Municipal Services Committee - Regular Meeting

All set?

Okay.

It is 5.30 p.m. We can start. We'll call to order this meeting of the Safety and Licensing Committee for Wednesday, July 8, 2026. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, good reminder to silence phones. Thank you everyone, good evening. We have a fair amount of things on our agenda tonight, so we'll work through this. I am gonna take things in order. We'll call a membership. I'm Chris Crook, chair of the committee, representative from District 14, and to my left is... Denise Fenton, District 6.

Maya Jones, District 10.

Josh Lambrick, District 1. Patrick Hayden, District 7. Thank you. All members are present tonight. We have two sets of minutes on our agenda. We'll take them up separately. The first minutes are from the June 24th meeting. Is there a motion on those minutes? Move to it.

Second.

Motion by Lambrick, second by Fenton. To approve the minutes, any corrections or changes? Not seeing any. All those in favor of approving the minutes, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, any abstentions? All right, 5-0, those minutes are approved. Next set of minutes is from the special meeting on June 30th, 2026. Is there a motion to approve? Second. Motion by Hayden, second by Lambrick. To approve the minutes, any corrections or changes? Not seeing any. All those in favor of approving the minutes, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? Five-zero. Those minutes are approved as well. Okay, we don't have any public hearings or scheduled appearances. We'll move right into our action items. And like I said, I'm going to take things in order tonight. Mr. Kettleson, are you here tonight? Okay, when we, at the appropriate time, if you wanna speak, I'll have you come up to the microphone and you can make your comments, but we're gonna start out with a few things first here. The action item is a special event application for Rob Kettleson, 26-0850. Your application is part of our packet, and so is the letter that was sent from the clerk's office, and there's an additional attachment from the police department regarding records. I would like to start with the police department, if possible. I know the clerk's office sent out the denial notice and the ability to appeal the decision, so if we could just start with someone from staff, either APD, okay, go ahead. If you could just give your name and title, please. Director Two, okay.

Sergeant Bees, I am the operations coordinator for Appleton Police Department. Okay, thanks. Thank you. So based on the review of the application for what is supposed to be a K-5, so youth pop-up special event, the applicant, as typical with any application for a special event, went through a background investigation as part of that. And in that, there was a lot of incidents that popped up that rose the level of concern for public safety, made me concerned that there's, we really can't in good faith approve this individual to operate a special event, much less one for, designed specifically for children, to use the words of the Ordinance, the fitness for the trust to be reposed, I would say is not there. As the letter outlines, there's several incidents without going into every single one of them. Just to touch on some of the things that had raised concern, one of the incidents that, uh, was, was concerning was basically, uh, a road rage incident in 2023. And, uh, on the attachments, this could be started to be found on page one 35. Uh, however, in that incident, uh, Mr. Hattleson, uh, had gotten involved in a road rage incident where, uh, basically he got out of the vehicle, approached the other driver and, uh, pounded on the car, was yanking on the door handle, and was screaming, quote, get the fuck out of the car, unquote. With that, he did receive a disorderly conduct summons. Other disorderly behavior that we had been called to in 2023, for instance, at a laundromat, we were called where he was getting verbal with another customer and apparently grabbed that customer's bag and pushed their laundry out of the way making that customer's granddaughter upset and cry. And this was an incident over counter space at the laundromat. This is actually another incident at a laundromat in 2023, page 132, where the clerk reported that Mr. Cattleson was threatening and yelling and that he became impatient with his weight for her to wait on him. and he came behind the counter actually at the business there. There's an incident reported in 2019 where he was banned from the YMCA prior to that, cited to be 10 years prior to that, for strange behavior, including spraying people in the sauna with a hose. We responded to a park in 2018, page 123, where a couple individuals reported Mr. Kettleson pacing near and watching the playground, and it was reported that he made people uncomfortable leaving their children unattended. When police spoke with him, he was documented to be evasive and argumentative. In 2009, he was contacted for a probation violation involving alcohol, which was restricted as part of his probation. This is page 115, pardon me. He was documented as being agitated and aggressive and asserting movements towards officers, ultimately requiring him to be detained for failing to listen to the officer's commands. And during that detainment, he resisted arrest and was tased. And he was ultimately charged with a disorderly conduct resisting arrest and probation hold. And I do recall at some point in these documents that one of the disorderly conducts was charged out as criminal habituality. Backing up prior to that, there was in 2005 an incident where he was arrested for, not convicted of, however, arrested for possession with intent to deliver, which is a felony. level for THC. He was also arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of stolen property. Sorry, this incident starts on page seven. During that investigation, some unusual things were noted. During a search warrant at the residence, there was a file found that was titled sexuality. And in that file, there were articles referring to talking about sex with children. There were no charges related to that. There was nothing further to that. However, it was noted that Mr. Cattleson did not have children. Also in that incident, there was a statement by Mr. Cattleson, I believe on jail phone calls, if I'm recalling correctly, where he admitted to doing a couple lines, quote unquote, with that likely referring to ingesting cocaine through his nose. There's another incident in 2024, page 146, where he was reported to have been disruptive and causing issues at a political office, refusing to leave, ultimately deciding and then banning him. So just to recap all of that, I found multiple incidents that spoke of drug use, disorderly conduct, inability to retain his temper, unusual or concerning behaviors related to children, and inability to basically, again, keep himself composed. So with that, I don't see how the city could trust Mr. Kettleson to operate a special event, particularly one with K through five children. Thank you.

