During the 01/20/2021 Common Council meeting, the alderpersons approved all of Mayor Woodford’s appointments to committees, commissions, and boards.
Per Mayor Woodford, those appointments filled a majority of vacancies. He stated that he was really pleased to be making serious headway on cleaning vacancies up. One thing that was particularly exciting about the process of posting and filling vacancies was getting to hear from members of the community that he hadn’t met before and who were interested in getting involved. He thanked everyone who applied for positions whether they were appointed or not and he hoped that those who weren’t appointed in this round continue to stay involved and look for future opportunities to serve.
There are some additional vacancies that he is working on filling. These ones are a little more tricky because the roles are either statutorily defined by the state or else defined by city guidelines or the resolutions that created the positions in the first place.
Ultimately, his intention is to run the board appointment process twice a year, once in the winter and once in the summer. They’ll let vacancies accrue unless they affect quorum, and then post openings and fill them all at the same time of the year. This will allow more openness and transparency in the process because the community will know when it is happening. It will also be more efficient for city staff to handle appointments in bulk.
Mayor Woodford finished off by saying he looked forward to having a whole new crew of folks serving on committees, commissions, and boards.
[I must say, I like what I’ve seen of this new process. I don’t remember seeing positions get posted very often in the past, outside of when a completely new committee or board was formed. This new process does seem to be making things more open and accessible to the public.]
View the full Common Council meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=825730&GUID=A8FC7DB2-4B6A-4CD1-B060-0054C1C683AB&Options=info|&Search=
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