The Common Council met 08/03/2022. One of the items they took up was the resolution placing an advisory referendum question on the November ballot allowing voters to weigh in on the question, “Should marijuana be legalized for use by those 21 and over in the State of Wisconsin?”.
This had been discussed during the 07/27/2022 Safety and Licensing Committee meeting, and the committee had eventually voted 4-1 to recommend it for approval.
During the Council meeting, several amendments were made and approved, and two requests to refer the item back to committee were denied. The Council ended up voting 9-4 to approve the resolution, placing the advisory referendum on the November ballot. Alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Sheri Hartzheim (District 13), Chris Croatt (District 14), and Chad Doran (District 15) all voted against it, while Alderperson Vered Melter (District 2), Israel Del Toro (District 4), Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), Denise Fenton (District 6), Joss Thyssen (District 8 ), Alex Schultz (District 9), Vaya Jones (District 10), Kristin Alfheim (District 11), and Nate Wolff (District 12) all voted in favor of it.
When the Council was separating out items for individual votes, Alderperson Doran requested that this item be referred back to committee. Normally, a refer-back would be automatic, but Alderperson Fenton, seconded by Alderperson Wolff, objected to the refer-back. In that situation, the Council had to vote on the item and if 2/3rds of the Council upheld the objection, the item would remain on the Council’s agenda for the evening.
Alderperson Doran explained he was concerned that approving the resolution, which would result in an estimate cost of $2,250, would amount to an unfunded mandate, and there had been no discussion about the impact approving this referendum would have on the City Clerk’s budget. His understanding was that given the high number of elections this year, the clerk did not even have the ability to if there would be money in the budget to cover the cost come November. He wanted to send the item back so that the committee could discuss where the funding could come from. He noted that referring it back would not prevent it from being able to be approved before the August 30th deadline to be placed on the November ballot.
Alderperson Fenton disagreed and pointed out that the item was debated vigorously in committee, the city clerk had given a close estimate as to how much the ballot measure would cost, and one committee member [Alderperson Croatt] had even expressed the opinion that the cost was insignificant.
Alderperson Croatt, the Chair of the Safety and Licensing Committee, did not have an issue with the item going back to committee for more work, noting that while they had discussed the estimated cost of the referendum question, they had not discussed where that money might come from.
The discussion was supposed to be tightly focused on the merits of referring the item back, not on other issues related to the resolution, and Mayor Woodford had to rein in both Alderpersons Alfheim and Hartzheim when their discussion points went too far afield—Alderperson Alfheim when she tried to asked Clerk Lynch if she had looking into the budget, and Alderperson Hartzheim when she said she would appreciate having it referred back because she had further questions she would like to ask Police Chief Thomas and Clerk Lynch about the resolution.
Alderperson Wolff said he didn’t see an issue in the budget and no one had brought that concern to the attention of any of the alderpersons, so there was no money issue.
Alderperson Schultz didn’t think there was any merit in sending it back to committee. During the committee meeting no concerns had been raised about where the funds were going to come from and there had just been an assumption that they would find those funds if the community decided this was important, and it felt like the community did feel this was important.
Alderperson Meltzer did not see any value in referring the resolution back to committee and did not think doing so would change the outcome but would instead result in a pointless delay.
The objection to the refer-back was upheld with Alderpersons Siebers, Hartzheim, Croatt, and Doran opposed.
Alderperson Fenton started out the discussion on the resolution itself. She said that one of the objections to the resolution that had been raised during the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting was that polls already indicated how the citizens of Wisconsin felt about the issue of marijuana legalization and having this referendum on the ballot would not do anything. In the past when “advocacy items” had come before the Council her position had been that if an issue affected the citizens of Appleton, then, as their elected representatives, the Common Council was responsible for helping them to have their voices be heard.
In spite of polling showing support for marijuana legalization, state representatives had done nothing to address that, so she thought the Appleton Common Council had an obligation to let its citizens know that at least some elected body heard them and perhaps remind other elected bodies that they should be listening as well.
Alderperson Hartzheim reiterated what she had said in committee that this was not the purview of the City of Appleton government. Yes, the alderpersons were elected to represent their constituents, but they were elected to represent them to the Common Council to the City of Appleton. They were not elected to represent them in Madison. She did not necessarily think that the representatives in Madison had done their job well, but she also did not believe that this referendum would do anything to change that.