Thank you, Sergeant Bees. In the memo from the clerk's office, there's also another recommendation to deny based on, or from the city's risk manager, and it's related to proof of insurance. Just wanted to highlight that. Mr. Kettleson, if you'd like to address the committee, this is your opportunity. Please come to the podium, use the microphone. If you could just give us your name and address for the record, please.

Rob Kettleson, 208 and a half East College Avenue, Appleton, Wisconsin.

I'd like to give each one of you a,

How many copies do you have, Mr. Carlson?

Plenty of copies.

Okay. If you could get one to the clerk's office, please. Right here. Anything that gets handed out becomes part of the record or part of the packet. Okay, go ahead.

I heard a lot of things here that I've never heard before. I'm gonna start out with, I had, when I was designing the course in 2018, I was out in the park that day, it was on a Saturday. I was out there for like two hours and I was about to leave and I was approached by a police officer and he said he was doing a welfare check And someone called and said they seen me pacing in the park. There was nobody else in the park that day. I was the only one in the park. I didn't talk to anybody because there was nobody there. And I was designing the course and I was pacing. I was marking the course out. And I was doing so.

I was doing so. If you could stay at the microphone. I want to show you what I was doing because this is something that just like walk to every, you know, Every stride is three feet.

Every stride is three feet. That's what I was doing. I did that for two hours out in the park. There was nobody else in the park that day. When he approached me, he said, I'm doing a welfare check. And someone said they called. He didn't say multiple parents called or anything like that. And I said, I'm just fine. I don't need any help. And I left. And then on the way home, okay, I was walking home and I had, I had four cops pull up and they drew their guns on me. I don't know why they drew their guns on me, but what could possibly go wrong there? I have four cops pull their guns on me and tell me that they demanded I get my hands out of my pockets. And I didn't do anything. I'm like, what did I do wrong? I don't know if that's argumentative, but if you've ever had a gun drawn on you, you would want to know what's going wrong here.

If I could just ask you to stay on the topic of your special event application. I mean, you can talk about the history, but we're here to take up your special event application for the

