Municipal Services Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I now call to order tonight's meeting of the Municipal Services Committee for Monday, May 11. Please rise and 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 and indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the roll call of membership. I will note that Alder Dougherty is absent and excused. And then from my left,

Katie Van Zeeland, District 5. I'm Sherri S. Hartzine, District 13.

Brad Furcus, District 3. Nate Wolfe, District 12.

Excellent. On to item number four, approval of minutes from the previous meeting. Item 20 six-six 24 from the April 20 meeting of the MSC.

Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion, changes? Alright, there being none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. That passes four-zero. We move on then to public hearings and appearances. There are none. None scheduled. We then move to our action items. The first is 20 six-six 25 to elect a vice chair. I will open the floor for nominations. Alder Van Zeeland. Thank you, Chair. I nominate Brad Furkus. Alright, we do not need any seconds.

Are there any other nominations? There being none, let's please vote. All those in favor of Alder Furcus being the Vice Chair, please signify by saying aye. Aye. That passes four-zero. Item number 2026 is set the meeting date and time. I expect that a Monday at 04:30 is going to be our thing. Does anyone have any issues with that? None from the staff. So that will be where we are. Then we'll move to item 20 six-six 27, elect a CEA representative. I will open the floor for nominations. Alder Ferkus.

Thank you,

Chair. I'd like to nominate Alder Van Zeeland.

We have a nomination. Are there any other nominations? There being none, let's all please vote. All those in favor of Alder Van Zeeland being the CEA representative from the MSC, Please signify by saying aye. Aye.

That passes four-zero. Item 2028 is designate a contact person and I believe that that is Director Youngworth. Director Youngworth is our contact person from here on out. Item number 2029, request to award a single source design and construction related services contract with Desmond Design Management for 2027 repair and maintenance program for the red, yellow, and green parking ramps in an amount not to exceed $195,950 Do I have a motion?

Move to approve.

We have a motion.

I'll second for discussion. Motion and a second. Would one of the staff members like to address this? Deputy Director Newburger. There you are.

Thank you, Chair. So Desmond has been doing a great job for us with our annual ramp repairs design contracts dating back to 2023. That had followed up their initial work for us with a structural condition assessment report back in 2019. And so there are with the work Desmond has done, what they've learned about the ramps in terms of their contact during construction services with the various contractors we've been working with. Their work with staff that they've been really been able to really get to know these ramps like the back of their hands.

And we've got more work yet to be done here. So we'd like to continue working with Desmond on these annual design contracts moving forward. This specific request is for the design contract which would be used for the 2027 repair contract.

Thank you. Any questions from anyone?

My statement has always been that I do not really appreciate single source contracts, but I do appreciate that there is a lot of groundwork been laid already with Desmond, so presumably we can start immediately running with them, hit the ground running. Deputy Director Newburger, is this contract within our scope as far as budget wise?

That's correct. DPW had set aside $200,000 for design work under this contract. So we are within budget.

Excellent. Thank you. Anything else? Alder Crow, what oh, District 14.

Thank you, chair. I wasn't planning on speaking on this, but since you brought up the single source, sole sourcing thing, I agree with those sentiments. But in cases like this, I think it makes sense to continue on with a firm that's done the work. My question would be, if we didn't do that, would it be much more expensive, or would we get less for the dollar? How would that work if we were not going to sole source or went out and looked at other entities?

So process there's like a process element to that question. And then there's kind of a cost element to that question. So I would say there's a pot of money that broadly we're drawing from for the repair part of this and for the design of it. So if the design costs go up, then that's less money that would be available to hire the contractor with. And that that's so I would expect if if staff did go through the process of putting out a new RFP, we'd probably get very similar numbers from Desmond.

