The Common Council met 02/15/2023. It was a shorter meeting clocking in at under 30 minutes. The first half of the meeting was taken up by Business Presented By The Mayor including updates on the Trout Museum/Ellen Kort Peace Park and the 12/26/2022 Polymer Incident at the wastewater treatment plant.
The Council did also separate out two action items for individuals votes. These consisted of the agreement between the city and the state for the Lawe Street reconstruction project and the proposed 6-month parking trial on Prospect Avenue. Both of these were approved unanimously at the Municipal Services Committee meeting, and both of them were then approved unanimously by the Council with minimal discussion.
I’ve included a transcript of the Common Council discussion for your downloading pleasure.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked to separate out the cost sharing agreement between the state and the city for the reconstruction of Lawe Street between College and Wisconsin because she wanted to highlight the percentage of the cost that Appleton would have to pay for. The memo to the Municipal Services Committee had indicated that the state would cover 80% of the cost or up to $2,793,634.
Due to the estimated cost of the project, it turns out that the amount the state is paying will only account for around 66% of the total cost even though the agreement referenced 80%. Alderperson Hartzheim said, “I’m still grateful that we have state funding to be able to do this. But I wanted to make sure that everyone was aware that that 80% can be a little bit deceiving.”
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) asked to separate out the proposed 6-month parking trial for Prospect Avenue. The item had originally called for changes to the parking on both Prospect Avenue between 6th Street and Oneida as well as to a portion of 5th Street. It was, however, amended at the committee level to remove the changes to the 5th Street parking. Alderperson Schultz wanted to know why that was.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) who was the alderperson of that district and the one who had requested the changes, explained that their goal with the trial was to try to allow the residents to utilize the on-street parking and protect it from the workers at the nearby county facility. There had been concern about county social workers parking on 5th Street so they decided to remove that from the trial and just try allowing all day parking on Prospect Avenue.
As noted above, both of these items were approved unanimously by the Common Council.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1064888&GUID=1B410AD6-86CB-4CEC-B9CD-DB4327FF200F
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