Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I now call to order the Wednesday, 04/15/2026 meeting of the Appleton Common Council. Please rise for the invocation which will be delivered by Alder Smith.

I'd like to use this invocation to honor and remember my dear colleague Danielle Joyner. She died suddenly and unexpectedly from cardiac arrest while leading a group of students on a spring break trip to visit art museums in New York City. Nothing gave her more joy, true joy, than the chance to introduce anyone, students especially, to the wonders of the past. In the winter term, she and I co taught a class. We had plans to co teach another class in the fall.

She was also the co founder with me of the Appleton Lyceum speaker series at the Appleton Library. She even gave the first talk, which was about the elements of Gothic architecture in Appleton's churches. And you'd be surprised how many details and connections she teased out of photos of the old churches we walk by every day. Her name was Danielle Joyner, and she was a Joyner. It's her last name, but I mean it literally as a person who brought people together.

Next week, I'll be sworn in for my second term as alderperson. So now I've had two years to reflect on being an alderperson. And what stands out to me is the joining that is inherent in the work. We live in this vibrant city. We bring with us connections to many smaller communities within the city. Those smaller communities are sometimes satisfied doing their own thing, minding their own business. But one part of our work is to make these communities known to each other. In memorial to Danielle, I'd like to redouble my effort at being a joiner of communities. Two Appleton residents suffered a grievous injury last week. Margie and Allen Hopkinsberger were in Thursday's terrible rollover car crash on Wisconsin in Meade.

I'd have read about that. Both were hospitalized. They're now in critical condition. Margie especially is in rough condition. It's another shocking accident, this time at an intersection our family has driven through thousands of times. Margie has served as a welcoming presence on Sunday mornings for everyone entering St. Mary Catholic Church. And tonight, they have a service. The Eucharistic adoration is directed in memory of her. I learned this week that one of her siblings is a nun, another a priest.

So Margie came by her love for church gatherings naturally. She's as dedicated to St. Mary's as she could possibly be, short of making it her actual vocation. I pray that Margie will recover and we will be greeted again by her. If we reflect on our communities, all of our communities, no doubt each of us could call to mind others like Margie who give selflessly of their time and, at least figuratively, welcome people at the doors. Margie, holds a lesson for older persons. When we close our eyes and think about why we vote this way or that, why we support this policy or that one, it's to support or make easier the work of all these community sustainers who make our city what it is. Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance All right, roll call of Alders.

Councillor Martin, who is excused.

Alright, and roll call of officers and department heads.

All are represented.

Okay. A motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. We have a motion and a second to approve. Is there any discussion of the minutes? Hearing none, please cast your votes.

That motion passes 14 to zero. The minutes have been approved. On the business presented by the mayor, an additional proclamation for your information. It is Autism Acceptance Month. Text of that proclamation is included in your materials. Next is twenty six-four 67 Board and Committee reappointments. We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Hearing none, please cast your votes. That motion passes 14 to zero.

And thanks to everybody who is continuing in their service, volunteer service to the city of Appleton. And I'll just make note, the appointment of Jennifer Messerschmidt to the Fox Cities Area Room Tax Commission is an initial appointment, not a reappointment. So just want to call your attention to that. All right. Moving along participation.

At each meeting, the Common Council sets aside thirty minutes to allow an opportunity for members of the public who wish to speak on an item that appears on the agenda to do so. Public participation is limited to a maximum of five minutes per person. And I will help you keep track of time. With that, we have four members of the public who've signed up to speak. I'll check at the end to make sure we haven't missed anybody. But to begin is Steve Steve?

Good evening. My name is Steve Werger. I live at 813 West Bent Oak Lane here in Appleton. I'm coming to you tonight to speak in favor of the special use permit for 314 North Washington Street. I am currently the president of the Providence Promise Board of Directors.

And Providence Promise is the nonprofit that is currently in the process of buying the property. And our intent is to open Providence Place Shelter, which will be used to house the chronically homeless during severe weather conditions. I came before you, I think, probably six months ago and talked. And at that time, we had just become a nonprofit. And we were getting our feet underneath us.

And I said the one thing we were missing was a building of our own. Well, we now have a building almost of our own right now. The Mission Church is a great facility. It's going to meet our needs now and into the future. One of the items that came up at the plan commission was a couple of the neighboring owners raised some concerns.

Since that plan commission meeting, we have met with the owners of Rookies Bar, and they feel more comfortable with us moving in. And then on Monday, we met with the property managers for Rise apartment buildings. They do have some concerns because some of their tenants are renting at Fair Market. And they're trying to improve themselves. And now that we've got people coming into the neighborhood in a place where they used to be, there is concern that there may be some issues.