But then we would also get have the opportunity to receive prices from other contractors. So I'd suggest that it would be other than the time that staff would spend putting the RFP together, I would suggest that the Desmond numbers would come back similar and then we'd have the same amount available to us to actually implement the repairs. If for some reason Desmond, let's say, got busy and said, we can't really submit a quote, what I would expect would happen would be for the same volume of work that would be identified as being bid out as part of a construction project, the design rate would probably be higher. I'm not sure that they would do as good of a job really identifying the specifics of what needed to be done. But then any amount by which the design costs would go up would be that much less money than we'd be able to put toward the construction contract.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I think with that said, I don't have any problem with this at all. And I think that since this firm has done good work and has the history on looking at the ramps, it makes sense to continue with them. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? There being no other questions, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? And that passes four-zero. Item number 2030, request to approve a parking change on the 700 Block Of West Packard Street following a six month evaluation. Can I have a motion, please?

Move to approve.

We have a motion. Second. Motion and a second. Traffic engineer Lam, would you like to speak on this or Okay, thank you. Anybody have any questions? All right, there being none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. That passes four-zero. Item number 2031, request to approve parking changes in the 100 block of South Summit Street, another follow-up to a six month evaluation. May I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion, questions? All right. There being none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. That passes four-zero. Item number 2032, request to award Unit P26, pavement marking maintenance contract, epoxy, to Brickline Inc. In the amount not to exceed $185,174.65 May I have a motion?

Move to approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Would anyone on staff like to speak on that? Traffic engineer, Lum.

Thank you, Chair. For those that aren't familiar, this is a contract that we bring through each year. This is the contract where we're maintaining the markings that are throughout the city. We call them the long line markings. So these tend to be like the center line markings and lane line markings. And each year we go out for quotes, and typically, we get two quotes. And that's these are the only two contractors that we've actually had good luck with. A lot of contractors try to come into Wisconsin from other states and try to scoop up this work, and they tend to do a terrible job. And we've we've been down that road a few times. So we were thrilled to get Brickline as our low quote this time.

They do a really nice job for us. And then, I guess, just to explain the 15,000, what happens is is we identify the scope of the project, go out for quotes to get our unit prices established. And then invariably, there's all kinds of little things that come up where pavement patches are done and different things that we don't know about yet. And so we just kinda try to give ourselves a little bit of fluff to deal with those issues.

And that $15,000 then is, if unused, it's unused? It doesn't automatically go to the contractor?

Oh, correct. Yes, they're only getting paid for the work that they do.

Excellent. Any other questions from anybody? Alder Van Ziel.

Thank you, Chair. Because of some discussion about some of the construction on the North side of town, I had received some questions about the difference between the permanent markings and the temporary markings. So does this cover what we would expect to be permanent or semi permanent? Or does this also include temporary?

This is considered permanent marking. I'm sure you're referring to the stories about the Ballard Yeah,

that's correct.

So these markings, they're called epoxy markings. They're typically good for eight to fifteen years depending on where we put them. In fact, what was the markings that they used on the Ballard interchange were also epoxy, but they were put down when the temperature the pavement temperatures were far too low. And it was just because the project needed to get done, and we needed to get traffic on it. They did. So we are very careful to make sure that it's applied at the proper temperatures and everything. And we have very good luck with it, with the longevity.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. It was not city work that was done on the Ballard Interchange. That was WSDOT, correct?

That is correct.

So it's a part of the discussion, but it isn't really germane to this particular item. Any other questions? Alder Croats.

Thank you, Chair. I wasn't planning on speaking on this either, but since we're talking about durability and failing markings, I assume these markings come with some sort of warranty?

Yeah. So, excuse me, we get a one year warranty or we require a one year warranty as part of the contract documents, I would say that it's pretty rare that we have to collect on that. As long as the markings are put down when the temperatures are good and they're doing proper surface prep, they last very long time. Thank you.

Anything else? Alright. There being no more questions, all those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. That passes four-zero. Item number 2033, request to award Weathering Steel Bridge Design and Construction Inspection contract to Collins Engineers, Inc. In the amount not to exceed $32,000 May I have a motion?

Move to approve. Motion.

Second. And a second. Deputy Director Newburger, would you want to address this?

Thank you, chair. So there were the two bridges that are indicated in memo are the involve the bridges here that feature this weathering steel. So that's basically just a term that the DOT uses to identify a seal that's steel on certain bridges that's susceptible to a certain amount of weathering and corrosion and things like that that would represent some critical bridge elements that require extra inspection and condition work to make sure that those elements stay in good shape to continue the normal functioning at the normal weight limits for a bridge. And so we would work with Collins' engineering after this RFP process. They've done good work with us for other inspection and construction related services projects.

