Committee notes for the week of April 26th

This week marks the first meetings of the new council committees. I have been assigned to the Municipal Services Committee and the Utilities Committee. These two committees work hand in hand in some respects as they both are public works related. Municipal Services covers a broad range of public works services, while Utilities covers the activities of the water and wastewater treatment plants. 

The most talked about item on the committee list for this week is a resolution condemning xenophobia, racism, and violence against the Asian Pacific Islander Desiamerican Community. This resolution is on the Safety and Licensing Committee agenda as it was referred back to the committee at the council meeting last Wednesday. 

I was one of six council members who voted to allow the refer back. I was prepared to vote in favor of the resolution for several reasons. However, I was a bit caught off-guard by the refer back and in the few moments we had to decide on whether or not to refer it back, I chose to vote in favor of the refer back.

I recognize the frustration this action caused members of our Hmong community. I firmly believe the resolution will pass, which is why in that brief moment of weighing the decision, I voted to allow it to be referred back. I respect the process of how the council works and refer backs are part of that process. I also respect the opinions of all of my colleagues. I will be voting to support this resolution when it comes back to council on May 5th, as I planned to do at the last council meeting. I will also be meeting this week with several members of the Hmong community, which I am looking forward to. 

Municipal Services

The first committee meeting of the week is the Municipal Services Committee that I am assigned to. Meeting Monday at 4:30 p.m., we will be electing a vice-chair of the committee as our first order of business. As a side note, all of the committees will be taking the same action this week. The committee chairs were all appointed by the mayor at our council meeting last week. 

We will also be electing and appointing. council representatives to the Central Equipment Agency, Board of Building Inspection and Board of Heating Examiners. 

Our major action for this meeting will be to adopt the Appleton Downtown Streetscape Design Guide. As I shared previously, a virtual public meeting was held to unveil the design guide which you can find on the city's Envision Appleton page. 

The design guide will essentially guide how the city designs the streetscapes around downtown when streets are rebuilt. I look forward to some of these elements also being adopted into other street and trail projects around the city. 

Finance Committee

The Finance Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday and will be voting to recommend approval of a number of contracts, for replacing park pavilion roofs and several projects at the Appleton Waste Water Treatment Plant. 

Fox Cities Transit Commission

The Transit Commission meets Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. On its agenda is a request to approve a design contract for renovations to the transit center building on Whitman Ave., which serves as the offices and maintenance garage for Valley Transit. It also includes a request to approve a purchase order for five new busses as part of an on-going fleet replacement project that started with the replacement of five busses in 2020. Five more are scheduled for 2021 and five final busses in 2022. The cost for five busses is roughly $2.5 million, with the funds coming from a $7.6 million settlement with Volkswagen in 2018.

The city's Valley Transit director Ron McDonald and his staff did an excellent job putting together a manageable replacement plan. My only question is related to the size of the busses. So far the busses purchased have been 35 or 40 foot busses. That is the recommendation for future purchases as well. Given the drop in ridership during the pandemic, which hopefully is only temporary, I am curious to see if there has been any thought given to potentially adjusting some of the fleet to smaller busses to allow VT to be more nimble and responsive in planning routes and frequency. 

I will also say that without having a chance to ask Director McDonald, these could be questions that have already been examined and answered, and perhaps there are good reasons not to have smaller busses. But I will be reaching out to him to ask those questions.  

Utilities Committee

My other committee as I mentioned is the Utilities Committee which meets at 5 p.m. Tuesday. The only big item on the agenda is a request to approve postponing several underground utility projects for 2021. The request affects eight projects that the public works department anticipates bringing back in 2022. The delays would mean the accompanying road projects would also be delayed an extra year. 

Board of Building Inspection

The Board of Building Inspection meets Wednesday at 1 p.m. to review an application to renovate an office space at 300 N. Woods Edge Dr. that exceeds the allowable space for a non-separated, non-sprinkler office area. 

Community & Economic Development 

The only real action item on the agenda for the Community & Economic Development Committee meeting Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., is a resolution to support the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). 

Safety and Licensing

Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Safety and Licensing committee will again take up the aforementioned anti-Asian hate resolution, as well as language to update our ordinances to include language related to and enforcement of electric scooters, which were recently approved for a trial period through the end of 2021.  

As always, all meetings are open to anyone in the community to attend either in person or to view on the meetings page of the city's website, appleton.org.