Community Development Committee - Regular Meeting

Hello, and welcome to the Wednesday, May 13 edition of our Community Development Committee meeting. We are calling this meeting to order. 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 nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next is a roll call of membership. We will start to my left.

Adrian Stansel Martin, District 11.

Jack Lambert, District 1.

Aya Jones, District 10.

Verad Meltzer, District 2.

And Alder Smith is excused for today. Let's go ahead and approve the minutes from our previous meeting, item number 26,593, minutes from April 29.

Move to approve.

Second.

Any changes, ideas, thoughts? Wonderful. Let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying opposed? Any abstained? That passes four-zero. We do not have any public hearings or appearances, so we will move on to action items. For this next action item, Vice Chair Lambrecht will be taking over, and I will step back.

All right. So we have action item 20 six-five 94, request to approve 2026 annual action plan AAP for the Community Development Block Grant CDBG program. Can I get a motion?

Move to approve. Second.

Thank you very much. Who would like to address that?

Thank you. So this annual action plan, so just a little bit of background on the CDBG program. So every year as an entitlement community, the city of Appleton receives community development block grant funds from HUD. And one of our big requirements is to submit an annual action plan that details to HUD how we plan to expend the funds that we receive during the program year and lays out the specific goals and objectives that we'd like to meet with that funding and then the specific projects that we'll be funding. So with our allocation for the 2026 program year of $595,806, we detailed in the annual action plan how we would plan to spend that money.

And we conducted the application process for CDBG's, got preliminary approval for all the CDBG projects, both for our internal city level projects and then also external applicants, and took those applications and recommendations through Comm Dev Committee and Common Council previously. And then we conducted the public hearing or public hearing requirements related to the annual action plan, as well as a thirty day public comment period for the annual action plan. During the public comment period, we did not receive any comments, and we didn't receive any comments at any of the public hearings that we held. But we fulfilled those portions of the annual action plan requirements. And then one note, when we did the public comment process or public comment period, the thirty day period.

We had not yet received our official allocation from HUD, so we included contingency language in that to give examples from where we thought our award was going to be, to different examples both above and below where we thought that would be, to give examples to the community of what the funding adjustments would look like. So we included that required contingency language as part of that engagement process as well. But as I said, we received no public comments, so we're good to go ahead with consideration of the annual action plan.

So now we're asking for Community Development Committee to approve the annual action plan. And then if it passes common counsel, we'll submit

it to HUD the following week. So that's where we're at.

Thank you, Specialist Galen. All right.

Perfect.

Any comments from the committee

here?

I mean, I like to think that the no public comments is that we're doing a good job with the program and how we administer it. One question I guess that maybe could help the public if they wanted to provide. What types of input maybe would be helpful or valuable through this process so that we can you know make the best plan possible?

Yeah, so throughout the process we have multiple different public hearing opportunities. Kind of when we start the process, we're just looking in general what are needs in the community that members of the public have noticed. So that could be that they've noticed that maybe they think we need more housing rehab projects, or they've noticed that they think we need more of this type of public service project or different things that they're interested in, really. I mean, it's open to whatever the public would like to comment. As long as the activity is eligible for the use of CDBG funds, that can definitely be considered.

And then as we get more into the process, once we have the actual kind of projects identified and during the approval processes, we typically have public hearing opportunities for members of the public to comment on specific projects that have been proposed as well. So there's the opportunity for those specific projects, and then they can also continue to bring up needs that they believe we should consider, either for the current program year or future program years in administering the CDBG funds. So really, it's anything that they see as a need in the community as long as that need could be eligible for use with community development block grant funds. Those comments would be considered and then taken into the plan and taken into the types of projects that we're looking at funding throughout the program year.

Excellent. So it sounds like public input is very valuable if there are or things that they would like to prioritize or consider for future projects.

Yes, and we definitely like appreciate hearing from the public of what their interests are. You know, we view each of the different activities that are eligible under CDBG as all important and necessary activities that are happening in the community. So having an understanding of the public prioritization and the community's interest in supporting each of those activity types can be helpful, especially when there's a high amount of competition for a limited amount of funds. I think it really does help our community to better decide the most necessary way to allocate the funds with limited availability.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Hearing none, we can go ahead and vote on the motion before us. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? Abstention. Let it be noted. The abstention. With that said, I will cede the meeting back to the chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Lambert. Moving on to our next action item, number 260623, Resolution number 5R26, Administrative Fees for Weed Cutting and Abatement Services. Alder Hayden, are you going to start with this or do we Okay. Seven?

Yes, please. Please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Basically, to provide some color on this, what happened was I had a constituent come to me last year around issues with developers who own lots of land joining to their property.

And the developers weren't maintaining their property. They weren't cutting their grass and were relying on them to be reported to the city for inspections, which would then contract a vendor to come out and service their lawn. And talking with Director Homan, she communicated out some concern that when the city goes through this, the city is spending more money than we're getting back. So effectively, what these developers are doing in my district is they're effectively having Appleton service their yards for them at a discounted rate. And the taxpayers throughout the city are subsidizing their lawn care.

And as Director Homan and I talked through it, as you can probably see reading through it, it evolved a little bit as she pulled in Director Youngworth, who was also seeing similar things with snow removal on sidewalks. So it kind of went from us dealing with a couple the issue of grass of lawn maintenance to also dealing with how we are subsidizing people who have to have their sidewalk shoveled as well. So what this does is it makes it more equitable to the city so that we're not subsidizing developers who aren't maintaining their properties.

Great. I got so excited to talk about this that I don't think I put a motion forward. So if someone would like to motion and a second?

I mean, I'll move to I'm on it, so I

should probably not actually hold. I'll move to approve.

Would you kindly second?

I'll second for discussion.

Thank you.

All right. So discussion there. Sorry about that. So we have the different costs of what you're looking to do. Explain to me, are we just kind of setting these really super high to make a ton of money on this? Or why are the prices what they are?

Great question. I'm talking with Director Homan, the city cannot make money on these prices. So the city can only go as high as the cost of the city. So what we're doing here is setting it at the price of and Director Homan, correct me if I'm wrong we're setting it at the cost of the city's operation because we're quickly going to fall behind like we were before. It's And been, I believe, a decade or so at least since we've set these rates. So we're falling very, very far behind what it's costing the city to do this business.

And then just to confirm that we're not continuing so we're not

hurting ourselves in the future, are we including administrative staff time in those costs? Doctor. Homan, you are one. Go ahead. So the cost you see on here does include administrative staff time. So that's salary plus fringe. I also wanna note if you look in the third assessment amount category, it has plus actual contractor charges. So when we hire a third party vendor to go on mow, we always pass through that charge. What we're changing here is the administrative fee and then the warrant fee. Correct, Curt?

And then, just one more question. This is kind of working towards spurred out of some developers that were kind of taking advantage of the system. Are we just going to go out and every single resident, personal resident who has high lawn, are we just going go slap these fees on them?

Not. Only in these cases where it's a clear and evident violation. This isn't an ordinance that is meant to become the grass police. It's more of a nuisance issue. The resident in question who contacted me had mentioned the grass had gotten so high that they had mice living in their yards. And it slowly becomes more of a public health issue and not an issue where people are trying to do things like no or slow mo may. It's more of if I don't take care of this, eventually the city will come out and I'll save some money.

It's more intentional than Wonderful. Any other Elder Maltzer.

Yeah. So my primary concern with this is the potential for it to be regressive. And while we're trying to hold these commercial properties or these problematic entities while we're trying to hold them accountable, how is that going to then impact the everyday person who maybe their lawnmower broke. And if the fee is even more, then it's going to take them that much longer to save up for a lawnmower. And then you have this endless cycle, then they get a second fee and they're not going to be able to afford their lawnmower this year and then they're going get another fee that they can't so just, yeah, could speak to that, please. Thank you.

Yep.

I'll kick it off and then I'll turn it over to Kurt. Kurt and his team have a really step by step process for how they handle weed complaints. He can speak to how they use discretion and how not every weed complaint even results in a charge. Kurt, do want to kind of walk through the steps you go through in the hang tag and how you progress through and eventually reach the charging?

Sure. District two? Mhmm. Okay. So I ran some numbers last week for the number of complaints we received over the past two years and how many weed charges were assessed. And pretty much half the time, we're going to a property and we're leaving a hang tag, just a courtesy notice, we call it, to say, hey, your grass is high. And, you know, every case is different. It could be a situation where there's just a small part of the property that has some high grass, not the whole property. Or it could be a case where clearly this is a vacant house and no one's coming to cut the grass. No reason to leave a warning tag.

We just need to move on to the next step. So we we do issue a lot of warnings. This does not mean that we're raising fees and we're just going to every time a complaint comes in, it's automatically a fee. That's not the case. We use discretion in these. And I'd like to think we're pretty consistent with when we issue a fee that is deserved and when it's not deserved.

Thank you. If I could follow-up, I just I do find it concerning looking at the chart because the chart leads me to think that processing of initial complaint and paperwork means a minimum of $75 fee. So you could almost kind of take away from this chart that even if the city shows up and they're not in violation they're still going to get a $75 fee because of the complaint. So I just want to have a lot of clarity about how this actually is going to work in practice.

Okay. And this is the same chart we have on the books right now. We just updated the proposed numbers. So what Kurt just described to you is how we handle it in in practice.

Okay. So really, if so if we think of the first column as, like, steps that you go through, if you get down to the notified property owner of violation, hang tag, etcetera, that step could happen without any fee being incurred. At Kurt's department's discretion.

Yeah. If we decided that it would be a let's call it a pink tag, because that's the tag we leave that says it says on the notice, you are gonna be charged a fee. Even if you cut this tomorrow, you're still going be charged a fee. That would be the if we leave that notice, that $75 charge will be charged even if it's brought into compliance.

Okay. Thank you.

Am I missing? Part of the yeah. Time

I want him to clarify there's two different types of tags.

That that was my question. The warning, there's then cost of tagging.

And then let's call them a courtesy notice and a pink tag. Or let's go both call them tags. Courtesy tag, pink tag. Pink tag means there's a fee. Courtesy tag means, hey, we got a complaint. Please get this taken care of. If we come back the next week and it's taken care of, then the case is closed, there's no fee.

And that when you say half the time it results in a hang tag, which is a courtesy notice, it's taken care of. Yes. Those are the tags that you're talking about.

So this is not every time. The fee is not going be applied every time. Okay. Now if we come back, a hang tag was left the first time, we come back a month later and we have the same problem, then I think we can use some discretion saying, wait a minute. Why are we coming back out here? You don't get another courtesy notice. Now it's gonna be a pink

tag.

And on your courtesy notice, there's contact information, a contact person. There is ample opportunity to reach out to this.

Yes.

Okay. Stansel Alder Stansel Martin.

A couple questions. At what point in this process on the left column do you resort to the pink tag? And what if after this courtesy tag, you you have resources on there, you have contact information, someone reaches out and expresses that maybe investing in a lawn mower cannot be a priority for them at that moment, then what is the city's next step?

Again, we would use our discretion. We say, Okay, they're having a problem. We understand. We'll just leave you a courtesy notice, a courtesy tag. At no point in this list of things, if there's if there's a courtesy tag, this is not even considered.

There is no steps. We just if we charge a fee, which we want to because we want to create an incentive for people to take care of their grass and not just take care of it when they get a complaint, we have this to justify our time that we're spending on this. We spend a lot of time going out and responding to cases where we just leave a courtesy tag and we do not get any revenue for that. So when you your first question was what part of this chronological list of processes do we leave a courtesy notice? And it's none of those. The fees are not included in the process when we issue a courtesy tag.

This, what I I think we're getting way down deep into it. The process is not changing. This is what you do now. This is

what you'll continue to do.

What we're looking at and voting on is the increase in prices.

To reflect sorry. To better reflect the time and, efforts that are put into enforcing the codes that we already have in place. And so these actions are already happening. There already is a fee structure in place should somebody reach that point of going through the warning section. We already have a fee structure. This is just to better reflect the cost and expenses that we already as a city incur.

Yes. Can I respond? Okay. I've worked here in the city of Apsen since 2006. That's twenty years. When I started here, the administrative fee was $50. Right now, the administrative fee is $50. And then if you get a warrant, it's a right now, it's a 160. Now it's going to be with this proposal, it's going be $2.15. So nothing's changing other than our fee amounts. And I think that we can justify that. It hasn't been a problem charging what we've had for this many this much time. I think it's reasonable that we're increasing fees a little bit after twenty years.

Alder Lambert?

I very much so agree and part of the reason why I signed on to this. I do understand the concerns for some of my fellow committee members because of, you know, different households might have fixed incomes. We have an aging population that maybe doesn't have the ability to adjust for some of those things, maybe isn't able to clean up their sidewalks or mow as easily as possible. But what I'm hearing is the city has maintained its discretion in those situations to be able to work with the homeowner should that be the case. And it's not a flagrant kind of repeat offender who's maybe taking advantage of the system.

There's still the opportunity for us to work with those homeowners to make sure we're best supporting them and through whatever challenges they might be having as well. Thank you.

Alder Hayden?

I would just also ask, I know we talked about the appeals process as well. So it's not just the things that you've mentioned already, but there is the opportunity for the constituent to come forward and appeal the fines. If those could you speak to the appeals process?

Darren, if I get this wrong, since my time here, nobody has appealed a charge for grass cutting services but I do believe that if they disagree with the charge they could make a request to the committee for considering a waiver of it. Do you have anything to add Attorney Glad? Okay.

Alder Metzger?

Thank you. So the $75 here that used to be $50 that's the part that I am not comfortable with. The other end of the price increase, I would be comfortable increasing that even higher. But, the $50 I already know how burdensome and stressful that is to some people. I'm just not comfortable supporting that.

Would it be possible to keep that at 50 but then increase in the other two areas to balance that out so that if somebody does get to the process where it requires preparing a warrant, that's when they get higher fines to better incentivize and stop them from using the city as a discount lawn service. But before it gets to that point, I would rather keep it at 50, but so if I'm thinking of proposing an amendment right now, would we be able to balance that out so by, like, taking taking that extra money and adding it to the $2.15, bringing the 75 back down to 50?

So under that scenario, we would be overcharging the property owners who fall in the second bucket where the warrant is warranted. No pun intended. If we charge over 215, we're charging more than it costs to deliver the service. We have gotten clear guidance from the city attorney's office that that is not allowable by law.

Okay. Well, at this point then, I'm gonna make an amendment to change that $75 back to 50. See if I get a second. I'll second

discussion on the amendment? So the amendment is to

Keep the minimum fee at 50, but leave the rest of it as proposed.

Doctor. Holman. I would just like to add for consideration all other minimum fees for inspections are now 75.

Discussion on the amendment.

So my observation is this has been very long that we have set it at 50 and it feels like the time and effort that our staff has had to put into it should be reflected with regards to it, which is why I am not going to be supporting this amendment.

I have had quite a few lawn disputes in my district, and I feel like Inspections has been very gracious and generous and has worked with a lot of people. And so I feel like in my experience, when it has gotten to the point of charging 75, they have done what they can. So I I will not be supporting this amendment.

Just a I'm sorry, Jane. Procedural sorry.

Yes. Go ahead.

A procedural question. In the case of a tie with four people on the committee, what is the like, what is the what's the move?

Thank you. If it was two to two, the amendments would fail, wouldn't reach a majority of the members present.

Thank you.

Additional discussion? All right. Let's go ahead and vote on the amendment of changing the minimum to 50 instead of 75. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Nay. Any abstentions? So we are two and two, which means that the amendment fails. So we are going back to the resolution as submitted with the $75 Additional discussion on this.

All right. Alder Raucer.

I appreciate the work that went into this resolution and I appreciate the background that brings it forward. I would like to see the city recouping its costs better but that $50 turning into $75 is a sticking point for me, given the constituent feedback I've gotten over the years. So unfortunately, even though I appreciate the spirit of this, I will not be able to vote on paper of it.

Going once, going twice. All right. Let's go ahead and vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Abstentions? Alright. So that passes three one.

Lastly, tonight, have information items. Item 260599, inspection division permit summary report ending 4302026. Director Holman. I'll just

note our total revenues are tracking pretty similar to where we were last year. We have gotten feedback from our residential building inspector that one and two family permits have been slow primarily because we're out of inventory. The good news is is that Mission Ridge and Comet Ridge infrastructure is being laid right now. So we anticipate later this year, more one and two family permits will be pulled, and we have a handful of larger commercial projects that are working their way through the site plan process. So oftentimes, once we get further in the year, you'll notice like a big jump.

All it takes is one or two big industrial or commercial projects, and things really move forward in terms of a revenue perspective. Kurt, do you have anything to add based on your insights? Any

questions? No. All right. That leaves number eight adjourned.

Move to adjourn. Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? We are adjourned. Thank you very much, friends.