Right, that's what I'm explaining why, you know, there's no way there were multiple parents that called in that day and nobody, you know, that's a claim that's made in the letter here that I was doing something unusual, but all I was doing was marking the course out. So when they pulled up and they drew their guns, now I'm being claimed, I was argumentative. All I wanted to do, all I was asking is why they got their guns drawn and I didn't do anything fast because, you know, if you do something fast, you're going to die because they don't pull a gun out. They don't pull a gun out to to to wound you or to, you know, to clip you. They pull out. They're going to use it. They're going to kill you. So that's all I did there. I didn't do it, you know. So, you know, anybody can do, you know, claim something like that. But, you know, I cooperated with the police and I told them what I was doing. So I don't know why that's why this is in the report. I'm also, they're denying my application here because there's too many people, they said. Well, I'm bringing that down, it's only gonna be a one day event now. It's gonna be on Saturday the 12th, and there'll be 240 people there. So that's under the threshold for insurance. I had some other claims here that were made against me by the police, and they're simply not true. At the YMCA, I used to work out, I'm going to drop a name here, retired Lieutenant Robert Cavanaugh. I used to work out with him, and we would use the steam room after. We'd spot each other in the weight room, and we used the steam room after, and we'd go in there, and there wouldn't be any steam. And we're like, you know, we'd like to get going here. It's kind of, it doesn't pay to be in there if there's no steam. So all I did was to turn the steam room on, to get it to steam to come out, there's a thermostat on the wall in the corner, and that's all I did was turn the, You know, I didn't spray anybody with the hose. I sprayed the thermostat so that it activates the steam to come out. So, you know, for someone to claim that is just ridiculous. I didn't spray anybody with a hose. I heard something about a couple at the laundromat. I didn't. I didn't do anything to anybody at her laundromat. I had some lady come in and she had to move my stuff around and stuff. And I didn't say anything about it, but she called the cops. Because I said, you wouldn't have to move my stuff around. You could just set your stuff right here. And that was enough. She's a little weird. And she called the cops. So there's nothing I did there either. I was a substitute teacher in the Appleton Area School District. I get along with kids really well. When I subbed in the elementary grades, numerous times I would have kids go, can you be our teacher every day? I'm not telling you they did that at the junior high school level, but in the elementary levels, they did that numerous times. Can you be our teacher every day? I'm a juggler, I get along with kids really well. The one thing I might have been doing in the park that day, I'm a hell of a vocalist, maybe I was singing. That would have been about the only thing I could think that I was doing. I would never, I'm an expert. I've designed probably 15 courses in my life. I did my first one when I was 17 years old. And I mapped them like this. You have a map of the course. I mapped them like this. And it was the Will Wilson 9 at West. And I mapped that out. But I'm a hell of a disc golf course designer. And my goal here is I want to put this up, but if I have this open house pop up, I've got the baskets are the best baskets that you can buy. You can't buy a better basket. I bought them all at Shields. They're $242 a piece with tax. and I've got 21 baskets for the course. So they're PDGA approved baskets. Like I said, every kid out there will be getting a free map. There's no cost at all. There's no cost to anybody. We're not serving anything. I'm not selling anything. Everything is free. So I paid to rent the park out for two days, but I'm going to cut that back to one day now and 240 people on that day. So I believe 250 is the amount that you have to get insurance for. So if I had more than 250 people, then I would have to, but I cut that back to 240 now. I've had some other accusations. I don't know where, I was charged with a felony. And I had a public defender, because I was indigent at the time, and he represented me, and I got a five-day notice to vacate too. And my public defender said, I'm just here to represent you on the drug charges, but I'm gonna represent you pro bono on this five-day notice to vacate, because they didn't have any evidence that I sold anything to anybody, bought something from somebody. but they kept that felony charge against me for two years. I could go through every one of these police matters here. I don't know why, you know, I'd like to, he had read something about, they found a sexuality folder or something. I don't know why you would mention that if there's nothing to do with anybody, you know. There's no evidence there. I mean, he's just throwing this at the wall, the cops are, to say that I'm not qualified to be around kids. Of course I'm qualified to be around kids. I've got two college degrees, like I said, like I substitute taught in the Appleton Area School District for a year. I'm qualified to do this. I've got a bachelor of science with a double major in physical education and coaching from Winona State University. And I got an arts degree from the University of Wisconsin. I'm really creative. If you ask any of my classmates here at Winona State, is this something that I would do, they'd say yes, Mr. Kettleson has something Mr. Kettleson would do. That's the kind of guy he is. So there's nothing nefarious about this. Even they're claiming I did something with a road rage incident. All I did was somebody was road raging me and I made a mistake, I got out of my car. I'm sorry I got out of my car, okay. All I wanted to know was what I was doing to them that they were road raging me. I wasn't going to fight anybody or hit anybody, anything like that. He didn't bring anything forward that said I've been in fights, physical fights, or did something to somebody that was... you know, physical or anything like that. I've never done that. I'm a very calm guy, actually. I'd like to, I'm asking you to let me have this event on the 12th of September at Herb Park. We'll start at eight o'clock and end it up around six o'clock. And if you have kids, I'm suggesting, my goal is to have that course put up permanently. And I know if I have a good turnout at this event, they'll have to put it up because the kids will demand it. The kids and the parents that are out there, there'll be parents out there, K through five, obviously there's gonna be parents out there. So I'm not going to fail at this. I don't do that. I'm not going to put myself out there and fail at this event. So that's all. I paid all the fees. I've done everything there is to do. It's going to be a great event. So that's all I'm asking is I can do this. If the cops want to come out there, if he's got kids, anybody's got kids, bring your kids out there. Bring your nieces out there, your nephews, your grandkids or whatever. And I guarantee you they're going to have a great time. And they're going to say, hey, put this up full time.

