Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I now call to order the Wednesday, September 2, 2026 meeting of the Appleton Common Council. For tonight's invocation, please rise and join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call of alders.

All are represented, with the exception of Alderpersons Heffernan, Jones, and Stancil Martin, who are excused.

All right. And roll call of officers and department heads.

All are represented.

Thank you. I need a motion on the minutes of the previous meeting. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the previous meeting. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, please cast your votes. That motion passes 12 to 0. The minutes have been approved. Moving along in our agenda. I have no business to present to you this evening, so we'll move on to public participation. At each meeting, the Common Council reserves 30 minutes for members of the public to express their views on items which appear on our agenda. We have five people who signed up to speak, but rest assured, if you didn't see the sign-up sheet on your way in, I'll make sure that everybody who'd like to has an opportunity to speak on an item that appears on the agenda. We ask that you limit your time to five minutes per person. We will be keeping track of time, and I will give you a verbal notice when you have about 30 seconds remaining in your time. I'd also like to remind everybody that in this chamber, we maintain decorum. And so as folks come up and address the council, I ask that members of the public refrain from speaking, clapping, audibly reacting to people as they're speaking, regardless of their position on any matter. And I'd remind you that during public participation, we do not engage in dialogue between the members of the public addressing the body And so this is not a dialogue. So if you have questions, we'll receive your questions rhetorically. And if we have an answer for a question that comes up, staff will address that when the council takes up the action item that you're speaking on. So with that, we'll begin. The first person is John Gates. Welcome, John.

Hello. My name is John Gates. I'm here to talk about noise in Appleton. I have lived in Appleton 21 years on West Harris Street, just about a block off of Richmond Street. About the first third of my professional life, I was an opera singer in Germany. I traveled a lot, and I developed many relationships that I still sustain. I also live in a long distance relationship with someone who also has traveled. And by virtue of this, I have many experiences with spending significant time in the center of cities, both large and small, because I've always wanted to be where I could walk. And I have never been brought to despair about noise until I came to Appleton. I'll let you know some of the places that I've lived. I lived in the middle of the city in Munich, Germany, I lived in a city about the size of Madison in Germany called Mönchengladbach. When I moved back to America, I moved to a small town in Texas, Nacogdoches. And I lived right off of the main highway. I think it's 59. That's the main north-south highway in east Texas. I lived for six months in Salt Lake City on 400th South Street, the main drag going again east-west through the middle of the city. I lived two blocks north of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a real, I mean, if that's not an entertainment district that's famous for noise, nothing is, on Burgundy Street. My partner currently lives now in Toronto. And when I visit there, he lives on Shepherd Avenue, a street that has four times the traffic volume of Richmond Street. I go out in the afternoons to the Italian cafe down the street, and I enjoy in the fresh air my coffee. One of my friends who lives in Berlin and makes his living by singing on cruise ships has been to hundreds of cities in the world. When he came here to Appleton and we walked down the Riverwalk, not College Avenue, he said, what in the world is this? At one of these mob, flash mob events in Appleton, I couldn't reach the police. I could only call a 911 number, so I just walked down the street to see what the police were doing about it. I ran into an officer who was, of course, they're directing the traffic to leave, not giving citations, and in a very friendly way. There was a car that rode by with no hood, with no exhaust, only flames coming out of the manifold. And I said, you're not going to do anything about this? He said, people have a right to ride up and down College Avenue. And I thought, that would be like me calling the police about a dog fighting ring next door and them telling me, well, people have a right to have pets. So shortly after that, my younger brother, who had the highest ranking position. About 30 seconds. Thank you.

No, keep going. You've got 30 seconds. Yep, go ahead.

Had the highest ranking position in the police department in Columbia, South Carolina. an area of about a million, just short of a million. Walked down the street with me here, a group of motorcycles went down the road, and Glenn said, wow, the police aren't interested in that? And when I think back about the comment, you know, people have a right to ride up and down College Avenue. All I could say is I guess not. So all I'm saying here, these are all stories. These are anecdotes. You can dismiss that as stories. You can take me not serious. I can take you as serious or not serious about. Your final thoughts, please, John. I support Martin Smith's proposal that you take objective measure of noise in Appleton. Thank you for, sorry for going a little over. All right.

All right. Next is Caleb Essek. And your address also for the record, please.

Yes, my name is Caleb Essek. I live at 901 Carolyn Drive in Littleshoot. I'm a resident here, and I am the pastor of Life Church here in downtown Appleton on 222 West Franklin Street. I just want to speak for a moment about the proposed temporary transit center that would be in the parking lot directly adjacent to our building here at 222 West Franklin Street. When we bought the building as a church six years ago that we did, we bought it with the intent to serve our community here, and we've been doing that for the last six years. We've done this in a number of ways. The primary way that we've served our community is through a monthly food pantry. We actually distribute food directly from this lot to people in need in our community, and we've been doing this now for several years, serving many families in need. This summer, when the tornado passed through our area, especially hitting Menasha, we have a partnership with an organization called Convoy of Hope. They're an international disaster relief organization. And they were able to come in and, again, from the same lot, were able to distribute food, water, rakes, tarps, other necessary supplies for disaster relief to help people in a time of need. We've used this lot on Sundays as well for our congregation to gather together each and every week for the last six years. Our congregation is largely made up of working families here in the Appleton area and the surrounding area as well. We didn't know that this proposal was being considered. We found out last week through an online article. Just found out really in the last couple of days through this link. And I say all that to say that we love our community. We love Appleton. We want to be good neighbors here and serve our community however we can. Obviously, this proposal would make some of the things that we do a little more challenging and difficult not having access to that that lot. We'd be open to discuss. I know this isn't a time for response, but we'd be open to discuss whatever that looks like to partner with the city. and be good neighbors here to continue to serve the city of Appleton. We're not currently looking to relocate or move or anything like that. We want to serve our community. But if the city had need of our building in this time as you're moving and that we'd be open to discussing what that would look like or if there's another lot or other locations that we could use for ways to serve our community and for our congregations. Thank you. Thank you.

And before you go, Director McDonald, if you just swing down to the end of the table there in the back row, you can exchange contact information with General Manager McDonald. He runs Valley Transit. We'd be happy to connect with you. Absolutely. Thank you. Just swing by. Next is Chris Nellis.