I want to stress that we are open to communication with all of our neighbors. We want to be a good neighbor. My professional I retired, but I'm a professional communications person. And so I know the importance of communicating with all constituencies. We will be communicating.

We had talked about late this summer, early fall, when we were ready to open, to have an open house for the neighborhood owners to come in, tour the facility, meet our leadership team as well as our volunteers, and to talk more about our mission. But that won't be the end of the communication. Whenever issues arise, we will be in communication with our neighbors. And you know, we're in this to help people, help people who could freeze to death. And we need to be open to lending that that hand and providing some dignity to folks as they struggle in the hopes that they can improve themselves in the future.

So that's what we're about. We're excited to move into 314 North Appleton Street, and we'll keep you all updated as we continue to move along. Thank you.

Next is Vince Salvia, is it? Welcome. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Vince Salvia. I live at 4021 East Bend Valley Drive in Appleton. I'm a Xavier High School graduate, a Lawrence University graduate. I've been a resident of the city for forty years. I'm also the director of operational ministries at First Congregational Church.

Back in January, when we had one of the winter's cold snaps, I happened to be stopping at the Appleton Library on a Saturday afternoon to return a book for my wife. And as I was approaching the door, a gentleman came up to me and asked if I knew where the Super eight motel was. I began a conversation with him and found that he and two others had been sleeping in one of the city parking garages. And they had been at the St. Joe's warming shelter, and they had received a voucher to stay overnight at the Super eight Motel, but they lacked transportation to get there, and there wasn't time for them to wait for a shuttle.

So they asked if I could give them a ride. Bundled them into my car, we drove around the block, we picked up their belongings, was talking with them the whole time, talked with them while we drove to Super eight. And it really highlighted to me that these are not the homeless. These are not this amorphous group of people that are sleeping in the parking garage. These are real people with real names and real stories and innate human dignity. It's not just a homeless person, it's Jason. It's Nico. It's Latasha. And this is just one example of why I so strongly support having this facility in the downtown area. There's a real need.

The Pillars does amazing work, but there's more than what they can accommodate on their own. And housing people temporarily in motels gets them out of the cold, but it doesn't get them into coordinated entry into social services and the support that they could receive in order to get them into a better place. And so I strongly support the special use permit for the property at 314 North Appleton Street. And I ask for your vote in favor of the resolution as well. Thank you.

Next is Marissa Downs. Welcome. Hello.

I'm Marissa Downs, 2520 East Apple Hill Boulevard. I also am the owner of Rise Apartments, a 48 unit affordable housing community with apartments and street level townhomes that share a lot line with Mission Church. I'm here today just to respectfully request that the BSC submitted plan of operation be expanded to include a good neighbor agreement or include language to establish a code of conduct to proactively reduce issues and encourage a sense of pride in the shared neighborhood. Because we all want this to work, I'm not here speaking against this at all, but I have worked in housing and housing unstable, tenants in my affordable housing developments for years, and I know that for this to work, we need to be proactive to produce the best outcome. So a good neighbor agreement, just for some context, signals the shelter operator is prepared, provides a framework for incidents when they arise, defines expectations before conflicts occur, such as outdoor behavior policies, security response procedures, and shared boundary procedures.

This framework is supported and recommended by homeless policy organizations, so I do encourage for you all to take some time to research the ways that these shared agreements can benefit both the shelter and the community at large. Because it goes beyond communication. I think we all endeavor to communicate a lot with our neighbors, but I think in practice what happens is people get busy, it's hard to find people, it's hard to reach people, and sometimes when the most pressing and emergent issues occur, there's not policy in place for who to call, how to deal with it, and then what ends up happening is the police get called. And we are not looking to criminalize homelessness, and I think we all agree with that. These operational details I'm requesting connect directly to the compatibility standards under section 23 dash 66 and ties in with condition three in staff's recommendation.

If the SUP can be approved on compliance with the plan of operation, then it can also require what goes into the plan. And I believe the current plan is lacking any detail on how exterior activity will be governed or where the quiet enjoyment of adjacent neighbors are contemplated. I think it provides some information on what will happen when participants are inside, but I don't think it talks much about how intake, how people will come in and out, what people will do after they leave at nine a. M. For example, there's an eleven p.

M. Fresh air break in the proposed operational policy, but if 50 people, if they're at max capacity and 50 people are gathered outside simultaneously at that last time that they can be outside, that will be disrupted to the children who have school and the individuals who are working sleeping directly above that space. Because unfortunately, if you know how it's situated, the area that I think will be identified as the smoking area is adjacent to our building, and the townhomes are across the street. But this has been proposed without any consideration for the neighboring residents. So a good neighbor policy would sort of contemplate all of these things, create an operational plan that is considerate of everyone's quiet enjoyment, and it also lacks a way for residents to deliberately meet regularly with staff at Providence.