So we did get what we think is a reasonable quote from them and we feel like they're going to do a good job for us.

Thank you. Any questions? Comments? Alright. There being none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. That passes four-zero. Item number 2094, request to approve the design for the 2028 paving reconstruction of Roosevelt Street from Oneida Street to Morrison Street. This is a referred back item. Director Youngworth, would you like to begin and then I do expect that there are some folks in the audience who would like to make some comment as well. Or Deputy Director Neuberger?

All right. Right. Please start us.

Yep. Thank you very much. So as we know, this was originally brought to the Municipal Services Committee under different committee members last month. And it was referred back at the last council meeting. So we're bringing back some revised recommendations for the design this time based on additional information that staff considered related to seasonal use of Roosevelt basically having to do with the proximity to Erb Park and the pool.

And so I think this speaks to staff's ability to acknowledge the Complete Streets Guide as a guidance document that doesn't always identify specific conditions within great granular detail. So we took this opportunity to take another look at how we thought it would function this street would function under the initially recommended design. And we do want to we did come back with one tweak the design width that we'd like to share. So maybe what I could do is highlight basically what's different in the revised memo from the original memo. I want to highlight the last paragraph on the first page.

And if it's Okay with the chair, I'd like to just read through that. Please do. Just kind of a way to get that front and center on everybody's minds here. So at the 05/06/2026 council meeting, this item was referred back to the Municipal Services Committee Based on stakeholder input during the design approval process and further consideration by staff of peak seasonal usage parameters driven by Erb Park Pool during the summer months, staff are recommending revisions to the design parameters presented at Municipal Service Committee on April 6 design hearing and the April 20 design approval meetings. Changes to previously recommended design parameters or contextual information and contextual information are indicated by striking bold text.

And then going to page two, it's just basically two changes. We are under proposed design improvements. We are now proposing a 29 foot face of curb to face of curb width that used to be 26 feet. And then we struck out the notes that regarding what would have resulted in terms of saving terrace trees that would have resulted specifically from the narrower 26 foot. So we think that's going to probably mean that those four trees that likely would have been saved under a 26 foot wide street probably are much less likely to be saved under the 29 foot street.

And just to provide a little bit of insight in terms of the thought process here that staff went through on why 29 now and not twenty twenty and not 26? It really has to do with trying to maybe account put a little more weight into what we expect to see out there during the summer high usage months. During those months, what we expect is for the single lane of parking, which exists today. It's current Roosevelt Street is currently signed today for one side only parking during the summer months. But when we anticipate that's going to continue to generate is some pretty high levels of parking occupancy in that allowed we about

we first

the parking. And those areas that are free of parking on both sides represent areas under normal traffic usage where opposing cars that are driving through can kind of duck away from the drive lane a little bit to create just a little bit more breathing room for drivers where they don't have to slow way, way down to make sure that they're going to pass each other. So it just gives a little bit of breathing room for drivers to pass each other. And we felt that it would be appropriate as another element of that little bit of breathing room while still maintaining some of that traffic friction for keeping speeds lowered to influence driver behavior, that that extra three feet would also provide a little bit of cushion within this use context to provide that sweet spot where we're still getting some friction that's going to influence driver behaviors and lower speeds while also giving them a little bit more of a cushion to make those passages to opposed traffic.

Thank you. If the committee will allow me, I would like to ask whether there's anyone first from the public that would like to speak. Is there anyone who would like to speak? Please come forward. I will need your name and address for the record, please.