MY NAME IS CHRISTOPHER NELLIS. I'M AT 523 WEST COLLEGE AVENUE, APPLETON, WISCONSIN, AND I CAME HERE TO DISCUSS SOME OF THE NOISE DISCUSSIONS. I'VE OWNED A BUSINESS DOWNTOWN NOW FOR ABOUT FIVE YEARS, AND I'VE SPENT A LOT OF MY TIME DOWNTOWN. I WOULD SAY PROBABLY 85% OF MY FREE TIME IS BUSINESS RELATED OR BEING DOWNTOWN AT MY BUSINESS. AND FIRST OFF I WANT TO THANK CHIEF POLLY OLSON AND THE POLICE FOR ACTUALLY ENFORCING THE NOISE ORDINANCE RULES THAT ARE ALREADY IN EXISTENCE FOR LOUD EXHAUST OR EXCESSIVE NOISE AND STUFF LIKE THAT. I BELIEVE THE NUMBERS ARE UP BY DOUBLE. I THINK THEY HAD AN EXTRA 100. I THINK LAST YEAR WAS PRETTY LOW. BUT I'VE ACTUALLY NOTICED A REDUCTION IN NOISE. BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF WHY I'M HERE. WE'RE HERE OR I'M HERE TO DISCUSS THE FACT THAT APPLETON IS PRIMARILY A COMMERCIAL DISTRICT. And there needs to be a balance between the needs and wants of the community, which, when it comes to the noise, seems to be a very small percentage, and also the businesses and the residents of downtown. My experience with my customers, they don't, like right now, I have a table outside eating, and they're enjoying dinner quietly. I haven't talked to them. There was no noise problems whatsoever, no communication issues. But that's not to say that there isn't a noise problem. I think the problem lies in the fact that it's more sporadic and with like popcorn cartoons or motorcycles revving their engines, which inadvertently was exacerbated by going from four lanes to two, which now they have time to wait at all of the red lights and rev their engines, unfortunately. I THINK ALL IN ALL, TO REMEDY THE PROBLEM, AN APPROPRIATE SOLUTION WOULD BE TO CONTINUE ON WITH POLLY OLSON'S CURRENT PATH AND ENFORCING THE NOISE ORDINANCES THAT ARE IN EXISTENCE. AND HONESTLY, NOISE IS SO SUBJECTIVE, QUIET TO SOMEBODY COULD BE EXTREMELY LOUD TO ANOTHER. FOR EXAMPLE, I HAD A GENTLEMAN SAY THAT HE COULD HEAR COLLEGE AVENUE FROM A MILE away at his residence. Well, I happen to live exactly a mile from the heart of downtown, and I never hear downtown. And I'm in downtown 85% of the time, and I hear Highway 441 before I hear downtown. But all in all, I'm happy with the changes with the enforcement. That has helped tremendously, I think. I've noticed a lot less noise from motorcycles there. It's going to happen. It is a commercial district. It's a highway. You move next to a highway, there's going to be noise. You move next to a railroad track, there's going to be noise. It's just inadvertently the way it is. But that is basically all I wanted to address is I think there just needs to be an appropriate balance and something not so drastic as to removing roads or making it bike-only downtown or something crazy. But I think this issue can be addressed appropriately, and I think the council will be able to do that. So I'd like to thank everybody for their time.

Next is Teresa.

Teresa, I'll have you say your, I don't want to venture it, but.

Tushel. Tushel. Teresa Tushel, welcome.

Thank you. I have notes, but I don't have prepared remarks, so I'll try to stay focused. I am a 29-year-old, 29-year, I've owned a home in Appleton for 29 years this weekend. And I know noise is part of the city because I live near the trail train tracks by Linwood So I can hear the train blow from Spencer Prospect College, Wisconsin and onward So I've lived with noise for 29 years we in our neighborhood petitioned to stop the park being transitioned over to a natural habitat because we liked hearing the baseball and basketball, the kids playing. So noise, as you said, the subjective, it's still the issue right now is quality of life being impacted by the revving engines, the pop mufflers, the gangs, for lack of a better term, of motorcycles that are racing up and down. I literally can hear them take College Avenue over to Lindale, up and around Wisconsin, back down Mason or Richmond, I'm not sure which cities, but I feel like I'm living inside the Indy 500 on some days. It's that frustrating. It's impacting quality of life. It's impacting having guests over. I work remotely. It's impacting that. I love the work that's being done about the communication and the conversation. I disagree that it's a downtown issue. I think it's an Appleton and a Grand Chute issue. There needs to be combined efforts and enforcement between Grand Chute and Appleton because of that racetrack behavior that's happening. I was on College Avenue and I watched a group of about eight motorcycles stop at Lindale. One guy was literally standing on his motorcycle going down the road. Other guys were doing wheelies behind him. I am not against fun. I like fun. I want people to have fun. But I want people to be respectful, follow the laws, and have fun within the scope of what is expected of a general citizen. So for the people that say, you're just old and you don't want to have fun, that is not what this is about. It's about quality of life. It's about impacting the neighborhoods. It's about impacting the safety going down the road and how they're behaving. I've witnessed the groups of motorcycles at the Quick Trip on West Hill Grand Chute. So this is why we need collaboration. I've witnessed them gathering by Harbor Freight, the cars. I've witnessed them gathering downtown. I've seen them doing the roundabouts, and they basically go from 441 or farther all the way out to the airport and then race back. I've been behind them revving under 41 when they get under the overpasses. So it's behavior that happens throughout the city. This is not a downtown issue. This is an Ableton issue. This is a Grand Chute issue. We need enforcement. We need collaboration. But something really does need to be done.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next is Ron Koehler.

Good evening. Ron Koehler, 825 North Kensington Drive. 70 year, just about 70 year resident of Appleton. I've heard just about everything I could ever hear about noise levels on College Avenue. I've been threatened as a car enthusiast for 50 years that we're going to run you guys out of town. It hasn't happened. But what we do have, in my opinion, is not a noise level, but an enforcement level of problems. We have an identity crisis downtown and what we're trying to do with downtown. Is it going to be residential? Is it going to be an entertainment district? Is it going to be a place to go eat? It was always in the past a area that you didn't live down there unless you wanted to put up with the noise. You didn't live on a major highway without noise barriers. It was a place you stayed away from because you knew it was not going to be quiet. So I don't know what the issue is now. I don't know what the identity, why we're trying to pack so many residents down in there without identifying what we're trying to do with it. Applin College Avenue has always been the main east-west corridor to get through the city. From Combine Locks, south side of Appleton, there is no other direct way except for 00 on the other side of the river. So it's from a cow path to an Indian trail. It's always been the main area to get east to west. With the lane configuration, I don't care what your test results say, my butt in the seat turns around and tells me that it takes me longer to get down to Hollywood Avenue now. It is not a main thoroughfare anymore. You can't get past the trucks trying to unload, even though they're not supposed to do it out there. I've called in, I don't know how many, I've had remarks with the drivers, like, well, just get over it. I've reported them, got nowhere with it. I've talked to their dispatchers, got nowhere with it. So we have an identity crisis downtown. We have a funneling of traffic, and especially during any kind of a big event where you're pushed off of College Avenue and you're pushed onto the side streets. There is no place to go. It's stop signs. There are no signals. If you get on Drew Street, traffic's going through Drew Street. If you're on one of the side streets to the north there, you can't get across that when it's busy. So it's just a big bottleneck. I think the city needs to look at, if they're going to continue to keep the bottleneck downtown for events and everything else, look at another east-west corridor. Open up Franklin Street for it. Put signal lights in accordingly. Do something in that area. I mean, I'm not the traffic engineer, but I'm sure they can come up with something. But it has to be better than what it is. Ordinance-wise, I don't think we need to change any ordinances. I think there's enough ordinances in the books already for noise. They've always turned around and clamped on anybody that had loud exhaust. It's an enforcement issue. You here in this room have to identify what you want done about it and turn around and tell the police department. They need to enforce it at that point. Of course, I'm hearing the issues with it, that they don't have the funding, they don't have this. Delaying configuration down this town doesn't help that. I heard Chief Polley the other night turn around and say, we have to wait several blocks sometimes to pull over a vehicle because there's no place to pull them over. We used to have a place to pull them over. So I don't know if that's configuring into it or not. As for Richmond Street, Wisconsin Avenue, the other main streets, they're going to be noisier. That's just human nature. Bigger city, more traffic. Why we're allowing Harley Davidsons with no exhaust in them, they're gutting out the pipes, running them straight. Why we allow that, I have no idea. Why we allow them to blast the stereo system when they can get earbuds and put it straight into their ears, Why am I subjected to a Harley going down the road two blocks behind him and rattling my truck or my car? Why are we putting up with that? There's already noise ordinances. There's already obnoxious noise. There's plenty of stuff in the book to turn around and charge them with, and not even just charging them with it. If you turn around and come down and proactive on it that you're going to bust down on it, they're going to stop doing it. They're going to turn around and start putting these vehicles away. They're not going to bring them down into town. They're not going to be doing the obnoxious stuff, rattling the windows and everything else. So I guess it's just a policy, and you guys have to figure it out what you want to do about it. Thank you.

Is there anyone else who'd like to speak on an item that appears on the agenda? OK. I see one in the back and then one in the front. So in the back, Larry, if you want to come up. Your name and address for the record, please.