So I think that what will end up happening, unfortunately, if there's not a policy, if there's a noise disturbance, the residents will call the police department with a noise complaint. And this is not a long term strategy. I think we find it even when a patio opened up at a bar. Right? I mean, this is just something to be able to make sure that everybody can coexist in community together.

Managing daily issues just as they arise will be extremely time consuming for all residents and for whichever city department the code violation falls under. I believe that under the finding of fact number seven, which is neighborhood compatibility, the neighboring residential use needs to be considered, and a robust operational plan needs to be created with best practices in mind that allows for the quiet enjoyment of all residents in the surrounding neighborhood. Thank you for your consideration.

Next is Katie Olson.

Welcome. Thank you. Hello, counsel. I am Katie Olson, 1720 West Reeve Street. And I am also here to support the permit for the Providence Place at 314 North Appleton Street.

From my vantage point, this proposal reflects thoughtful and practical response to a very real need in our community. As stated before, Pillars does wonderful work, but there are gaps. And so this new space would help fill those gaps. The organization behind this effort has already demonstrated its commitment to work through the operations that we've seen at St. Joe's and knowing that they serve people with dignity during the most vulnerable times in their lives.

This proposed location feels very appropriate because it is near the services that people need downtown library, public transportation, and other supportive services. We know that when people are experiencing housing insecurity, proximity to services matter. They need that wraparound. Just having a place to lay their head at night is sufficient. We really support the location and having that proximity increases access, reduces barriers, and helps create pathways toward greater stability.

We know that housing insecurity and homelessness are not issues that disappear when services are pushed farther away. We need coordinated, well situated support that helps the individuals and our community as a whole We respond more effectively and humanely. This organization is taking a serious step by establishing an independent nonprofit and investing in a permanent location that can serve people responsibly and consistently. And that kind of stability, again, not only helps the individuals that are facing being unhoused, but it helps our broader community to really be a community. We at Ester believe that strong communities are built when we respond to human need with dignity, practical care, and a commitment to justice.

Approving this permit as one way that Appleton can live out those values and help ensure that our neighbors have a safer place to turn to when they need it most. Thank you.

Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on an item that appears on the agenda but didn't have the chance to sign in? Hearing none, we will close public participation. We have no public hearings, no special resolutions. So we will establish the order of the day. Alder Wolf.

Thank you, chair. I would like to separate from Safety and Licensing Committee Resolution 20 six-four 33, expressing expressing support support for for ranked ranked choice choice voting voting in in municipal municipal elections. Elections. I intend to request a hold until the next common council meeting.

Okay. I will address the hold when we take the item up in a little bit. Right. Moving along, Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair. From City Plan 20 six-four 18, the Special Use Permit. And from Finance '20 six-four 45, the Meridian Barrier System.

And if there's no objection, I would also ask that the council separate out an item from Plan Commission. This is item 20 six-four 19, request to approve the Glenmore Park final plat. Hearing no objections, we'll also separate that item. Okay. With that, we are going to start with the first item separated from Planning Commission.

This is item 20 six-four 18, request to approve special use permit number 126 for a year round shelter facility located at 314 North Appleton Street. We have a motion and a second to approve. We will open the floor for discussion. Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, chair. One of the public speakers noted something to the effect of a good neighbor agreement being included in this. Is this something that the city can even require in regards to a special use permit? Can you further enumerate on that?

Director Homan? Go ahead.

Applied they either need to be tied to what's called substantial evidence and in this case I think the recommendation was to add it to the plan of operation I would hesitate that if there is a good neighbor agreement added to a plan of operation, it would be something that we would need to enforce as a city that would likely be tied to or related existing municipal code around nuisance and other noise or other code violations. I think it would be difficult to add it. However, there would need to be some sort of legal nexus and finding a fact for the common counsel to add that.

Alder Hartshund.

Thank you, chair. In that regard, I read through the plan of operation, and I'm satisfied with the stipulations posted there. I do still have concern about communication amongst the groups in that neighborhood, but I'm satisfied with what we're seeing at this point. Thank you.

Alder Van Zeeland.

Actually, Alder Hartzheim asked my question. I was under the impression from other special use permits that we had to have some legal wrangling to add certain requirements. So thank you.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, have a motion and a second to approve. Please cast your votes. The motion passes 14 to zero. The item has been approved.

All right. Staying with Plan Commission, this is item 20 six-four 19, request to approve the Glenmore Park final plat as shown on attached maps and subject to the conditions in the staff memo. We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Hearing none, please cast your votes.

