The Common Council met 10/02/2024. One of the items they voted on was the request from Appleton Downtown Inc to allow free ramp and meter parking in downtown Appleton on Small Business Saturday, 11/30/2024. This item was also the focus of a special meeting of the Municipal Services Committee just prior to the Common Council meeting. The committee recommended that the item be completely denied, but the Common Council ended up amending it to remove the request for free ramp parking and then voted 10-4 to approve free on-street parking in downtown Appleton on 11/30/2024 for Small Business Saturday.
I’ve prepared transcripts of both the Municipal Services Committee discussion and the Common Council’s discussion:
Two members of the public spoke in favor of the request, Jennifer Stephany, the Executive Director of Appleton Downtown Inc., and Nathan Weyenberg the owner of Angels Forever – Windows of Light. Ms. Stephany believed free parking would be a way to help facilitate people being able to stay downtown all day on Small Business Saturday which was a economically valuable day to shop owners. She asked that if free ramp access could not be provided that, at least, the city approve free on-street parking.
Mr. Weyenberg noted that downtown on-street parking was free after 6PM, so the city was subsidizing the restaurants and bars. He was only asking for the city to provide free parking on one day, which was the biggest day of the year for them.
There continued to be logistical concerns regarding offering free ramp parking. If the city left the entrance gates up so that drivers could enter for free without getting a ticket but then drivers stayed beyond the point when free parking was over, they would not be able to exit the ramp because they did not have a ticket. They would end up having to call for help in order to get out and be issued a $50 no ticket fee.
Ms. Stephany asked if it would be possible to keep the entrance gates closed so that everyone would need to take a ticket to enter but then leave the exit ramps open while free parking was in effect so that drivers could leave without having to pay but then those who stayed too long would have a ticket so that they could exit. Staff members would not able to confirm whether or not it was possible to operate the ramp gates in this manner.
The Municipal Services Committee ended up voting 3-2 to deny the entire request.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) was not sure it was fiscally prudent to offer free parking given the financial needs of the parking utility. When she asked how much money the parking utility brought in on an average Saturday she was told that in 2022 an average Saturday in November brought in $3,100 through the parking ramps and $700 through meters. Mayor Woodford pointed out that Small Business Saturday was not an average Saturday but would rather feature significant promotion trying to get people to come downtown on that day.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) felt that the parking ramps supported everyone and needed to be funded, and parking fees were the way they were funded.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) believed that offering free ramp parking on Small Business Saturday would be a way to get people to try out the ramps and see their value which would result in increased ramp use over time.
The Common Council ended up amending the request to remove reference to the parking ramps and to instead just offer free on-street parking. Several alderpersons echoed Alderperson Alfheim’s belief that offering free ramp parking on this one day would serve as good advertising for the ramps; however, in light of the logistical issues, they preferred offering only free on-street parking over offering no free parking whatsoever.
It was mentioned that ADI had submitted this request back in August, but for some reason it did not end up on the agenda until the beginning of October. If it had been discussed earlier there would have been opportunity to explore options for providing free ramp parking. Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) expressed some dissatisfaction that they were operating under a time crunch, saying, “I just want to make it very clear that I will not be voting in favor of something like this at the last-minute next year.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) expressed hope that in the future ADI could provide more detail as to how much sales were increased by offering free parking, saying, “I’m becoming a little bit fatigued with assuming that this is doing so much good and not really having any true documentation that it is doing some good.”
The Council ended up voting to amend the item to only provide free on-street parking rather than also allowing free ramp parking. They then voted 10-4 to approve the item as amended with Alderpersons Firkus, Fenton, Christopher Croatt (District 14), and Chad Doran (District 15) casting the dissenting votes.
View full Municipal Services Committee meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1232566&GUID=5FC195D5-97D1-4EDC-964B-7D2862CC3249
View full Common Council meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1213517&GUID=81E74286-30D8-42B6-B190-79482A705CD5
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