Larry Roof, 12 Lawrence Court, Appleton. Good evening, and thank you for taking me as another anecdotal commenter on Stop the Noise. I really think we need to recognize that there are certain parts of the city, not just downtown, that excessive noise is a problem. As defined in court decisions and under the applicable statute, it exists in Appleton. Data is needed to enact the most cost-effective way of stopping the noise. The city spent 150 hours of various staff time without even listing possible strategies other than those currently undertaken to stop the noise. A technological solution can be found that deters lawbreakers and helps police officers stop the noise. The cost of one additional police officer to the Appleton force will be more than is proposed by the resolution that you're considering tonight. Whether it is utilization of the officers that we have currently or if the In the future, we have more. I am concerned that one of the Common Council has taken the position that no patrol should be taken away from their district to enforce state laws against excessive noise. We are all served by the Appleton Police Department. No one district can control dispatching to keep patrols within their district. This position becomes public even as the two city committees were meeting last Wednesday in the morning. I was there, and I heard it. In disbelief, I thought, must be somebody's running for council again. Maybe I was wrong. There publicly, the alders and committees all seem to agree that there is a noise problem. Why is it so hard to get the relatively low-cost data collection agreed to? How can the vote on this resolution be based on any perception that there is no noise problem? Is it a wish not to find a solution to this problem in our city? Is it a wish to kick the can down the road and await the city's budgeting process next year. If more patrols are afforded by increasing taxes to the general fund, then next year, when the noise still continues, I'll be back here and talking to others to make sure that prioritization is made to use increased police patrols to stop the noise. Data collection is needed because the city now can use the data to better utilize the enforcement we have. The collection of data at a relatively low cost can also help the city plan for future police utilizations. Again, and it's not rhetorical, why is it so hard to get agreement to a data collection system? Thank you.

Next in the front row here. Name and address for the record, please.

Good evening, everyone. I am Beth Kelly Miller, and I live in Camberley now, but I used to live in Appleton. So I applied to reserve the park at Pierce Park for an event that now I'm going to be holding for the eighth time, and it's called the Wisconsin Lights of Hope.

Bev I'm sorry is is this is this related to an item that's on the agenda. I just want to make sure okay I'm sorry Beth go ahead. Okay. I just didn't have an item number for it. Okay. All right.

Thank you so This time I completely forgot which I apologize for For the special event license And I realized last week when I called to check on the license that that is what had happened. So I attended the meeting last week on Tuesday. and it was conditionally approved based on the one committee that needed to approve it. And I asked today, and that committee did approve it. So I'm asking to get the special events license. And these are what we have at our event. So it's about substance use disorder and remembering our loved ones and celebrating recovery.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else who'd like to speak on an item that appears on the agenda? Anyone else who'd like to speak on an item that appears on the agenda? Hearing none, we will close public participation. We have no public hearings. And no special resolution, so we'll now establish the order of the day. If you've not been to a council meeting before, the next step in the process, the council manages using a consent agenda format. And so the members of council have the opportunity to request that any items they'd like to discuss separately can be pulled from the agenda to have a separate discussion and vote. Those items will be then discussed by the council, voted on individually. And the balance of the agenda, anything left on the agenda, will be taken care of on a single vote. So at this time, we'll begin calling on members of council. Mr. Strong, if you'd please. We're having a meeting. So if you need to have a discussion, I'd ask that you either take it out in the hall or schedule some time. OK. Thank you very much. All right. First is. Alder Crote.

Thank you, Mayor. I have two separate vote requests. The first one is the one that Ms. Miller just spoke on. It's 26-1127, the special event application for Wisconsin Lights of Hope. 1127. So we can take that one up first if possible.

And that's safety and licensing?

Yes, I'm sorry. And then consolidated action item on the noise data collection resolution, 26-1127. 1140, WHICH IS A BOARD OF HEALTH ITEM AND A SAFETY AND LICENSING COMMITTEE ITEM. DO YOU NEED THOSE NUMBERS? NEW SPEAKER WE CAN HANDLE IT WITH THE CONSOLIDATED ACTION ITEM. NEW SPEAKER THAT'S 26-1140. NEW SPEAKER OKAY.

SOUNDS GOOD. OKAY.

Thank you, Chair, from the Finance Committee. 26-1138, the subdivision development agreement for Wyland Park Portfolio. Thank you.

All right.

All right, if there are no objections, I'd like to ask for a separate vote on the item from Plan Commission 26-1083. This is the Downtown Appleton Business Improvement District Plan. With no objections, that'll get a separate vote. All right, any others? OK, hearing none, I will first take up the item from the Safety and Licensing Committee. This is 26-1127, Special Event Application for Wisconsin Lights of Hope, a Recovery Celebration and Memorial Walk. We have a motion and a second to approve. Open the floor for discussion. Alder Crote.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. JUST A COUPLE COMMENTS ON THIS ONE. I WOULD FIRST OF ALL ENCOURAGE SUPPORT OF PASSING IT. MS. KELLY MILLER DID COME TO THE SAFETY LICENSING COMMITTEE MEETING AND SPEAK TO US ABOUT IT. SHE SHARED HER STORY, SHARED THE REASONS WHY THE APPLICATION WAS LATE, THUS THE REASON WHY IT WAS AT SAFETY AND LICENSING. IT WAS APPROVED AT SAFETY LICENSING CONTINGENT ON A DEPARTMENTAL APPROVAL THAT HAD NOT BEEN SECURED WHEN THAT WAS PUBLIC WORKS, AND THAT HAS SINCE BEEN SECURED. SO I WOULD RECOMMEND BASED ON ALL DEPARTMENTS APPROVING THIS, NO ISSUES WITH IT, I WOULD RECOMMEND WE APPROVE IT. THANK YOU.

Thank you, Chair. Just as I stated the last time that something like this came up, I think we as a council and city need to look into policy in this regard. There's very definitely an opportunity cost that is the city takes on when we have to push a application like this through more quickly. So I intend to vote for this today, but also would like to, again, revisit that policy and think that we as a city should take care of looking at that. And I've spoken with the clerk about this as well. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, we have a motion and a second to approve. Please cast your votes. THE MOTION PASSES 12-0. THE ITEM HAS BEEN APPROVED. ALL RIGHT. NEXT, LET'S TAKE CARE OF THE ITEM FROM PLAN COMMISSION. 26-1083, ANNUAL REVIEW AND REQUEST TO APPROVE THE DOWNTOWN APPLETON BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT 2027 OPERATING PLAN. WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO APPROVE. IS THERE ANY DISCUSSION? Hearing none, please cast your votes. All right. That motion passes 12 to 0. Mr. Steno, if you'd like to have a conversation, I'd ask that you please take it in the hall. Thank you. All right. Next, let's take up the consolidated action item. This is listed under item M on the agenda, consolidated action items 26-1140. This is a consolidation of action items from the Safety and Licensing Committee and the Board of Health regarding resolution 8R26, excessive vehicular noise data collection. For reference, the item numbers from the respective committees from Safety and Licensing, this appeared as item 26-0759. And from the Board of Health, 26-0903, both coming with recommendations for denial from the committee. Before we begin discussion on this, this will be a vote notwithstanding. However, we'd ask for a motion to approve to get this on the table, which we have. We have a motion and a second to approve the denial coming out of committee. Again, this will be a vote notwithstanding. But we'll begin with discussion now. To start us off is Alder Wolf. Thank you, Chair.