That motion passes fourteen-zero. That item has been approved. All right. Moving back to safety and licensing, twenty six-four thirty three. And I'm going to before we take up a motion, I'm going to ask Alder Wolf if he'd like to speak.

Thank you, Chair. I would like to request to hold this until the next common council meeting. Make a motion to hold.

Okay. We have a motion to hold until the next meeting. Is there a second? Second. All right.

Let's just catch up on the record here. Okay. And this would be held until the next meeting under this motion. And now we'll open the floor for discussion on the motion to hold. Alright. Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair. I would just like some clarification because the next technical meeting of the Common Council is actually an organizational meeting. So would this be the next actual meeting of the Common Council that is not an organizational meeting?

Alder Woolf is nodding in the affirmative, take the intent of the motion as for the next regular meeting of the Common Council.

Thank you.

Any further discussion on the motion to hold? All right. We do have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. This is on the hold.

Alright. The motion passes 14 to zero. That item will be held until the next regular meeting of the Common Council. Alright. On to Finance Committee.

This is 2045, request to approve the purchase of the Meridian Rapid Defense Group barrier system. We have a motion and a second to approve. All right. And as discussion gets underway, we're going to distribute a couple of handouts for your reference. I had a question from a member of counsel about a line item breakdown of the barrier system and associated costs.

Each of you will have a copy of that. We also have four packets with supplemental images of the various components of the system. Trying to save on printing. So if you'd like to take a look at that packet, just pass it along your row. Once we are situated, we'll get going with discussion.

And just for members of the public, this information will also be included in the minutes of the meeting. All right. Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair. As you know, I was the one that requested this. I very much appreciate that. Some of my constituents were curious as to whether these were made of gold based on the quantity and the amount to be spent. So I appreciate being able to show them the breakdown and that it's not just a few barriers.

It's actually quite a system. The other question that my constituents generally came to me with was, why doesn't Appleton because we are such a robust manufacturing environment, why can't we manufacture these? And you and I spoke independently about this, and I just wanted to give you my brief assessment but then ask that you continue with that. First, there's an intellectual property issue that I don't think that we can just copy Meridian's barriers and then hope that that's going be acceptable. And then secondarily, I think the cost would actually be competitive because we have to take into account all of this metal, all of these welds, all of this additional burden that comes on the city if we were to try to warranty them.

Did you have anything else in that regard that you wanted to make clear in that regard?

Well, I would actually like to ask Sergeant Bees to talk about the certifications that the meridian barriers come with. I think that's an important aspect of this. Any sort of homegrown system of this sort would not necessarily carry the same kinds of certifications. So Sergeant Bees, if you wouldn't mind just talking a little bit about that. Okay. Go ahead.

Thank you. That is correct. The Meridian system does come with a variety of certifications and approvals through organizations such as DHS, Department of Defense, etcetera. Some of these certifications include the Safety Act certification which is the highest level of federal recognition for an anti terrorism technology. And with that Safety Act certification comes certain liability protections that would get transferred to the manufacturer of the product being protected by having that certified highest level standard.

It also meets a variety of other certifications through American Society for Testing and Materials or ASTM as well as MASH to basically certify the devices to certain speeds, certain penetration ratings, etc. So with all of those items, that would be a tremendous amount of testing or liability for us to have to try to replicate.

Thank you. That was my gut feel as well. Just here we are trying to protect folks, but if something would happen that they weren't protected, then the city would be liable or potentially liable, and we didn't want that to be on our plates. Thank you.

Alder Krot. Thank you, mayor. I've been getting some feedback on this. First of all, I'm going to support this with a little bit of hesitancy, but I see the rationale and the need to make the investment. And one of the reasons why I'm going to support it is because of the funding mechanism that's in place.

And I will ask you to expand on that a little bit. But I've been telling people that have been asking me about how is the city paying for this, that it's going to be paid for by interest earned on ARPA money. So it's not technically tax dollars. It would be interest earned on ARPA money that the city got during the pandemic. One of the things that I asked about at finance, mayor, that I was hoping you could expand on in this larger forum is if there's an opportunity for the city to partner with other municipalities and make this more of a kind of a regional approach, or if there was an opportunity to possibly recover some of the cost by renting it out or getting some fees for use in the future.

You're exactly right about the funding mechanism. The city of Appleton received just over $14,000,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds. And the majority of those funds were then placed in an interest bearing account as counsel made decisions about allocations and before money was actually spent. And so while it was sitting in those interest bearing accounts, it was accruing interest. And that is the money that's being recommended to be spent in this way.

Council previously decided to set aside the interest earnings from ARPA in reserve fund for potential use as contingency for ARPA projects that had been awarded already. To date, we've not identified any projects that appear to be in need. However, there will still be remaining funds in that reserve account even with this acquisition. So there will be ARPA reserve in the form of interest. This interest money is unrestricted.