At that point, Alderperson Schultz, as the author of the resolution, offered up a couple of amendments that he said came out of conversations, one at the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting and one with Police Chief Thomas.
The first part of his amendment changed Section 1 of the resolution to remove the words “full adult” and add “by those 21 and over” so that it read: … “for the purpose of submitting to the qualified electors of Appleton the proposition of whether the State of Wisconsin should legalize and regulate the use of marijuana in Wisconsin by those 21 and over.”
The second part of his amendment added a Section 3 which read: “The City Clerk is directed to send results of the referendum to the Governor of the State of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Towns Association, the Wisconsin League of Municipalities, and all members of the State Legislature.”
He said those two changes would help clarify the age group they intended marijuana to be legalized for and give a purpose to the results by having them reported somewhere.
[I commented back on July 26 that it sounded like the resolution was going to need to be amended in order for the results to actually be sent somewhere instead of just filed away. I was a little surprised when that didn’t actually happen during the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting, but I figured it didn’t matter because it sounded like there was some kind of advocacy group that would make sure the results got reported to the right placed. But it turns out my first thoughts were accurate.]
Alderperson Doran noted that the amendment didn’t actually change the question that appeared on the ballot.
Mayor Woodford said that was correct and pointed out that if the Council intended to amend the question on the ballot, then they would need to make a subsequent amendment after they voted on the amendment before them.
Alderperson Del Toro supported the amendment Alderperson Schultz had made. He thought there was power in the collective voice of municipalities when they acted together. Madison had a responsibility to listen, and this would be a step toward that.
The Council voted 11-2 to approve the amendment with Alderpersons Hartzheim and Doran casting the dissenting votes.
Alderperson Fenton then made a motion to amend the ballot question to read: “Should marijuana be legalized for use by those 21 and over in the State of Wisconsin?”
Alderperson Hartzheim said that, based on the newly added section that resulted from Alderperson Schultz’s amendment, she thought further discussion should happen in committee.
Mayor Woodford thought that a motion to refer-back was in order and conferred with Attorney Behrens who indicated a motion to refer-back could happen and it would only need a simple majority to pass.
Alderperson Doran felt that they had already done a lot of committee work on the item that evening and he thought there would be more. He thought at this point it ought to just be referred back to the committee, noting that there was no time crunch and the item could go to committee and be back in front of the Council on 08/17/2022.
Alderperson Meltzer thought that since they had already done all the committee work that night there was no point in sending it back and do it all over. They had done it that night and should finish it that night.
Alderperson Hartzheim did not agree that they had done the committee work. She didn’t know what the new section three which had been added would involve, she didn’t know the expenses involved with that, and he didn’t have any feedback from the City Clerk. She would appreciate taking it back to committee.
Alderperson Melzer pointed out that the memo from Clerk Lynch gave an estimated cost of $2,250, and it was unlikely that even a lot of changes would bring that up to even to $3,000. That did not seem like something that was worth being sent all the way back to committee just for the committee to repeat everything that had already been said that evening.
Alderperson Hartzheim noted that “all the way back to committee” would be next Wednesday and then it would be back before the Common Council the following Wednesday without the full Council having had to do all the committee work.
Alderperson Wolff called the question which was upheld by a voice vote. The Council then defeated the motion to return the item to committee by a vote of 4-9 with only Alderpersons Siebers, Hartzheim, Croatt, and Doran voting yes.
The Council returned to discussing the item as amended.
Alderperson Doran said that he had a fundamental disagreement with these times of resolutions and referendums, even more so when they were putting a financial burden on the community. “The value of this is dubious. The information that this referendum seeks has already been presented in a myriad of ways. We’ve done this referendum at the city level already just a couple of years ago, so we have a pulse of what the community’s opinion is.” He was frustrated with the idea that they would just “find the money” and was disappointed to hear a colleague say that. He was not in favor of the Council giving away their oversight of the budget. “If that’s the kind of attitude we’re gonna have, I’m not sure what we have Budget Saturday for to be honest with you.” He wasn’t sure what their role was if they were just going to tell staff to go find the money.
He was frustrated that this had been brought forward with no way to pay for it and without knowing the clerk had the funding in her budget to cover it.
He made an amendment that the cost of the referendum be covered by the remainder of the Common Council’s parking permits budget which was about $2,600 and would just about cover the expense of paying for the referendum. ***SPOILER ALERT*** this didn’t pass, but if it had the council members would have had to either appropriate funds to cover their parking permits for the remainder of the year or forgo their parking permits until 12/31/2022.