First and foremost, I think this issue in particular has quite the history since I've been on council, since Mayor Woodford's been in office, and this has been looked at quite extensively. We have quite a few issues happening in the downtown corridor specifically, but throughout the city as well. I do want to note, I think the police enforcement this summer in particular has been better than in years past. And I know that Chief Olson has done a lot of reorganization within the department. to try and structure it so that we could pay more attention to College Avenue. And the enforcement shows not only in the amount of tickets given, but as seen on TikTok as well. I know that I'm referencing TikTok here, but the people who drive up and down College Avenue typically record their cruising online as well. And you can kind of see them chatting about the police department enforcing and pulling them over. So they kind of get the gist too. I think with that said, I think that monitoring the noise is not necessarily going to lead to better enforcement overall. I think the police department and the city knows exactly where The biggest issues are so I'm not necessarily in favor of the resolution requesting to monitor the noise I think enforcement increased enforcement or hiring more officers to directly Monitor and enforce Driving on College Avenue is also not the correct course of action here. I think in general I am for the police department hiring more professionals and and increasing their training budget, as I've discussed with the police department on several occasions over the last seven years. But I do not think that us increasing enforcement will have an overall solution to this problem that we are desiring. These drivers in particular will then just increase their behavior as thrill riding and have just decoys that will get pulled over rather than stopping the behavior overall. Furthermore, I think this might be more of a building issue as well, and maybe we need to increase our sound barriers or figure something else out there, just as an idea to look at. I know that, for example, D2 has kind of built like a stereo system, courtesy of our fantastic director educating me in noise downtown over my course on the Board of Health. I think that the Health Department in general has a really good grasp on what is everything noise related in the City of Appleton and I trust their judgment without question really. Just every single time I have a question I'm walked through it thoroughly and given examples of how we can both effectively and efficiently change something or an issue or how to look at it. To answer one question from someone bringing it up during public participation, during the pandemic there were a lot of empty office buildings and rather than having empty buildings and with a high demand for housing, that is where as a city we led a direction of adding more housing downtown. Much like the cultural issue of driving up and down College Avenue and making a lot of noise, sometimes cities also take a cultural shift towards more housing, more restaurants, and more entertainment in the same area to build up an area. Thank you. Alder Fenton.

Thank you, Chair. First of all, I'm just a little bit surprised that the city attorney hasn't reined in some of this discussion because the resolution that we're talking about today doesn't really say anything about enforcement. It actually asks us to evaluate methods for collecting and analyzing vehicular noise data, and the city shall investigate various methods, but That's neither here nor there. We've gotten a little far afield on that. And my first point that I made at committee meeting is I agree with the memo from city staff that this resolution really seeks to violate our separation of duties. We, the council, are the legislative body. And we are charged with creating the ordinances. And the executive branch and the various departments are in charge of executing the laws of our city. But the staff graciously spent the time to respond to the resolution. And I think my colleague, Alder Lambrick, said it the best. I really think that in staff's response, they fulfilled the resolution to a large part. Further, as long as we're going to be far afield, no one denies that there's a noise problem in our city, particularly downtown. I have shaken my fist more than once while I was trying to have a cup of coffee or just merely walk down the street. And in terms of where the problem is, everyone who has posted on social media, come to talk to us at various meetings, has told us where the noise is. Probably better than some passive collection devices could tell us. And then when I talk about passive versus active collection devices, so these passive devices maybe will tell you where it's loud. It won't necessarily tell you who's going to, what vehicle is making the noise. And we've talked already about Wisconsin state law not letting us ticket on the basis of a collection device or even some sort of license plate reader technology. And we are simultaneously in a discussion with the citizens of this city about privacy and data collection and the use of this data. So I think we're on a slippery slope when we're starting to talk about automatic noise collection devices to be used to ticket or to do some kind of enforcement. And as to allocation of resources, within the last month, news agencies, newspaper and TV have run two different stories about a rash of car thefts on the north side of the city, a rash of people going into cars, breaking into cars and rummaging around them on the south east side of the city and we know that these property crimes and crimes against people are happening and we also know that we are going to be faced as we are every year with a difficult budget where we're going to have to make some tough decisions about allocating our the tax dollars of the residents of the city and I don't think that it would be selfish or districtist for those of us who do not represent the downtown area to not be in favor of reallocating resources away from prevention and solving property and person crimes in order to do this noise enforcement. So for all of these reasons, I am not in favor of this resolution. And I would urge my colleagues to also vote against it. Thank you.

I will just respond to the point of order hinted at, which is related to the sort of breadth of this discussion. And actually, it's the chair's point responsibility to determine what is germane to a discussion. And over the course of tonight's discussion, during public participation, and during this debate, I have considered a wider range of discussion points germane so as not to cut off the important conversation that members of our community wish to have and points that they wish to raise with us and similarly for members of the council to discuss. However, I'll remind the council that under the rules of order, the chair's rulings are subject to being overruled by the common council. So if at any point you feel I've been too permissive in the discussion, you may make a motion to overrule my ruling if you'd like. But I just wanted to make that clear. And also, there may be members of the public who are asking also.

Did you have something to add, Attorney Behrens? Just that the city attorney supports the chair's managing of the meeting in that approach.

Thank you. Author Fenton, please.

Thank you, Chair. I was in no way casting aspersions on your running of the meeting. My goal was merely to kind of remind the public and my colleagues what exactly we're voting on here.

Of course, of course, rhetorically. Yes, I understand. I just wanted to make very clear the intent. All right, Alder Smith. Thank you, Chair. And just a note on... Alder Smith, if you'd bring that mic just a little closer. I know folks want to hear you.