Do you have any questions of me? Thank you, Mr. Cuddleson. Are there any questions from committee members while he's at the podium? Not seeing any. Okay. Thank you. All right.

I have one question. When will you make a decision on this?

We're gonna make a recommendation tonight. The recommendation will go to the full city council and that meeting will be a week from tonight at seven o'clock. If you'd like to address the full council, come a little bit early. There will be a sign-up sheet in the back of the room and you can address the full council during public participation. It's a little bit different format, a little more formal. You have to be recognized by the mayor to speak and you have to sign up ahead of time.

Okay. When is the exact date of that?

Next Wednesday, I believe it's the 15th, and it would be 7 p.m. I recommend coming about 645 and sign up. There's a sheet of paper that'll be, I believe, on that table there or in the back of the room where you can sign up and just list this item as what you're going to speak on so the mayor knows. And then we're going to bring this to the table here and make a recommendation, send that recommendation to the council. So no final vote will happen tonight, just a recommendation from the Safety and Licensing Committee to the full City Council.

Okay. You said there's a forum here right now somewhere? No, not tonight.

You'll have to come that night if you want to speak to the council. Meeting starts promptly at 7, unless we're running over from a meeting before.

All right. Thanks for listening to me. I appreciate it.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for coming.

Okay, let's bring it to the Safety and Licensing Committee to get this on the table. We will need a motion on the special event application for Rob Kettleson.

Who would like to make a motion? Point of clarification. Sure. If I'm not mistaken, the recommendation that we're reviewing right now is to deny, and so do you want to do it notwithstanding, or should we do that?

No, the motion can be a straight-up motion. The recommendations from APD and RISC are to deny the application.

Very good. I'll move to deny.

Okay, so we have a motion to deny the application. Is there a second? Second. Motion by Lambrick, second by Hayden. Any discussion? Okay, not seeing any. Okay, we're ready for a vote on the application. All those in favor of denying the application, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, five-zero. Mr. Kettleson, your application is being recommended for denial, so that will go to the full city council as a recommendation to deny. You are welcome to come and speak. I would just say that the information provided by the police department weighed heavily in my decision to vote against your application. Thank you. Okay, moving on to 26-0758, which is Resolution 7R26, to review options for the truancy ordinance. We have a number of attachments. We've been talking about this for months. I do have a proposal that I wanna put forward at some point here, but I do wanna start with the school district. They have some additional information they'd like to go over. There was a handout given by Superintendent Hartges So I will have him come up to the podium and go over that and answer any questions committee members might have.

