenda’s action items.

Two items got separated out.

One of them was a Class B Beer and Class B Wine Permanent Premise Amendment application for Area 509. This would allow them to add a shipping container to their premise so they could use it to serve alcohol to patrons.

There was no discussion about this, and Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) had only asked it to be separated out so that he could abstain from voting on the item. [Presumably there was some sort of conflict of interest. He had previously separated Area 509’s alcohol license application because The Collective sculpture was being temporary stored on the property.]

Alderperson Schultz also asked to separate out the request from Appleton Downtown Inc. for a waiver to allow for dumpsters to be placed within city-owned property without the required dumpster enclosure. The Municipal Services Committee had voted to deny the request because (a) the Parks and Recreation department had determined that the amount of garbage at the park did not warrant a dumpster being installed and (b) private entities had never been allowed to use the city’s dumpsters at parks that had them and had always been required to take care of collecting and removing their own garbage during events.

Alderperson Schultz commended the Parks and Recreation Department and other departments for discussing the issue and trying to tease out a possible solution. He understood staff’s position on this, but he was curious if in the future staff would reevaluate the need for a dumpster and recycling station in Jones Park given future needs that might arise.

Director of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Dean Gazza answered that they were always reevaluating where city garbage was being dumped based on the needs of the city and the parks. At this time, they didn’t anticipate Jones Park being a future site for a dumpster, but if conditions changed, they would always consider it.

Alderperson Schultz asked if there were any considerations for the waste and recycling needs that may occur at Ellen Kort Peace Park, but Mayor Woodford stopped that line of questioning because it was not germane to the discussion about the item before them which was putting a dumpster at Jones Park. He did note, however, that garbage collection needs were also part of the planning considerations for new projects and parks.

The Council members had no further questions on the item and voted 10 to 1 to deny the waiver request from ADI to place a dumpster at Jones Park without having a dumpster enclosure.

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=980227&GUID=5450AEC9-FD56-4034-8EB4-6AD726AB0B0C

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