Alderperson Wolff started out discussion on the amendment by tersely stating, “I’m against the amendment.”
Alderperson Del Toro said, “I strongly discourage us from approving this amendment. This is apples and oranges, and if Alder Doran has a problem with the budget, this is a question for budget Saturday not for tonight. We are comparing and drawing from different pools of money here and it is an inappropriate use of our expenses to draw from—in my opinion, it is an inappropriate use of our expenses to draw from this fund from money that has already been allocated.” [I didn’t really understand what he meant when he said “this is a question for budget Saturday not for tonight,” given that the next Budget Saturday will be setting the 2023 budget not retroactively dealing with the 2022 budget.]
Alderperson Hartzheim said she supported the amendment and would go out to her car and get her parking pass as soon as it was passed. “This is not apples and oranges. If you—if we elect to do this and we have no way to pay for it, how can we proceed or why should we proceed? We need to have a place to pay for this.” She also pointed out that they didn’t even know if reallocating the Council parking pass budget would cover the cost of the referendum because of Alderperson Schultz’s resolution adding to the clerk’s actions in relation to the referendum which could increase the cost beyond what she had estimated in her memo. She encouraged the Council to either accept this amendment or present a different amendment drawing funds from somewhere else.
Alderperson Van Zeeland said, “Alder Doran has pulled this parking permit stunt before. We know how this works. I think this is disingenuous. It’s a tactic to delay, and I think treating it seriously as a discussion is a waste of our time. We have other things that are more important that we could be doing than arguing about our parking passes.”
Alderperson Alfheim said she found it interesting how hard they were working to not get the people’s opinion. They were just trying to get on record how the Appleton community felt on the issue. She said this would not be the first time in the state of Wisconsin that an unfunded mandate was passed. It was only $2,500. It was not as if they did not pay attention to taxpayer dollars, but they were trying to do something for the community and for the State of Wisconsin. She wondered why they were working so hard to stand in the way of taking the pulse of the community. Why were they working so hard to squelch that? It was a simple question to validate that there was tremendous support in the Appleton community for the legalization of marijuana, and they were trying to share that with the state of Wisconsin.
Someone off microphone raised a point of order as to whether Alderperson was speaking on the amendment or the underlying item.
Alderperson Alfheim said she was speaking on the amendment because this was the third amendment now that had been made in an attempt to prevent them from asking the question they were trying to ask. “My point is, we’re just trying to get the opinion of our community and get somebody to pay attention to what we’re saying, and I believe we [Appleton] are leaders in this state. And if we do not take the opportunity to speak up as a community then we are not doing the service.”
Mayor Woodford reminded the alderperson to keep their questions germane to the question before them which was the amendment.
Alderperson Hartzheim asked, “What is more important than how we pay for things?”
Alderperson Wolff asked to call the question which was upheld by a voice vote. The Council then voted against the amendment with only Alderpersons Hartzheim and Doran voting for it.
They then returned to talking about the original item with the approved amendments.
Alderperson Doran said he appreciated that they spent a lot of time on the item that evening doing a lot of committee work and that it was getting late in the evening. He challenged his colleagues to go through the city budget and find some way to pay for it. The budget was 668 pages long and there had to be $2,500 on almost every page. He thought they ought to add funding to the resolution and not just tell staff to go find money somewhere because they might not find that money in a place the Council approved of. He thought the Council should do their job and tell them where to find the money.
Alderperson Del Toro said he had full confidence in city staff and directors that they were capable of completing this task.
Alderperson Wolff called the question which was upheld on a voice vote. The Council then voted 9-4 to approve the resolution with Alderpersons Siebers, Hartzheim, Croatt, and Doran voting against it.
[I really hope that this signals a new willingness by the Council to hold referendums on local issues. Holding local referendums on state-level issues may have some merit, but holding local referendums on local issues would seem to result in the most bang for our buck.
The city under a former mayor and Common Council refused repeatedly to hold referendums on high-dollar capital projects like the library and the Expo center even though if anything called for a referendum, high profile, big budget, public projects like those two items would seem to call for them.
Thankfully, we now have a new mayor and a new Common Council both of which seem to be more interested in promoting public participation. I understand that residents have been burned in the past, but, in light of this new openness, it might not hurt to start pushing again for referendums on some high-profile projects.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=980228&GUID=793B96BD-AF7D-42ED-A4D6-06887E2086F8
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