Yeah, good evening. Thank you for allowing us a chance to speak again tonight. At the last meeting of your committee on June 24th, our two attendance coordinators, Stacy Nitka and Stephanie Marta, spoke along with Christy DeBoer, who's an assistant principal at West High School, Stephanie's not able to be here tonight. She's on vacation, so you're stuck with me. But I do want to review a few of her pieces of information from the last meeting, and then I'll speak to the information, the data that was provided tonight. So just in review of what Stephanie presented at the last meeting, when we look at improvements in terms of student success, We were asked early in the fall last year, what would be our percentage that we would want to improve in terms of chronic absenteeism, habitual truancy? And our answer is 3%. So annually, when we set goals, whether they're academic, behavior, attendance we're looking for three percent improvement so when you look at the information that stephanie presented last meeting the chronic absenteeism from last year to this year improved by uh four and a half percent so meets our goal there when you look at our habitual truancy from last year to this year it improved on average across two semesters by about three percent Now, it's a little bit less than we really thought it was going to be. We thought we'd see larger improvements than that. But where the significant improvement happens is when you dig into that data more and you look at, it's the third chart from the last meeting. In terms of looking at the kids we're most concerned about, and those are students that are missing 50 or more days, missing 100 or more days. Just to review, last year, 24-25, there were 240 high school students. that missed 50 or more days this year that was 188 so we reduced it by 22 percent last year 24 25 we had 39 students that missed over 100 days this year it was 33 days so an improvement by 15 so again this is data from the last meeting and i'm looking at the third chart there On the fourth chart, this is looking at the students that were habitually truant and chronically absent. Should I pause there? I see some folks looking through their data. Can you find? I'm looking at.

You said fourth chart. We were looking on the back for the. Oh, okay, from the last meeting. Yeah, from the last meeting. Got it, okay. Yeah, sorry. See that?

In that one, we had, if you go back to last year, 24-25, 866 high school students that were both chronically absent and habitually truant. We reduced that down to 643 this year. It's a 26% improvement. we see these improvements made because of the attendance ordinance. There's no question in our mind that that's why we've seen significant improvements, specifically in the students that were missing a lot of school in previous years. That is information that Stephanie went over last meeting, wanted to review it. Are there any questions on what would be considered our attendance data?

Any questions from committee members? No. Okay, go ahead.