Unlike the ARPA money that came in, there were pretty stringent restrictions on how we could use interest money is not subject to the same provisions. However, I note that the product in question would likely comply with ARPA regulations anyway. But the other questions related to sharing with other communities, it's my intention if the Common Council approves this acquisition to reach out to communities in the area that already have Meridian barricade systems to discuss the possibility and see if there's interest in entering into some sort of memorandum of understanding among us to facilitate the sharing of these barriers for the events that happen in our region, both planned and unplanned. Right now, there's no such arrangement in place, and I think it'd be valuable for all of us to have that more clearly delineated. But we'll see what other communities say.

But it'll be my intention to do that, reach out, and see if we can facilitate a discussion about it. That interoperability with other communities is an important aspect of this product and why it's specified for Appleton. As far as cost recovery goes, that'll be an ongoing discussion. We do have a special use policy that relates to chargebacks for certain city equipment and labor. However, we have not made any determinations about what that might look like.

And that'll be an ongoing discussion. Part of it is we need to get these barriers operational and better understand what the labor is going to look like and also the ongoing maintenance for the product. So some outstanding questions that will need to be addressed. It would not be my expectation in this first cycle, coming season, that we would assess fees for the barrier system. Event organizers have already planned their events.

They've budgeted for their events. And I would rather we not make this system a discretionary item for organizers as they're thinking about how to set up their events. We intend to use these for events where there's a risk profile that would be supported by them. So hopefully that answers all of the questions. It does. Thank you. Alder Van Zeeland.

Thank you, Chair. I received some questions about competitive barriers. And thank you to the mayor's office and to Sergeant Bees for providing me some more information. After taking a look at that information and with the interoperability that you discussed, I feel confident that Meridian is the best system. And I intend to support it. And I hope my colleagues will as well. Thank you.

Alder Fenton.

Thank you, Your Honor. First, makes me a little sick that we have to actually consider this. But even getting away from planned threats, say, to crowds there have been recent incidents where an impaired driver ran onto a marathon race course and killed a participant. So not all of these events are deliberate. The questions I received from my constituents were more in line with, why don't we just keep doing what we do now, where we put city equipment as barriers.

And obviously my first thought was, Okay, then we'll have some extensive damage to city equipment, whereas these barriers are designed to withstand that. Something else I was reading in the material and a thought that I had, which I will ask you to elaborate on, is one thought I had about the ease of movement of these is the ability for emergency personnel to get in and to help people get out of an area that was secured, which if we have a dump truck or vehicles can be an involved process. And I'd ask, Mayor, if you'd elaborate on that aspect of the system, if you would.

Yes. So one thing I want to point out is there's a difference, a slight difference, between the text of the memo that I submitted to the Finance Committee and the quote that you have in front of you. And that is that we went back to the representative at Meridian to ask them to evaluate our provisional plans for placement of the barriers. And they were able to identify two barriers that could be eliminated from the order. The intent of going back to ask about this was we received feedback from event organizers in the community and there was also discussion at the finance committee, a concern raised about access and ease of in and out.

And so the intent was to try and find a way to add another gate to our order but keep the cost essentially the same. And we were able to accomplish that by eliminating two barriers from the order and adding another rapid gate to our order. You'll see in the photos there's a difference between the rapid gate and the beam gate, not just in terms of cost, but the operations of those gates. So we've added another rapid gate to the order, again, to try and facilitate ease of access. I will note that for our largest events in Appleton, Oktoberfest and events like that, we will and parades we will likely still deploy city equipment to service hard barricades in certain locations.

And the Meridian system will allow us to supplement those hard barricades, hard barriers by filling gaps in sidewalks and on the edges. So if you ever notice, oftentimes there's fairly wide gaps between the vehicles that are parked in the roadway and the buildings that are adjacent. So for those largest events, that'll be a more common configuration. So it strictly be meridian barriers at the largest events in the community. That may change if our neighboring communities are interested in sharing agreement, but that's our intention at this point.

So we've added another gate to facilitate ease of access. I'll also note that the barriers themselves, based on the demo that was conducted in Appleton a couple of years ago. And representations made by the company are still, you know, they're modular and portable. So they can be moved even if there's not a gate in place. Where that will become more complicated is in applications where the gates are linked together with cables.

You'll note in your quote there are a number of cables, and those are intended to link together the barriers at those areas where we may anticipate a higher speed of approach into an event area. Those barriers would be linked to increase the effectiveness of the system. Did that address your questions?

Pretty much, pretty much. And like I said, I was concerned as much with being able to get someone who's having a medical emergency or an injury out. And I think with the gates and the whole modular aspect, I do think that would be an improvement over what we do now.

