It's a busy week of committee meetings this week. This also marks the final week for outgoing Common Council members, Kyle Lobner who is also the current council president, Patti Coenen, and Corey Otis. Alderman Lobner lost his bid for re-election by two votes, while alders Coenen and Otis decided not to seek re-election. I want to say a special thanks to them for their service to the council and wish them well in the future.
CEA Review Committee
The week starts off with the CEA, or Central Equipment Agency Review Committee meeting Monday at 3:30 p.m. The CEA is in charge of all of the equipment and vehicle fleet for the city. The job of the CEA is to provide for the timely and cost effective replacement of equipment and vehicles as they reach the end of their useful service lives.
The CEA committee meets at the call of the chair and in this meeting, will discuss and recommend the purchase and replacement of several vehicles and pieces of equipment, as well as updates to its very detailed policies and procedures manual.
Municipal Services Committee
The Municipal Services Committee meets Monday at 4:30 p.m. The Municipal Services Committee deals with all things public works. The agenda includes a request to approve a contract for the operation, maintenance and monitoring at the closed city landfill. It also includes a declaration of the city's intent to special assess for several road construction projects and a request to vacate two small sections of Prospect Avenue. Lastly, there are a number of street occupancy permits up for approval.
Finance Committee
The Finance Committee meets Monday at 5:30 p.m. As you may have guessed, the Finance Committee handles all matters that require funds from the budget. Among the items on its agenda is the awarding of a contract for the renovation of the Pierce Park pathway. It is part of $700,000 allocated for pathway projects at various city parks this year. The parks/recreation and facilities management department initially set aside $50,000 for the Pierce Park project. None of the bids for the project exceeded that amount. The low bid was from Sommers Construction Co., Inc. for $28,935. Both the engineering firm and the parks department recommend awarding the bid to Sommers Construction.
City Plan Commission
The City Plan Commission meets Tuesday at 4 p.m. The City Plan Commission, as it sounds, deals with matters of the city's comprehensive plan and development related items. Among the agenda items for this meeting is a public hearing and approval of the aforementioned street vacation on Prospect Avenue, a detachment request for a small portion of city right-of-way to the Town of Harrison, and two plat approvals for housing developments.
Utilities Committee
The Utilities Committee meets Tuesday at 5 p.m. The Utilities Committee handles water, wastewater and stormwater related items. Action items at the meeting include a contract approval for upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant electrical distribution system. This is the final phase of a five-phase project to upgrade that system. There is also an accompanying request for special assessments for sanitary and storm laterals. This goes along with a request before the municipal services committee request for special assessments for road projects this year. Generally when a road is rebuilt, the underground utilities are also replaced. A contract for stormwater consulting services is also up for approval.
Board of Health
The Board of Health meets Wednesday at 7 a.m. The board of health obviously deals with health related items that come before the city. That includes noise related issues which are classified as health issues. This week the DOT is requesting a noise variance to do an epoxy overlay on the Oneida Skyline Bridge from June 14-30. The work will begin at 5:30 a.m. each day if the variance is approved. If not, the DOT says the project will last several days longer and add additional cost to the project. The board will also hear a COVID-19 update.
Appleton Redevelopment Authority
The Appleton Redevelopment Authority (ARA) is an arm of the city that deals with redevelopment issues. The ARA has purchasing power to buy property on behalf of the city to allow for redevelopment of parcels of land. This week's meeting takes place Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. and includes approving appointments of committee members. There are also several informational items on the agenda.
Safety and Licensing Committee
The Safety and Licensing Committee meets Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. The S&L committee handles issues of the police and fire departments as well as the City Clerk's office. Of the few items on the agenda for this week, I will just highlight an item that was referred back to the committee from the Common Council last week. It pertains to a resolution to ban the sale of puppy mill puppies in the city. If you aren't familiar with what a puppy mill is, essentially it is a large-scale breeding operation. But what I believe is noteworthy is that this resolution seeks to solve a problem that doesn't exist in Appleton as existing pet stores here do not sell dogs. Alderman Michael Smith noted that same opinion when he referred the resolution back to the committee for further study.
HR/IT Committee
The HR/IT committee is a combined committee of the Human Resources and Information Technology departments of the city. Meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., noteworthy items for this week include a discussion of alderman salaries. This has been before the committee and full council before. I am not sure how much discussion will happen at this time, given several members of the council will be leaving after this week and new members, including myself will be joining the council. I have several thoughts on both this current discussion and ideas for improving this process in the future, but I will share those in a future update when there is clarity about when this current proposal will be voted on by the full council.
Public Input Opportunity!
The last noteworthy item this week is a reminder of a public input meeting for the design of future streetscape projects in the city. The meeting is virtual and will take place on Thursday the 15th from 6-8 p.m. Details and sign up information is on the city website here:
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