All right. Thank you, Chair. JUST A NOTE ON THE ENFORCEMENT, YOU KNOW, IN THE COMBINED SAFETY AND LICENSING AND BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING, IT WAS A KEY POINT ABOUT ENFORCEMENT AND ONE ARGUMENT AGAINST DATA WAS THE FACT THAT WHAT WE'RE REALLY TALKING ABOUT WAS ENFORCEMENT. SO ENFORCEMENT'S ALWAYS, I THINK, BEEN MIXED IN THAT DISCUSSION WITH THE POINTS HERE. I DO, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT DATA AND SOME OF THE VALUE THAT I THINK WE WOULD GET AS A CITY BY ADOPTING SOMETHING LIKE THIS. YOU KNOW, MY RESOLUTION HAD SOME I WOULD SAY MAJOR HEADWINDS THROWN AT IT. LET ME JUST KIND OF MENTION THOSE. ONE IS COST. I THINK THAT THE FIGURES IN THE THE RESPONSE FROM THE CITY WOULD PUSH UP A FIXED STATIONARY NOISE MONITORING STATIONS LIKE, I DON'T KNOW, 300,000 OR MORE, JUST HUGE, HUGE NUMBERS. AND I UNDERSTAND IT'S HARD AS ALDERS AND ON COUNCIL TO TAKE AND ACCEPT THOSE NUMBERS. THOSE ARE OUTRAGEOUSLY HIGH. ONE OF MY INTENTS WITH TURNING IN THIS RESOLUTION WAS TO GET SOME KIND OF ACTIONABLE AND WORKABLE NUMBERS. I DON'T BELIEVE THAT WE HAVE THAT IN A NON-EXAGGERATED WAY IN THIS. I BELIEVE THAT NOT 300,000, BUT SOMETHING MORE LIKE 20 TO 30,000 THAT WOULD BE WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO GET A GOOD STARTER PROGRAM GOING ON THE DATA. NUMBER TWO, THESE ARE NOT CAMERAS OR SURVEILLANCE IN ANY WAY. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT'S VERY TRADITIONAL, NOT ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM RADAR OR, YOU KNOW, FOR MEASURING SPEED OR OTHER THINGS. THIS IS A VERY SIMPLE THING. I've been very clear about that from the start, that we're not talking about anything that overlaps or pushes into the flock area. We're not ticketing. We're not doing anything except grabbing data about sound levels and numbers of incidents. And I don't believe that that we would have any problem with. It really doesn't relate to the flock issue. And number three, the idea that all cities are loud. And I think that that's a way to kind of comfort ourselves that, well, cities are just loud. All cities struggle with this. And we really, that's not true. As we heard from John Gates, the first person who spoke, we have a real problem here, a specific problem here in Appleton with noise. And if people coming from the outside feel that, And I think that gives us a call to move towards thinking creatively and thinking differently about not just doing the same thing, but trying to put an end to the noise. The value of data. One thing that's been very useful, the police APD releases these lists now. At the end of the month, they release the citations and warnings for the previous month. This was super useful. This is something that we haven't always had. This is something that came about last year as a result of pressure. And now this allows us to see all the different noise-related citations and warnings that were handed out in a month. And also, there's a checkbox to let us see how many come from the downtown area. This has been extremely helpful. This is an example of how data can help us. It can also help us when we see that the citations and warnings go down, like this month in July, which is just at the end of August. We got the numbers for July. IT'S SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER. THIS DATA IS A WAY, THE ENFORCEMENT LEVEL HAS GONE DOWN FOR JULY. THIS IS A WAY FOR US TO FOLLOW AND TRACK THE CITY, AND WE COULDN'T DO IT WITHOUT DATA. THIS IS ONE THING THAT HAS RESULTED FROM PRESSURE TO PUSH THE CITY TO COLLECT DATA. WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT NOW IS SOMETHING THAT'S RELATED. Yes, it's loud, but I think that the fine-tooth information that we could get from data would be worth it. For example, we are in a situation with limited resources. What do we do about that? It was suggested at the Safety and Licensing and Board of Health that maybe what we're really talking about is hiring more police officers. I think if we're talking about it, that's the expensive step. That's the thing that would cost a lot of money. What I'm suggesting is that we can use the enforcement values, the enforcement the enforcement opportunities that we have and capabilities that we have. And with data, focus those things more and so make a difference on noise in a way that we haven't been doing because we have a kind of scattershot approach. So if you're in a situation with limited resources, data can be a way to focus those resources in ways that do the most for people's lives in the city. And I don't think it makes any sense to pass up data in order to spend a lot more money on more officers. I think we should go the data route, which is comparatively much less expensive. What else could we get out of this kind of data? Enforcement could be aligned with quality of life problems. as I mentioned in the last meeting. We could look for, when does it most matter to our residents? And how could we focus enforcement, whatever our capabilities are, on a certain area and time? That would be a way to make life better for residents. Targeted enforcement, data would also allow us to think about targeted enforcement. What good does it do? Like, OK, say we have something I've pushed forward for a long time. a kind of series of stops. There's certain nights when we have no tolerance for noise, or we have a lot of people that are pulled over. What kind of difference does that make? Is that something that in the coming, in the next day, on the weekend, or on the following day, lowers the amount of noise? What is it that actually cuts into noise and people's willingness to come? It would open up our ability to experiment and try out different things. Right now, we have very much a scattershot. We'll do things. when it's available, but we don't know what is really working. Another thing that would happen from data is that we could set goals. Let's try to reduce the noise month to month, year over year, summer to summer. These would be the types of goals we could make. I think one thing that everybody has noted is the extent to which we rely on anecdote. IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S GETTING BETTER TO ME. IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S GETTING WORSE. THERE'S LOTS OF DIFFERENT THINGS BACK AND FORTH. AND IF WE HAD SOME NOISE DATA, THEN WE WOULD BE ABLE TO SAY, OKAY, LET'S LOWER THE LEVELS, DO OUR BEST TO CUT INTO THIS BY A THIRD, BY A HALF, WHATEVER IT IS. AND THEN THE CITY WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE SOMETHING TO GO BACK TO CITIZENS WHO ARE UPSET ABOUT NOISE THAT THEY'RE FEELING AND SAYING, I know there's still loud things coming by, but we are slowly cutting into this by a third, by this amount. And you can see that in the data. I think people would appreciate that, and that would make them feel like something is being done about the noise problem. Just a couple more things. One is experiments. you know, what is it that works? I have lots of cities, Knoxville and other things that, and I won't go into those now, but they have pursued data. And we as a city, Appleton, it feels like we're spending hours, 150 hours, and talking to people and mayors all to get to the idea of saying no, we can't do anything more. We're doing enough. And I think that if we had data of some kind, we would be able to direct our focus and actually take a bite out of the problems that we're seeing. Finally, how will we know when we succeed? That's something that comes up all the time. How will we know what success is? Well, success is being able to approach residences and businesses and point out how we are improving things. The number is going down. And especially as I've talked to residents, it's the extreme incidence of over 90 degrees, which is like a jackhammer outside your door. Can we lower those incidents? And that is something that we could get out of data. And one more thing is the extent to which we know, yes, it's been said many times, we know where it's loud. It's loud on downtown, on College Avenue, but we really don't know the secondary sites of noise. We don't know, you know, Teresa was mentioning the kind of felt like people were doing an Indy 500 kind of around different parts of Appleton. We don't know what other parts of the city are loud and how loud they are. And if we had some of that data, we could say, these are our hot spots. This is comparable to the downtown or to College Avenue off the bridge, or it's quite a bit less. That would give us the ability to know where we need to focus. And right now, we're shooting in the dark, and we have a very scattered approach. So that is the reason why I think that we would get a lot out of data. And I think that we could take our enforcement levels that we have now and do a lot better and tell ourselves we are going to cut into data, cut into the noise and the excessive noise in a meaningful way. But to do that, we have to offer some numbers, hold ourselves accountable, and we could do that for not a lot of cost. Again, five of these stations, $2,250 per A LITTLE BIT, YOU HAVE TO CALL UP AND GET A KIND OF PACKAGE. BUT MY ESTIMATE IS 20 TO 30,000 FOR TRYING THIS. AND I THINK GIVEN THE EXTENT TO WHICH THIS HAS BEEN A CONSTANT ISSUE THAT IS DISRUPTING PEOPLE'S LIVES, THAT THAT IS WORTH IT. AND CERTAINLY SOMETHING WE SHOULD DO BEFORE WE THINK THAT EXTRA OFFICERS ARE GOING TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, CHAIR.

Central thesis on this resolution seems to be that more data will somehow change how we enforce and what our enforcement capacity is. What we need to remember though with this is that it's not just about where and when being downtown. We know about where things are happening because we get reports. People call in from other parts of the city. I know my daughter had softball practice at Veterans Memorial Park, and in previous years, there was a lot more cruising going on around there than there was this year. Why? Because our police department responded to complaints and did something. We keep hearing about data quality as being something that's going to be able to boost and juice our enforcement. More quality data, even if you can say this noise measuring would be more quality data, isn't You're still going to run into the same issues here with every type of data collection having its own issues. You can say that citations aren't enough because not everyone gets a citation that violates the law. You can say complaints aren't enough because not everyone complains. But these pieces of equipment also have their own shortcomings. They can't tell the difference between cars and, say, fireworks or thunder and lightning or any of these other things. We talk about when being an issue, if measurement is going to help with when. We know that people are going to be more prone to being irritated by sound at different times of day, especially when people are trying to sleep. During the middle of the day, yeah, it might be annoying. You're kind of in your yard, and somebody drives by with a motorcycle that's louder than your lawnmower. It's annoying, but it's not going to be the end of the world. Excuse me. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, ALL THIS COMES DOWN TO IS TALKING ABOUT ENFORCEMENT. WE SEEM TO THINK THAT SOMEHOW ENFORCEMENT IS GOING TO GET BETTER JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE A DIFFERENT SET OF DATA TO WORK OFF OF. PROBLEM IS THAT YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO WEIGH THIS AGAINST EVERYTHING ELSE THAT'S GOING ON. THE OTHER THINGS THAT ARE GOING ON IN THE CITY, IT ISN'T LIKE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE BREAKING IN THE CARS ARE TALKING TO THE PEOPLE WHO RIDE MOTORCYCLES TO SCHEDULE WHO'S GOING TO DO WHAT. For example, while some of you were waking up last week to get ready for the joint meeting, the Appleton Police Department was in my neighborhood going after people who were breaking into cars and stealing stuff. Very good, very big response for the four people who were going around opening cars and taking whatever they could grab. Just by chance, that same night was open house at my kids' schools, and I ran into a number of neighbors, some who were affected by what had happened, others that were just nearby. Unprompted, all of them were glowing about what kind of effort and response that the police department had put into dealing with that problem. So when we get into some of these conversations where it's like the city doesn't care, the police department doesn't care, we're not doing anything, I just, there's too many examples that just counter that. TO SAY THAT WE'RE DOING NOTHING, WE'VE DONE THINGS. IS DOING NOTHING CHANGING THE LANE CONFIGURATION SO WE HAVE LESS DRAG RACING DOWNTOWN? IS DOING NOTHING DOING MORE CITATIONS THAN WE WERE YEAR OVER YEAR? IS DOING NOTHING ENACTING AN ORDINANCE SO WE CAN TOW AWAY RECKLESS DRIVERS? I just don't get why we can say, oh, well, we're doing nothing when we are clearly doing things. We haven't eliminated noise. Yes, noise is still there. But we are continuing to put in a concerted effort as a city. One of the things that irritates me the most about this, though, is all the finger pointing. We keep hearing, well, it's the mayor's fault. The mayor isn't prioritizing things. The mayor gives us a budget. We set the budget priorities by what resources we give to the different departments. We hear about Appleton Police Department. It's their fault for not prioritizing the issue enough. Never mind that we have a small department for a city our size, and yet we are one of the safest communities that you can find around. It's the attorney's office fault for not having the right ordinances on the book. Never mind that the ordinance in question that was brought up at committee isn't even enforceable in the communities where it's actually been put in place. And now we're hearing it's the health office department for not agreeing to this latest idea of putting up sound detection. This is just nothing but finger pointing at this point when it comes to why we still have these issues. And look, I get it. This is becoming a signature issue for Aldersmith. My colleagues spent a lot of time and energy on this, and it's a difficult issue to solve. A lot of us have taken on very difficult issues in the past only to find that, you know what, The answers aren't as easy as we hoped. We aren't going to be able to get the results that we want. It doesn't mean that we stop trying as a city to make things better. It just means that we can't do everything we always want. We run into resource issues with a lot of things. And that's the same when it comes to enforcement capacity. We can't just randomly start saying, OK, we're going to ignore some calls because we really want to do much more about noise. And if we want to have more officers, we need to get those resources from somewhere. Most departments are pretty small. They don't have a lot to take from them. Some of the bigger departments, they're still going to be impacted. If you're talking about adding headcount, take into consideration the traffic safety officers and the staffing recommendation that we could use about three more of those. That's about $100,000 per officer when you throw in benefits, training, and everything. I mean, you could wipe out the entire council budget. That's not even going to be enough. I mean, you could take our parking passes and all, and we're still going to end up a little short here. My thing is that we can't take this idea that we're just going to get more data and the enforcement's going to get better. And we can't just start hacking apart the budget and think that there's going to be no negative outcomes from that. Maybe after all this, we can shake the etch-a-sketch and start thinking about more constructive ideas than the dialogue that we've had up to this point. We have a unique situation with downtown. It is a concrete canyon of hardscapes and glass and concrete. It is an attraction for a lot of people that come down here. And I think one of the big questions, if you really want to think about how do we change things, is why do people come to our city and drive recklessly and make so much noise? They're having fun doing it. And that's what it comes down to. People are having fun doing it. How do you make it less fun? And that's not always, that may not even be always an enforcement issue. It's not, yeah, getting a citation is not fun, but there's other aspects that maybe we need to start thinking about, and I don't think that data collection to these speakers is gonna, or to these devices, is something that's gonna get us there.

Alder Schultz. Thank you, Chair. First, just to recognize that this body has been trying to tackle this issue since the dawn of this new phenomenon which is what i'd call it since coven i witnessed the sort of its birth as i was working on a project in downtown uh in 21 and the first few times i heard the noise i thought well what what is that idiot up to and then that continued to happen throughout uh that build project and by the end it was than almost every other occurrence. And this is something different. We're dealing with something new. And it's a behavioral change in our young adult cohort. And it's driven by a ton of factors. But I think one of the primary ones is their separation and finding camaraderie in their reckless actions, that they get to do these things with their friends and show how daring they are. And there's no amount of enforcement that's going to change that behavior. The reactions I've seen from these young people, whether it's exhaust or e-bikes or e-motos, is just wanton disregard for any authority figures, whether it's an adult or someone on the street trying to enjoy a coffee or law enforcement. way back in 21, September, I mean, we'd already recognized that this was becoming an issue, and we passed 14R21 resolution to add some additional definitions to these behaviors to try and define what these noise generation terms were and added them to the ordinance so at least we could if we were issuing citations, could point to those. Unfortunately, this behavior, specifically just singular vehicular exhaust modification or other revving type actions that don't include racing or dragging or other moving violations carry no demerit points their ordinance violations and they can happen at a stop sign between two stop signs without that individual actually violating some kind of action that's going to involve a ticket with demerit points. And I don't think anything is going to change with this behavior until, and I know I'm going to get a little straight just a little bit, but hear me out, nothing is going to change until something happens at the state level and we convince DOT under Trans 101 to add demerit point violations to these vehicular modifications that are specifically done to disrupt the public peace. I think that's the only way anything happens. And collecting additional data, while it might be relevant and it might be good to have that extra data, it's not going to change that behavior. It's still going to require us to figure out how to enforce it. I mean, the data will eventually lead to an analysis. Okay, now we've got it. Now what are we going to do about it? And that will end up in EPD's lab, and they will be tasked with trying to do something with that data, with the enforcement. We've got some additional data on some other projects. And we thought some changes would happen. We spent a fair amount of money trying to assess some data on Driscoll Street. It didn't help that decision. We've spent some time gathering data on certain other traffic avenues to see if we could get some enhanced crosswalks. And that data has not sort of evolved or helped that cause. So just getting that data doesn't necessarily mean that something's going to happen. It may or may not show that there's an issue. Some of these places where we've collected data before, there's a stronger anecdotal evidence of things that are out of whack than there is actual data collection and things that we can codify and then crunch the numbers and say, no, it didn't meet the 50% threshold. Actually, it's a safe street. We don't need an additional crosswalk there. So just having that data, I don't think it does us any good particularly. It may help sort of define places and times where this stuff is happening. But we have a pretty good mechanism already. These violations are being tracked. Their citations are given out. And I suspect APD has a really good handle on where and when these violations are taking place. And they're doing their best to tackle it. So unfortunately, I'm not going to be in favor of this, regardless of whether that data might be useful or not. I don't think we're going to get to the heart of the matter with this resolution. I think it falls short of the thing we really need to figure out, and that's how to go after this. these behavioral changes, and there's no easy answer or solution. I don't think there's any carrots or sticks you can dangle or push in front of these individuals that's going to change it. I do think the only thing we can do at some point is to make this a traffic violation where eventually someone's going to lose their driver's license and they won't be able to make that loud noise with their loud car. Thank you.

Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair. I've agreed with much of what was just stated by a number of aldermen, but I would like to take a bit of an issue with Alder Smith stating that $20,000 to $30,000 is not a lot of cost and that it's a very simple thing. It may seem like comparatively $20,000 to $30,000 isn't a lot of money, but in my opinion that is a lot of money. I understand from people who have have concerns about sound, that that sounds like it's not a lot of money for a city to spend. But I don't think that that spend is not going to get us to the solution, the ultimate solution to the problem. And I don't believe that it is a very simple thing either. I mean, I'm very familiar with data collection and know that data is only as good as it is very simple. specifically collected and there has to be some clarity with it. And there are a lot of things that would need to be done to make it actually good data, to actually understand that this is quality data that can be relied upon. And I don't think that, too, even if we put all the staff resources into someone who would manage the data collection for these $20,000 to $30,000 worth of devices, I don't think it would be any better than the targeted enforcement that is already occurring within the city. I disagree that we're shooting in the dark. I don't believe we're shooting in the dark at all. I believe that's proof that all of these reports that come from APD are showing that we know where these problems are coming from. Just to say we're doing something is not the way to get to the crux of this problem. I think the problem is much larger, as Alder Schultz just stated. My biggest problem with this resolution, though, is that it still holds this separation of powers issue. And for that alone, I cannot vote for this resolution. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Alder Meltzer.

Thank you. First, I want to thank Alder Smith for bringing this resolution forward for the hard work he's been doing for a long time on this issue, and especially bringing together community members to uplift their voices so that their concerns around this issue can be heard. This is a very serious problem. However, I think it's also important for my role as a representative of my constituents who are very invested with concern in this issue, we need to deliver real results. And gathering more data is not going to deliver those results. When we have enforcement challenges that are related to resources and capacity, when officers are getting called away from camping out to wait for bad behavior to give citations, they get called away by more serious behaviors. That's not something that gathering more data is going to be able to change. We do have an understanding of the issue, and The barrier to increasing enforcement is not a lack of data. So it's important to me to make sure that I don't give my constituents false hope or pursue an action that looks like we're doing something when I feel that it's not actually going to accomplish that. I do not feel that investing in these data devices would be good financial stewardship. I do not feel that gathering the data and analyzing the data would be a good use of staff time. We will have an opportunity, all of us here on council will have an opportunity next month to look for options in the 2027 budget to increase APD resources and capacity. We see that already with enforcement having increased by 43%, but not putting a dent into the issue that constituents are concerned and complaining about, clearly we would need way more than a 43% increase in enforcement to meaningfully address the problem. I think that at the end of the day, there's an issue with bad behavior being engaged in by individuals in our community and gathering more data is not going to address that behavior. We need to figure out how to find an effective way to deter the bad behavior, whether it's through giving APD more resources or whether it's through finding other options. At the end of the day, this isn't an issue of trying to make a better case about the seriousness of the issue. This issue is serious, and this issue needs action, and that is not in question. What's in question is, how do we get the people who are causing harm in our community to stop? And to move forward on that, spending time and money on these data devices and analysis is not going to get us any closer. So while I really support this COMMUNITY NEED FOR US TO STOP THE NOISE PROBLEM, I AM NOT ABLE TO VOTE IN FAVOR OF THIS RESOLUTION. AND I ENCOURAGE MY COLLEAGUES NOT TO VOTE IN FAVOR OF THIS RESOLUTION. WE NEED TO CONTINUE HAVING THIS PUBLIC CONVERSATION AND CONTINUE LOOKING FOR OTHER OPTIONS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

NEW SPEAKER ALDER VAN ZEELAND.

Thank you, Chair. I won't repeat a lot of the arguments that I agree with with my colleagues. But I did want to just point out that my district, the southern district for the police department, and my district lies within that, actually has the lowest action rate on noise complaints. And in combination with the statements from Alder Fenton, I simply can't support more downtown-centric enforcement to the detriment of my constituents. So it's not about not caring about the city as a whole, It's about making sure that we're included in that in District 5. And in listening to this conversation and thinking about how we can be more curious in the future, we have a university that is camped on the street where our constituents say that there is a huge problem. I wonder if... we could reach out to the experts at the university or possibly have a student who's interested in taking some of this on and helping us if the data is something that's important to the residents. I just think that there's a way to do this where there isn't the cost that's being presented to us now. Thank you.

Alder Wolf.

Thank you, Chair. I actually have a quick question about VOTING PROCEDURE ON THIS BECAUSE ONE WAS COMING OUT OF COMMITTEE AS BECAUSE IT CAME OUT OF TWO DIFFERENT COMMITTEES ONE WAS FOR APPROVAL AND THEN ONE ZERO FIVE AND THEN THE OTHER ONE WENT FIVE ZERO FOR DENIAL SO WHEN WE VOTE ON THIS ARE WE CAN YOU JUST EXPLAIN YEAH YEAH LET JUST YEAH TO BE CLEAR SO UH WHAT HAPPENED IN COMMITTEE UH IN IN WAS THAT THERE WAS A THERE WAS A MOTION TO DENY THAT WAS WAS UPHELD

And so in order to send a positive motion to the motion was to approve, and it was denied. So it failed. The motion to approve failed. So in order to send a positive motion onto the council, there was another vote taken to shift it to a recommendation for denial. So there was a motion to deny, and that passed. And it passed in both bodies. So it's actually coming to us with a recommendation to deny from both. So we can handle this with a single vote. The minutes will reflect the action in each of the respective bodies. Thank you.

OK. Alder Crote. THANK YOU, MAYOR. I WAS JUST GOING TO TAG ON TO THAT BY EXPANDING THE CONVERSATION ON THE VOTE AT COMMITTEE AND BOARD. THE BOARD VOTED 7-0 TO DENY THE RESOLUTION AND THE SAFETY AND LICENSING COMMITTEE VOTED 5-0 TO DENY THE RESOLUTION. 12 votes in opposition to the resolution. I'm not going to make a bunch of comments on it. I think our council president and Alder Fenton both stated a lot of what I was planning on saying. One thing that concerns me about this entire process is the amount of, call it chatter, or conversation outside of these walls that has taken place about this. It's concerning and a little bit disappointing. TO SEE AND HEAR SOME OF IT. I UNDERSTAND WE'RE ALL TRYING TO BE INFORMATIVE AND SHARE THOUGHTS AND IDEAS AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS, BUT SOME OF WHAT I READ IS VERY CONCERNING AND JUST QUITE HONESTLY A LOT OF IT IS FALSE AND INACCURATE. SO THAT PART OF IT IS DISAPPOINTING. BUT I WOULD ENCOURAGE US TO SUPPORT THE RECOMMENDATIONS THAT HAVE COME OUT OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH AND THE SAFETY AND LIGHTHOUSING COMMITTEE AND DEFEAT THIS RESOLUTION. THANK YOU.

Is there any further discussion?

Alder Lambrecht. THANK YOU, MAYOR. SO I WANT TO FIRST AGAIN ALSO THANK ALDER SMITH FOR BRINGING THIS RESOLUTION FORWARD. I THINK WE HOPEFULLY ARE COMMUNICATING OUT TO THE COMMUNITY RIGHT NOW THAT WE HEAR THERE'S AN ISSUE, AND I KNOW MARTIN HAS BEEN CHAMPIONING THIS FOR SOME TIME, AND IN LOOKING AT THE RESOLUTION, I APPRECIATE ALDER FENTON MENTIONING THIS AS WELL, I ACTUALLY FEEL THIS RESOLUTION HAS ALREADY BEEN SUCCESSFUL NO MATTER HOW THE VOTE COMES OUT TONIGHT. If you look at what the actual resolution is stating, it's asking for a report to be prepared within 90 days of passage of the resolution to give us options should we want to move forward with any sort of data collection. IN ADDITION TO THAT, WE'VE HAD AN OPPORTUNITY NOW FOR OUR CONSTITUENTS AND OUR RESIDENTS TO COME OUT AND SPEAK BOTH AT SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD OF HEALTH AND HERE IN THE CHAMBERS REITERATING THAT THERE IS AN ISSUE AND THAT THERE ARE QUALITY OF LIFE PROBLEMS THAT ARE HAPPENING. NOW, MY QUESTION, IF I MAY, CHAIR, DIRECT A QUESTION TO DIRECTOR SIEPERS. BECAUSE OUT OF THE RESPONSE, RIGHT, WE DID RECEIVE ALREADY A 400-PAGE RESPONSE. AND I'M CURIOUS JUST IF HE WOULDN'T MIND SHARING HOW HIS TEAM APPROACHED THAT MEMO AND THE CREATION OF THAT. AND THEN ALSO, AND I KNOW IT'S HYPOTHETICAL, BUT IF THIS RESOLUTION WERE TO, LET'S SAY, Would a report or a memo or anything be substantially different than the 400-page memo that has already been prepared and delivered to Board of Health and Safety and Licensing as well as the council as a whole?

So on the hypothetical, I would say we're not going to address a hypothetical. But certainly, the first question I'll ask Health Officer Siepers. Which microphone do you have?

Two.

OK. Go ahead.

Yeah, so to the question, what specific approach did we use to put together the memo, really looked at, so I'll say first, so there is that point of order. So pushing that aside and saying, if this was an actionable resolution, knowing that there's quite a bit of ground to cover. I believe Alder Van Zeelen, excuse me, Alder Hartzheim had mentioned the sort of body of work that needs to be done in order to accurately measure high quality data into the specificity that we're talking about. As a former scientist, that was the approach that I used. How might we understand, and we were given four specific methods, not limited to, but to address those, and that was a tall ask. IN THE FOUR, RIGHT? THE PREDICATION OF ALL OF THIS, HAVING JUST PUT TOGETHER THE NOISE ORDINANCE HERE IN 2024, 2025, THE THING THAT WAS FRONT AND CENTER WAS THE STATUTE AS IT RELATES TO TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT, AND SO I HAD ASKED THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE TO PUT TOGETHER A LEGAL MEMO TO HELP BOLSTER MY UNDERSTANDING TO UNDERSTAND, OKAY, IF WE'RE GOING TO COLLECT DATA, WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS OF THOSE DATA? WITH THE ASSUMPTION BASED ON CONVERSATIONS THAT I'VE HAD WITH ALTER SMITH AND CONVERSATIONS THAT I'VE HEARD ONLINE, that ultimately we would want to use these data to enforce. So my understanding would be if we're collecting these data, our ultimate goal would be that. And so that was the lens in which this document was prepared. THE COSTING DATA WAS PULLED FROM THE ACTUAL DOT CONTRACTS, SO THESE WEREN'T NUMBERS THAT I GOOGLED OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, THOSE WERE ACTUAL CONTRACT DATA. AND SO PROBABLY LOOKING THROUGH SEVERAL HUNDRED CONTRACTS AND COSTING AND PRICING MODELS THAT WAY. AND REVIEWING EACH STRATEGY AS IT LAID OUT THROUGH THE LENS OF THE STATUTORY LEGAL FRAMEWORK. SO IF THERE IS A NUMBER THAT IS PICKED UP WITH A MICROPHONE ON A DATA UNIT, WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF THAT? THE POINT SOURCE OF THAT NOISE DATA. IS IT A VEHICLE? IS IT A SPECIAL EVENT? IS IT HAVE WE CONSIDERED THE ISO 1996 STANDARDS? HAS THE THING BEEN CALIBRADED? ALL THOSE THINGS NEED TO BE CONSIDERED AS WE APPROACH THAT. AND SO THAT WAS THE LEVEL OF THOROUGHNESS THAT HAD GONE INTO EVALUATING EACH ONE AND THEN PROVIDING strengths and weaknesses of each methodology, and then a summary of those costs.

Thank you. Yep. Further discussion? All right. Hearing none, we have a motion and a second. Again, this is a vote notwithstanding, so an aye vote would approve the resolution. A nay vote would deny it. Any questions? Hearing none, please cast your votes. The motion fails with Alder Doherty abstaining. All right. Before we move on with our business, I want to be clear about something, which is that this does not represent the end of our work. nor does it represent the end of our conversation as a community about this issue. So I want to be very clear about that. I also want to take a moment to address the concerns that I have with the nature of the discourse around this issue. This is a complicated and challenging problem for our community and one that we have been dealing with for years that has, by many accounts, my own experience, gotten worse. And it is a challenging problem for us as a community to address. We are not alone in facing these problems. There are indeed other examples from other places of ways they've approached these issues. But I think we need to be careful as a community to not get caught in binaries, all or nothing thinking about these kind of issues. And I've been particularly concerned by that framing as this discussion in the community has gone on. And I think that's a false framing to say nothing is being done. It's also a false framing to say nothing can be done. And we would be wise, I think, as a community to not fall victim to that kind of binary thinking. because that will mean we will not make progress. We will not continue to work on this. I also urge us to have respectful discussions with each other, to recognize that people in our community are having different experiences of these issues, and that the concerns that people in the community are raising are absolutely valid. disappointed in the outright dismissal and the personal invective directed toward people who have raised concerns about these issues. And I've also been concerned about the same for people who have different views. We can continue to have productive discussions as a community, and I hope we will. I hope we will continue to think creatively about solutions. But I also think we need to be honest with ourselves, with each other, with our constituents about the very real limitations and trade-offs that we face as a community around this issue. If we don't, we'll continue to devolve and have these kind of ad hominem discussions that don't actually get at the issues that we're trying to deal with. We do face hard choices when it comes to resource allocation. But I also want to say that I'm very proud of the team of professionals that I get to work with here at the City of Appleton and our staff. I'm one of the finest police departments in this country. And any question about the level of care that the people who dedicate their careers and their lives to working for our community, I have seen no evidence of lack of care or passion for the work in this organization. So these are complicated issues. But they are issues that we as a community are capable of talking about and having constructive dialogue about and focusing on the issues themselves. And I would encourage us to do that as we move forward. And as I said before, I do not view this vote by the council as the end of this conversation by any means. But we have to change the nature of this conversation as a community toward one that is collaborative and productive and realistic. Because that is going to fray the fabric of this community further. And I'm particularly very concerned about that. So I want to thank you all for the thoughtful discussion. I want to thank members of the public for coming and sharing your feedback on this. And I look forward to continuing the conversation. With that, we'll move on to the final item that was separated, this from the Finance Committee. THIS IS 26-1138, REQUEST TO APPROVE SUBDIVISION DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT FOR WILDON PORTFOLIO PARK DEVELOPMENT. WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO APPROVE. AND OPEN THE FLOOR FOR DISCUSSION. ANY DISCUSSION? HEARING NONE, PLEASE CAST YOUR VOTES. Motion passes 10 to 1. Item has been approved, and Alder Hayden will note your abstention. That concludes our items that were separated. So I need a motion on the balance of the agenda. There we go. Now it should be OK. We have a motion and a second to approve the balance of the agenda. Is there any discussion on the balance? Hearing none, please cast your votes. Motion passes 12-0. The balance of the agenda has been approved. We've taken care of our consolidated action items. We have no items held, no ordinances, license applications, and communications referred to committees of jurisdiction. Resolutions submitted by all other persons referred to committees of jurisdiction. Have there been any resolutions submitted?

There have. Tonight we have Resolution 12R26. This is a resolution encouraging the Department of Public Health to propose administrative rules governing the presence of dogs in certain taverns within the city of Appleton for the Board of Health to consider for adoption. This was submitted by Alderperson Jones. And the summary reads, this resolution seeks to have the Board of Health consider rules suggested by the Department of Public Health to allow patrons to bring dogs inside of taverns. And the full text of the resolution will be on the minutes. OK.

That'll be referred to the Board of Health. All right, is there any other business? Just a reminder, we heard about at our last meeting, the September 11th anniversary is coming up on Friday the 11th. Information is available on the city website, Prairie Committee social media, and would encourage members of council and the public to attend if you're able, in recognition of the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001. Is there any other business? Alder Fenton.

Thank you. Wearing two hats. And I've pestered everybody already. I would urge everybody who's available to attend the League of Women Voters meet and greet with local electeds at 10 o'clock on September 12, Saturday morning in the library. Mayor Woodford has graciously agreed to be there. And this will be an informal setting, coffee and donuts, where you can talk to your constituents. We've got people from, and it would probably be a good opportunity to meet our colleagues from other communities because all the local electeds from the Fox Cities have been invited. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other business? All right, I need a motion to adjourn. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, we are adjourned. Thank you.