I would also note that for our operational plans for large events in the city where have EMS standing by, the fire department uses a smaller vehicle. It's like a UTV that also accommodates a stretcher. And so it's not always going to be full scale vehicles because oftentimes we're dealing with large crowds and getting apparatus into that space is challenging anyway. So a couple of considerations that address public safety at our events. Alder Schulz.

Thank you, Mayor. I too hate that we're having to have this conversation and consider buying a system like this. I am grateful that you went back to the company and that there was a reevaluation that you purchased another gate. I think that is commendable and will help some of the flexibility with the system. A couple of comments, but first a question. Once the system is deployed or as it's being deployed, are the facilitators or the staff that's putting it in place the only ones able to use dollies to move them around? Or will there be an opportunity for event organizers to have someone trained to be able to move the system once an event is over or being set up? I guess that's one question.

The administrative policies governing use of the system will need to be developed. And if council approves the acquisition of the barriers, a task force will be convened to city staff to start working through those sorts of details. Risk management will be involved in those conversations to make recommendations. We will likely also have staff training that will be required, that will be developed internally and in consultation with Meridian. So unclear at this point.

I would say it's not likely that we would have an untrained member of the public involved in handling these barriers. However, all of that detail will need to be worked out by implementation task force.

Second question, if I may. Conversations with the significant event organizers, did you get some pretty good feedback from like Oktoberfest or ADI about how this is going to be implemented and how it might affect their events and the coordination of their events.

I did have discussions with representatives of Oktoberfest and Appleton Downtown Incorporated and reassured them that the implementation will be a collaborative process, that we'll need to work together, that it will require some learning and flexibility on everybody's part. But we were all aligned in the underlying concern for members of the public and making sure we host safe events in the community. Another concern that was expressed was the potential cost in the special use in the special event agreements. And as I stated earlier, that's a matter that will need further evaluation as we acquire the system and put it into use.

Okay. I mean, it's a challenge. Think we're all, broadly speaking, in favor of more security and a safer space for these events to happen. But I guess from my own standpoint, a terrorist is going to be a terrorist. And if someone's intent on harming the public, they'll walk right through the system with an AR and do the damage they intend to do versus vehicles.

So on the one hand, it'll stop one methodology for causing damage to the public. But I don't know that it does much in a broader scope to prevent that potential from happening in large scale gatherings that we have. So I get what we're trying to do. I hope this isn't sort of a false sense of security once we place them and people are feeling, you know, more at ease that a terrorist incident couldn't happen because, like I say, you can walk right through these barriers with a weapon and no one would know. As vigilant as we are and as our police force is, it'd be quite easy to do damage.

So I appreciate what we're doing, and I'll support it. But it doesn't make me feel as confident as I hope that the public feels when this is put in place and doesn't get a false sense of security.

Alder Wolf. Thank you, Chair. You've done a pretty good job already answering my questions on maintenance costs and fees to organizers. I understand that they're both a little out there. I suppose my main issue now is kind of digesting that we may be increasing the fees for events later on down the road.

But at the same time, if we've already purchased these and we don't know how much we might be charging them, I might be against increasing those fees later, depending on what that cost is. As I kind of am already, I I feel like if this is for the public safety, then we should allow them to use it for free, and potentially try to make money off of letting other municipalities use our, equipment that don't have it, for example. And and so I'm a little hesitant because if I like, I feel like if we've already bought them, I almost have to support the ability to maintain them by increasing those fees later on. Is there anything you can kind of say to that?

Certainly, I understand the concern. And I've had discussions with event organizers about this in the community. And that's why at this point we're not bringing forward a recommendation for speculative fee adjustment before we've put them into use and understand what that will take. There will be a cost to an operational cost for this system. But again, as I stated before, we will have to evaluate fees very carefully so that these barriers do not become a sort of discretionary line item for event organizers.

And it would not be our intent that they would be discretionary. So I understand, your concern and reticence and, that'll be something that we have to work out over the coming year. And we will report back to counsel as far as what we determine and if we have any recommendations for adjustments to the fee schedule. Thank you. Alder Heffernan.

So just to recap so I can make sure that I'm explaining this correctly when I get calls because I have had some concerns brought up about it already but a lot of them have already been answered. Essentially this is money that is not taxpayer money. This is investment money. So we're essentially getting them at no cost. This is the highest, most competitive brand, if you will, of public safety and with the warranties that they come with, that covers us should anybody try anything and should the barriers fail, the warranties of the company will cover our taxpayers from having to cover any potential settlements or something like that in the future.

Is that correct? Is that all correct?

I would defer to Attorney Barron's on the question of liability.

And I have not seen what the company warranty says so I can't answer that specifically.

Okay.

And my last question in regards to what Alder Wolf asked with a potential fee increase for maintaining. I heard you say that there was still interest there will still be interest money, investment money after this purchase and that the agreement was that we would save that investment money for future projects that ARPA covered. And as this is a public safety item, would we not be able to use funds from that pool to continue maintaining them in the future if we needed to so there was no fee, speculative fee increase on our events organizers?

Potentially. I would say the interest money that will remain is one time money. So it's not and it won't be replenished simply by bearing interest. Part of the reason so much interest accrued was because of the principal amount that was placed in the account. In terms of funding mechanisms for the operation of the barriers and any maintenance that comes with the barriers, the funding source will be identified through departmental budgets.

So at this point, it would be speculative to say what the funding mechanism would be. But I would just, as always, caution us that one time money is not operational money and should not be used. I won't bring forward recommendation to use one time money to support operations, certainly not personnel related expenses. But there may be other funding mechanisms to support it. Also, respect to arrangements with other municipalities, that too would be a matter of discussion between all of the participating communities.

And my intention in entering into those conversations would be to start from a place of reciprocity agreements that would allow for the participating communities to use barriers. The benefit to the participating communities would be that none of us need to scale our barrier systems to our largest single events. So there's benefit that way and cost savings that way to the participating communities. Meridian operates its own rental business for four systems, so that's an option for communities. However, for the volume and scale of events that we do in the city of Appleton, we will quickly spend far more on renting these than owning them.

Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair. Just briefly, do you anticipate that the use of these may reduce costs to the city just due to a different sort of manpower required, not CDL licensed folks to move snow plows, etcetera. So you were talking before about not making it a discretionary option for event organizers. Already we tell them there is a fee involved with blocking off whatever area needs to be blocked off, this would actually then be saving the city, and we wouldn't have to necessarily pass any additional cost on to the organizers. Is that correct?

I would say that's possible, and that'll be part of the financial evaluation as we look at swapping out our previous techniques and approaches for these new ones. And I think it is a valid point that when we use heavy equipment that requires special licenses to operate, Oftentimes, that means we are then paying that operator to sit with that piece of equipment for the duration of the event. So there is significant cost that comes with that. Oftentimes, these events are occurring outside of regular working hours. And so it tends to be overtime in addition.

So I don't want to suggest that we anticipate that this will save money, but it may wash out in terms of the cost. But that'll be evaluated by the internal team as we start to work on implementation. Thank you. Alder Van Zeeland.

Thank you, Chair. This is a high dollar item, so I'm glad to see all the discussion. But I just want to remind everyone, you know, that when we look at something like this and we're talking about a cost of a million dollars, we have to think about what the cost would be if we ignored what we know, which is that there is a safety issue that we need to be on the lookout for. It seems like a hard investment upfront, but I would rather do that now than deal with a tragedy. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, we have a motion and a second to approve. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 13 to one. All right.

As I mentioned before, we will get to work with an internal team to start mapping out the details and working our way through implementation plans. And I would also just like to note for event organizers, for folks who have events planned already, the city will be in touch with event organizers as we finalize event plans. So please anticipate if you're planning an event that would have used hard barricades anyway, we will certainly be in touch and work collaboratively with event organizers to come up with a game plan. Meridian has indicated to us that the approximate time to delivery from the issuing of a purchase order is about thirty days. They are coming from California, but thirty days is what Meridian has represented to us.

So in the meantime, we'll be getting to work on the planning and details associated before we take delivery. And in terms of when folks can expect to see these in use in the community, some of that will depend on the planning and detail work that we need to work through, also conversations with event organizers. So at this time, we don't have a defined date for when these barriers will go into service. But I will say they will go into service as soon as possible. And we should have them in time for the event season coming up here later this spring and summer.

All right. That is it for separate votes. Alder Hartzheim.

Might I just ask one more question? You had talked about the policies that you'll be developing behind this. Will those be presented to the Safety and Licensing Committee so that we have a little bit of an idea of what the plan is internally?

Certainly we can do that. We'll bring Thank more information we'll bring it as information items and certainly we'll work with the chair to come up with a plan for when we will bring more information.

Thank you. I don't want us to give away our operational plans or anything just in case that's circumvented. But I do want some general idea of

what is happening. Absolutely. And I think it will be a matter of public interest in terms of the details, not necessarily the operational placement. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Need a motion on the balance of the agenda. We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion on the balance? Hearing none, cast your votes.

That motion passes 14 to zero. Balance of the agenda has been approved. We have no consolidated action items, no items held, no ordinances. License applications and communications referred to committees of jurisdiction. Resolution submitted by Alders referred to committees of jurisdiction. Have there been any resolutions submitted? Right. Well, this was our farewell meeting. So of course, all of you are returning. So next week, we will have our swearing in ceremony.

You should have all received information about that. Please feel free to invite family and friends. We'll be at Fox Commons for the swearing in ceremony. That's Tuesday at five And then we head up here for our informal organizational meeting. As I've mentioned previously, if you are contemplating rules changes that pertain to committees of jurisdiction operationally, a sort of departmentally based rules that are spelled out in the council rules, please try and give us a heads up about that because I'd like to do my best to give staff who don't need to be here the night off.

There'll be, of course, a few of us who will be here with you ride or die. But I would love to give the opportunity, if we can turn some people loose, for those organizational meetings the chance to spend time at home with family. So then Wednesday, we do not have a regular council meeting. That will just be our organizational meeting. That will be at six? 06:00, all right, on Wednesday. Okay. Alder Woolf.

Thank you, chair. So this is a little off topic and other but this meeting is usually reserved for that. So last week at a meeting with ADI and the Parade Committee, it came to our attention that we're a little light on CSOs at the moment and that ADI is looking for trusted individuals to help with the farmers market in between the parade and the farmers market on that specific day of the parade. If you're interested in volunteering and helping out the farmers market, please reach out to ADI. Thank you. Also, there's training services available by the individual on the back.

Okay. And that's for the Flight Day Parade. There's a couple of events going on downtown on that day. So ADI is putting out a call for volunteers to help. All right. Alder Fenton.

Thank you. Just a reminder, the old Municipal Services Committee will be meeting on Monday, the twentieth, rather than moving to the twenty seventh because there were some homeowner notices that noted that date. Thank you.

All right. Alder Fenton, getting one more in.

One more.

All right. Alder Meltzer.

Thank you. I don't want to bring down the mood, but I do want to just mention or share some space for the fact that Governor Evers has declared a state of emergency. We have some neighbors close by, a lot of people in Wisconsin right now who are really suffering with some terrible flooding tragedy. So just would like everyone to keep them in your hearts. And if there's anything we can do to help our neighbors while they're figuring out evacuation plans and what to do for the coming who knows how long before they're able to return to their homes, let's do whatever we can to help our neighbors. Thank you.

Thank you. And on that note, I'll also mention I've been in touch with County Executive Nelson and appreciate his reaching out to see how we're doing here in Appleton. But I also indicated that if there's anything that we can do to be helpful for our neighbors, we'd at least like the opportunity to look at it and see if there's something that we can do to help, either as a fellow local government or as individual community members. So ongoing communication there. I'll also note the ground is very saturated right now.

And so while we haven't had major issues in the city of Appleton, there have been some instances where we've had some localized street flooding in the city. Much of that's been related to clogged inlets. However, when we reach this level of ground saturation in the community, there's just less absorption happening through our non permeable surfaces. And that presents a concern and a possibility for street flooding, flash flooding in the community if heavy rains do come. And so we're continuing to monitor that over the next couple of days because we do have the chance of some heavy rains over the next few days here.

So I would say we are at present, we're fortunate to not be facing the same kinds of challenges as some of our neighbors in the Fox Cities and beyond. But still, risk is present given how saturated the ground is. So we're continuing to monitor that. Emergency management is paying close attention and we're remaining in good contact with our fellow local governments. So appreciate you mentioning that.

And we'll continue to monitor the situation. And if we need to get information out to all of you just so that you're aware and can inform constituents, we certainly will. And please do relay any issues or concerns that you hear from constituents if you become aware of them. 211 has also been activated for this event. So they provide lots of great resources and can help connect folks with the right resources.

So 211 is a great referral to make if folks have questions, concerns. And again, we'll push out information as necessary. But in the meantime, we are certainly thinking of our neighbors. And thank you, Alder Meltzer, for mentioning that. Alder Hayden.

Thank you, chair. Just wanted to take a moment to congratulate clerk on a successful election last weekend or

last week. Here, here. Yeah. All right. Any other business? Alder Meltzer.

Well, as long as we are congratulating people, there is a little council tradition that was started many, many years ago, which is the traveling flag that goes on the desk of the alder whose district had the highest percentage of voter turnout. And congratulations, District 4. You turned out higher than any of the other districts. So I just wanted to share that congratulations as well.

Hey, hey, congratulations District 4. All right. Anyone else? Okay. Well, see, we still found a way to fill the time. Well, all right. Well, it's been a good session for the Appleton Common Council and looking forward to what's to come in the year ahead. So we'll see you all next week for swearing in and our informal organizational meeting on Tuesday. All right, thanks. A motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. The ayes have it. We are adjourned. Thank you.