Then let's look at the information that I brought tonight that you should have a handout for. Now, we've talked about the fact that attendance is not our ultimate goal, right? It's about, that's the first step. Our ultimate goal is student success. And so the data that I'm showing you tonight is about academic success, kids passing classes. So it starts with attendance, getting kids, high school kids to school. Next thing is to get them in class. then we have to make sure that we have classrooms that are conducive to teaching and learning so that ultimately the outcome is that students learn. Students learn, they pass classes, they graduate from high school, they're ready to lead, care, and contribute in our community. This is about academic success. So in this first chart across the top, it says students who are chronically absent, habitually truant, and failed one or more classes. The first column has the last three years. The next column, percent of students, that is not new information. That was included at the last meeting. So I shaded that in blue so you knew that that's not new tonight. The third column is the actual number of students that make up that percent. So again, you can see where I just talked about last year, 24-25, 866 of our students were chronically absent and habitually truant. We reduced that down to 643 this past year. Then we take it one step further to say, okay, how did they do academically? If you look at last year, 24-25, 387 of the 866 students who were chronically absent and habitually truant failed one or more classes. This year we reduced that number down to 319. That's a reduction of 68 students. So 68 less students this year who were chronically absent and habitually truant failed one or more classes. Why we think that's really important is within the chronically absent number, it's anywhere from 18 absences to 180 absences. And there's a big variance in a student's ability to be successful if you've missed 18 days of school versus 180. So we look at, are the students actually passing classes? That tells us if they are successful or not. So there's a lot of kids who are missing school who are still doing okay academically, right? They're passing classes. You can see that approximately half the students that are chronically absent, habitually truant, are passing their classes. So one of our criteria for looking at a student for a possible citation is that they are not academically successful. So right away, this takes away half of the kids from even being considered for that. And from there, we're working with students through all these different supports that we provide them. The next chart, this is looking at our entire student population. The total number of students who failed one or more classes and the total classes failed. I'll start with in 23-24, there were 619 students. This is not THOSE STUDENTS THAT WERE CHRONIC APPS AND INDIVIDUALLY TRUE, THIS IS ALL STUDENTS. SO 619 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OUT OF OUR ROUGHLY 4,300 FAILED ONE OR MORE CLASS THAT YEAR. IN 24-25, WE REDUCED IT TO 467. THIS PAST YEAR, WE REDUCED IT TO 448. THE THIRD COLUMN IS HOW MANY CLASSES WERE ACTUALLY FAILED BY THOSE STUDENTS. In 23-24, there were 1,703 classes failed by those 619 students. 24-25, we reduced that down to 1,210 classes failed by the 467 students. This year, we reduced it all the way down to 1,028 classes failed by 448. The reduction from last year to this year is 182 classes. It's a 15 percent decrease. And keep in mind, 3% for us is what we look at for success, so five times that rate. This is important information, we believe, because of the note that I put there. If you look at, of the 448 high school students who failed one or more classes, 319 were chronically absent, habitually truant. That's the number from the first chart. The 448 is from the second chart. that's when you divide that out, that's 71%. So although chronically absent and habitually truant students are 15% of our student population, they represent 71% of our students that are failing one or more classes. means that a student who's chronically absent and habitually truant is almost five times more likely to fail a class than a student who is not. That's where we see the connection between attendance and academic success. The last chart at the bottom is just another way that we look at whether students being successful, meaning are they on pace to graduate? What we used for this is that at the end of a freshman year, a student should have six credits. The end of 10th grade, their sophomore year, they should have 12. The end of their junior year, they should have 18, so they can graduate with 25 credits. If you look at 23, 24, the students who are chronically absent and habitually truant, there were 921 of those students, 478 were not on pace to graduate. 52% of our chronically absent and habitually truant that year did not finish the year being on pace to graduate. 24-25, we reduced that. Now we reduced the number of kids who were chronically absent and habitually truant to 866, of which 363 were not on pace to graduate. But we reduced that, it's only 42%. This year, 25, 26 of the 643 students were chronically absent and individually truant, only 247 were not on pace to graduate. Reduced that down 38%. What we're showing you here is that we've reduced the absences, attendance has improved, but so have the academic outcomes, which obviously is what we're all here about. That's what we thought was the final piece of information that you had asked for, some academic information pertaining to attendance. So I'll stop there and see if you have any questions about this data.

OK. Thank you. Any questions on the new information presented?

No?

Alder Hayden?

No. Taking it in. Sorry.

OK. All right. Anything additional from you or your staff that's present here tonight?

We do not, just willing to answer any questions that you have for us.

Okay, thank you. And I appreciate the amount of information that you've provided this committee over the past, call it 10 months. information presented, but also responses to questions asked, responses to requests for additional information. I think it's been a very thorough process and a two-way dialogue at open committee meetings. So thank you very much for that. If there's any questions, we can have you come back up. Thank you. Alder Hartzheim. 13? Yes, please. Okay, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. I think it's important to see the difference between in the blue in the first chart, where in 2024-25, where there was not a truancy resolution, 866 students were chronically absent and efficiently truant. The following year, where we implemented within the city a truancy ordinance, that was reduced by over 200 students. Now that is not a cause and effect direct because we can't really say why 200 fewer students decided to attend school, but there's got to be a piece of this truancy ordinance that contributes to that number. And that to me says there is at least some modicum of success with a truancy ordinance enacted in the city. Also, a lot of that success is attributable, obviously, to AASD and their large chart where now there's an entire pathway that these students go through for that. But I do really feel that that is a substantial change from even the previous year, 2023-24 to 2024-25, less than 100 students difference in the chronically absent, habitually truant number between 921 and 866. So there has to be something more there, and I believe that it is partially attributable to the truancy ordinance and would like to see it continue. Thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate those comments. I share that sentiment. I feel that putting this back in place for the year period, and just for clarity, it has been rescinded as of June 30th, so technically speaking today, there's not a truancy ordinance on the books in the City of Appleton. But I will be putting forth a proposal here to hopefully put it back on the books for the school year. But I just wanted to agree with Alderheart Simon that I feel like there was something positive about putting it back in place, but the majority of the positivity, I feel, comes from the support processes that the school district has put in place. That flow chart outlined all of the supports that are available to a student. Every situation is different. We learned a lot over this process, but utilizing the truancy ordinance as a tool in the toolbox, but kind of the last tool to pull out of the toolbox, I think has had some positive effects. Certainly, I haven't seen the negative effects. I know there's some that don't believe in this as a good tool for the district, but I think in this case, it has been, and the numbers are reflecting some good trends, which is obviously a great, is great to see. So with that said, I'm going to put forward a, substitute resolution, and it was a handout that you all have. Amendment by substitution? Yes, please explain the proper process here.

I think if we had the action item as is, get a motion second on that, and then do an amendment by substitution. Gotcha.

Thank you for clarifying that. So on 26-0758, which is the resolution I submitted, 7R26, to review the options for the truancy ordinance, options included four different things that we could consider, and I would like to get that motion on the table. Move to approve. Okay. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, motion and second to approve that resolution. Now I will put forward a resolution by substitution that essentially, and the language is all here, essentially says, therefore be it resolved that section 10-42 of the Municipal Code of the City of Appleton shall be reinstated and shall read as follows. It's this exact same language that was in the ordinance until June 30th of this year, but I would like to amend the affected dates. So the very last section is section F, effective dates. This section shall become effective September 1st, 2026, and remain effective until and inclusive of August 31st, 2027, at which time will automatically be repealed unless previously amended by the Common Council. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, thank you. And I'd like to explain why I am proposing this the way I am. I think, I feel strongly about putting this back on the books, but I also feel like putting it on permanently at this point is maybe a little premature. So let's put it on the books for another year, go through the process of reviewing information, take next summer to I built in some time in the dates to deliberate after the school year ends, get some information from the district, not necessarily go through the entirely same process as we did this year, but get another set of data and review it again basically a year from now. So that's the rationale for the amendment or the resolution by substitution. Any questions or comments? Alder Jones, go ahead.

I have had my feelings about this, but I think that when it was imposed and the time of year and the very limited amount of time we've had to see the data is not fair. It's setting everyone up for failure. So I would support having another year so we can accurately capture the data and make a better informed choice after that time frame. My question is, if I could just grab your copy, what was the reasoning for those specific dates? It's July now, starting in September. What are those thoughts?

So the thoughts on the start date would be the start of the school year, which I believe is after Labor Day, correct? September 1st. September 1st. Okay. So it aligns with that. You don't, Does the district have any issues with the September 1st date? Okay. And then the end date, so the current, the ordinance language that was rescinded on June 30th came at the very end of the school year. I chose August 31st to allow us more time to consider the data, because we ran into a situation where we didn't have all the full school year data to make any recommendation before it rescinded. hopefully just trying to give some time over the summer months next year to go over the data and make a new recommendation.

Follow-up question on that. I know that we had talked about a committee being put together and a survey being done. Is that still happening even though technically it's not started based on this amendment?

Yeah, I believe that's been addressed by the district. Does anyone want to comment on that?

We have completed all surveys, and probably the most important one is a family engagement survey, which we send out every April. So this is our seventh year of doing that. And then we did a specific survey of students who are involved in education lessons. We will do those again. We also want to survey students that haven't done well, even coming out of those lessons. And then the work group, we put together already, but we didn't want to meet. We don't want to take people's time if we didn't have a specific reason to meet. And so we put that off. But we have scheduled, I believe, seven meetings. We have seven meetings scheduled for that group next year. Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Other comments or questions? Alder Hartzheim, go ahead.

I apologize. Now that the superintendent has sat down, I have a question. That group that has been formed and will have these seven meetings is made up of what types of people?

Ms. Jackson, welcome.

Thank you, Laura Jackson, Appleton Area School District. We have a group of staff and community partners. Those community partners are representative of health agencies, businesses in the community. We also put out an open invitation to community members within the Appleton area and parents of the district. And so that open invitation ended at the end of June and we sent invitations to all members who signed up.

Thank you. Might I follow up please?

Sure.

Thank you, Ms. Jackson. Is there going to be a publicized list of who these people are and how will the community be able to follow what is occurring in those, those kinds of meetings?

So this is not a committee of the board and when it's a committee of the board, they are public meetings subject to open rec, open meeting laws. This is a work group within the district. And so those meeting times are sent to everyone. Those won't be posted or anything like that. People didn't sign up thinking that their names were going to be publicized. We will, however, give reports to the Board of Education following meetings of this work group. And with whatever recommendations the work group brings forward, those would also be discussed with the Board of Education.

Thank you. I understand that you may not necessarily want to make public all the members of that work group, but I think it would be important for us as a community to know at least where they all come from, that sort of thing. And as much open communication in that regard with us would be requested. Just because that means that we're seeing as a council that you're following through on what was requested of you.

Thank you. As far as our work group, and just for your information, we have the agendas drafted for the first three meetings. And as those meetings occur, members may have other suggestions for those agendas. So those may be revised. And the work that's accomplished there will then lead into the January and subsequent meetings. I would have no problem providing the agendas and the minutes of those meetings.

Thank you. And again, the kinds of community members that are involved, just so that we have a kind of a general idea of how many parents, how many other folks.

Yeah, so some of our community partners include Fox Valley Tech, the Boys and Girls Club, YMCA. We've invited, again, members of the medical and mental health profession, and we have invited business. We have, through our academic and career planning and advancements for students, we have community partners that take youth apprenticeships. we have a committee that focuses on those graduation outcomes and workforce engagement so some members of those groups are on here so those are local businesses maybe it's the hr person or someone from local businesses we have reached out to some of our affinity groups in the community, and we're still waiting for some replies, but we've sent specific invitations to individuals in various affinity groups, and Am I forgetting anybody?

Oh yes, of course.

So we already engaged with parents, but in fall is when we're going to have students as it's closer to the meeting time. So we will be approaching students in early fall so that they could join in in the September meeting.

Thank you, I'm hoping that you see the importance of the balance of this work group to us as consumers. Hopeful that it is as transparent as possible for you to show us that this isn't just a stacked deck of people. These are the people we know will just approve more truancy ordinance, that kind of thing. I'm looking for being assured that this is a genuinely community-wide effort.

that and that workgroup feel like when I look over the meetings that we've held here in these chambers there are probably from the community whether that's parents or community members who are not parents we probably have four or five of those individuals on this group and it was asked and We had set some parameters. We wanted two parents at each level and a certain number of community members. We had more than that sign up, and we chose to bring all of them forward and invite all of them to participate rather than, like originally we said, if we had more members, we would do a lottery. We elected not to do the lottery and just include everybody.

Excellent, thank you. Okay, thank you. Alder Hayden, is your question for Ms. Jackson?

Not a question, just a statement. I think it would go a long way to Alder Hartson's point. I understand people not wanting their names out there. We get a lot of interesting emails, and I'm sure if their names were out there, they would as well. So I get that. But I think it would go a long way for a community's involvement to understand what the demographics are of the makeup of that committee that's making these recommendations. I think that would at least tell people that these are the people who have a stake in the game in making these decisions and that all the communities are represented and that nobody's being shut out.

And just for clarification, when you say demographics, I would at this time provide like groupings like community member, parent, things like that. But demographics beyond that, I don't want to make judgments based on names because I don't know everybody on that group.

Certainly. Could I actually just a quick follow-up on that? I do think that I would highly encourage more as many of those affinity groups participating, right? And I think that can go a long way to help reflect that. And I think some of the information data and things like that talk about that. wraparound supports and how we might be able to leverage some of those existing community organizations to help with some of this work. And so the more of those community organizations we can get at the table to be a part of the solution and what's happening moving forward, I think would be better success. And I know that you agree with that.

I 100% and we are, in addition to emailing, making direct contact in hopes that we are able their schedules are able to accommodate the dates and times of the meetings. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Alder Fenton?

Thank you. And I have a quick question for Ms. Jackson while she's still up there. Sure. Go ahead. And then I have another question. So, Ms. Jackson, in the original resolution that created the ordinance last year, We spoke of the work group or task force reporting to the board. