The Common Council met 06/07/2023. The main item they discussed was the request to approve a development agreement for Fox Commons, a proposed mixed-use development that will be housed in City Center, which the Council approved unanimously. The Council did also separate out for individual votes two other items, neither of which they spent much time on.
I’ve included a transcript of the discussion for download.
The first item was a request from a resident for a terrace occupancy permit to keep an existing fence in the street terrace. This fence which had been in place for many years was found to overhang beyond the lot line of the property into the public right-of-way. In order to not have to tear down the fence, the owner applied for a terrace occupancy permit under the City’s recently updated Street Terrace Policy. The Municipal Services Committee had voted 3-1 to approve the permit.
Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) had cast the lone dissenting vote, and he was the one who requested the item be separated out for an individual vote at the Council meeting. He explained that he had voted no at the committee meeting because he was concerned that the fence may have been causing a visual obstruction to the neighboring driveway. Since the committee meeting, he had been able to see the property and the fence first hand and confirm that the fence was not obstructing the view from the neighbor’s driveway. As a result, he was going to vote in favor of the permit.
The Council proceeded to vote 14-0 to approve the permit.
The second item was the denial of a special event permit for the Smoshfest music festival originally planned to be held in Jones Park June 15-18. The event was not well-planned and the event organizer had failed to meet numerous requirement necessary to obtain a permit which prompted city staff to deny the permit. The event organizer appealed the denial, and the Safety and Licensing Committee voted to uphold the denial of the permit.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) who had chaired the Safety and Licensing Committee in the absence of Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) asked for the item to be separated out for an individual vote not because he had anything in particular he wanted to say about it but in order to give an opportunity to staff to comment on it since it was not common for Appleton to deny a special event permit.
City staff did not speak on the item, but Mayor Woodford pointed the alderpersons and the public to the memo regarding the denial included in the agenda packet.
Alderperson Croatt also spoke and said that, while he had not been able to attend that particular meeting, based on the information provided he too would have voted along with the rest of the Safety and Licensing Committee to deny the special event permit.
The Council proceeded to vote 14-0 to uphold the denial of the special event permit for Smoshfest.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1099773&GUID=AC686541-59D7-4CE6-882F-DF3316485CC6
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