My name is Nikki Opstein. My address is 112 East Roosevelt Street. Thank you to the committee for allowing me the opportunity to speak again this evening. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to both the former and the current committee members for providing my neighbors and me the opportunity to share our concerns regarding Roosevelt Street. This process has demonstrated that through respectful advocacy and collaboration, individuals with differing perspectives can work together to identify solutions that serve the broader interest of the community.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to Aldermen Wolf and Lembrech for taking their time on Friday to visit Roosevelt firsthand and to observe the daily and seasonal challenges faced by the residents. Their willingness to engage directly with the neighborhood and provide updated information was greatly appreciated. Should any additional committee members or public works staff wish to visit the area, we would welcome the opportunity to further share our experiences and concerns with you as well. In addition, I would like to thank Ms. Young Werth and the Public Works staff for revisiting the proposed reconstruction plan for Roosevelt Street and for thoughtfully considering the unique circumstances associated with the street's proximity to Erb.

We appreciate the revision of the original proposal that maintains the roadway at its current width of 29 feet. As a neighborhood, we are grateful that our concerns regarding safety, parking, traffic flow, and day to day and seasonal impacts on residents were carefully considered throughout this process. While we recognize that there is still important work ahead to continue improving safety on Roosevelt Street, we are very pleased with the revised recommendation now before the committee. Finally, I respectfully ask the committee to vote in favor of Ms. Youngworth's revised proposal for Roosevelt Street.

After considering the various mitigating factors and community impacts, we believe this recommendation represents the best path forward for the future of Roosevelt Street and will continue to support the city Of Appleton's vision of fostering a safe, accessible, and connected community for all residents and visitors. Thank you so much. Thanks for

everything you do. Thank you. Is anyone else who would like to speak? All right, then I can bring it back here. Are there any elders there who would like to speak? Alder Croats, Elder Meltzer, Elder Lambrecht.

Just wanted to take opportunity thank you, Chair to thank the residents as well as the staff as well. I know that these situations are often challenging because we are thinking, you know, one hundred years in the future for these streets. And we need to take into account today's experience as well as that future experience. And so I know not every single one of the opportunities or considerations were able to make some of these adjustments based upon the circumstances. And I just want to share my appreciation, as with Ms. Obstein, for the staff and their willingness to look at this again.

Thank you. Alder Wolf, you had a question before?

Yes. Thank you, Chair. My specific question is, I assume we need an amendment to go with staff's recommendation to keep the width at 29 feet.

That Would

like to continue and then I can ask Attorney Barings? That's your question? Okay. Attorney Barings, you are Director two? Thank you.

Currently, there's not a motion on the floor. So a motion could be made to adopt the revised plan presented by staff and that would accomplish it.

Thank you. Any further questions, Alder Walls?

I would like to make a motion to adopt the revised take of the street.

We have a motion on the table.

Second.

And a second. Alder Van Zeeland, you had a question.

Yes, I did. Thank you. Thank you to the folks who came to speak also at the council meeting. One of the things that the residents noted in their comments was that people drive down this very small area at a high rate of speed. And so typically, when these things are presented to us, we and you touched on this.

You know, we hear narrowing the street makes people drive slower. Could you just talk a little bit more about how this widening still looks out for pedestrians and bicyclists in that area? It sounds like there's still some congestion. I just wanna make sure we're we're we're taking their concerns that they brought to us very seriously.

Thank you. Traffic engineer, Sorry. Director three?

District three.

I'm sorry, District three.

Gotcha.

I take the question to be, are we finding a middle ground here that's going to accomplish both the safety goals and the parking goals? Okay. I think maybe a little context would help with that. Typically, historically, we've built 32 foot streets throughout the city. We allow parking on both sides of most of those 32 foot streets.

And typically, those are in areas where there isn't a lot of parking. And so it works pretty well. At 29 feet, that's significantly less than what we have been building our streets at. So I do think that it still is Still quite a narrowing is what you're saying. Yeah, it's still a significant narrowing and it's still gonna help us accomplish those goals even if we don't you know, it's sort of shades of gray, right? And we're definitely in the middle with this.

And we do think that it will take care of some of the, I guess, drivers driving at a high rate of speed still at the 29 inches as best as possible? If

it was

29 inches

I'm sorry, 29 feet. I've reducing a couple inches and 29 feet.

You gave them a heart attack.

No, no, no, no. It would drive very slowly down that street. Only bicycles.

Yes.

Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that we addressed those appropriately.

Thank you. To piggyback on that, is there an expectation that there will be some more review of traffic control issues there in that neighborhood? I mean, there had been mention at the council meeting that there were some there's some zipping around between Oneida Street and and Roosevelt, etcetera.

As a matter of course, we look at the intersection control on all the intersections on a on a reconstruction project like this. So I assume the focus or the there's already a stop sign on the West end, so we would be looking at the East end, make sure that the sight lines and everything are appropriate for the control that's there.

Thank you. And engineer Lam, the the current situation is parking on one side seasonally, but the expectation is to become parking on one side all year long.

Yes.

Director Young worth nodding, but that's hard to get on the mic.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else have any other questions? Alder Croak.

Thank you, Chair. And this is why I did come to this meeting, to hear the discussion on this and look at the revised proposal. But I did want to echo some of the comments that Alder Lambrecht made and appreciation for the citizen input and the staff changes to this. Thank you for the invite to participate last Friday. I unfortunately was out of town and I couldn't get back in time, but I wanted to be there to hear what the neighborhood had to say because this is in District 1.

But it's very close to the border of District 14 and also District 6, which is Alder Fenton's district. And of course, Erb Park And Pool is in District 14, and the traffic around there is definitely spread out. So thank you for that invite, and thank you for the changes. I'm glad you addressed the comment about speed. We, as elders, often hear about neighborhood speed, traffic related concerns.

Street designs can play a role in addressing that a little bit, but there's also some other measures that can be taken. I would recommend, if you have an opportunity to grab a plate or something like that, you can call APD's non emergency line and report something. Know, they're not going to probably come out immediately and try to find the person, but maybe they will patrol the neighborhood a little bit more often or something. I know they're open to options because I've had those situations in the past. But I do really appreciate the citizen input.

I think this is a good example of getting involved in the process. We had this happen on Morrison Street about a year and a half or two years ago, which resulted in some changes to that design as well. So thank you very much for that.

Thanks. Alder Woolf, did you have anything further?

Yes. We did talk about safety on the street and the opposite side of the street without the stop sign. And the neighbors on that street did mention potentially wanting a trial on a stop sign. I know that stop signage can be a little tricky, especially with federal and state laws, but I just thought I'd bring it up in the meeting to see what your thoughts on it are.

Many of you, I'm sure, have worked with my group on this sort of topic. Basically, we're we're federally mandated to use the least restrictive traffic control that produces safe results. We have hundreds of unmarked t intersections or uncontrolled rather, t intersections throughout the city, most of which are some of the safest intersections that we have. And the the human behavior side of that is is when people know that they have to account for the cars in the other direction, they generally slow down. But what we do what we look at and what we'll look at here is a few different things.

We're looking at sight distance. In other words, how well can drivers see each other as they approach the intersection and how well can drivers see pedestrians and vice versa, traffic volumes, and crash history. So we'll go through those normal things, figure out kind of where it fits in there and make a recommendation to go with that.

Thank you. Anyone else with any other questions?

One other question that I did have and because it's not directly addressed in the strike and bold, is do we now know what the tree impact is? Obviously that, besides the width and the parking, trees are always the next thing that people are concerned about losing on their street. Do we know now specifically what kind of loss there will be experienced there? Or is that going to come with as it's reconstructed because they're cutting curbs in at the same place that they exist.

I would say worst case is that those four are going to be coming down with not narrowing the road. I mean, that's the trade off, unfortunately, getting those machines in there to make that width happen without damaging the tree. However, I will say that we will likely have to have our forester go back out and assess based on the proposed new width. And if there is potential for saving them, we'll certainly do that.

So the initial plan said that two trees on the north side and two trees on the south side are for certain to be gone because of poor condition. This means an additional four potentially just based on the fact that the street is now going to continue to be the same width if this were to pass. That is correct. Thank you. Any other questions from anybody? Alright. There being none, all those in favor of the revised plan now are we voting on an actual amendment at this time or is this an actual new motion?

The Okay.

All those in favor of the new recommendation for this street design, signify by saying Aye. That passes four to zero. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for coming. We have no information items, but I am now waiting on item number eight.

Motion to adjourn.

We have a motion to adjourn. And a second. All those in favor? Aye. We are adjourned. Thanks very much.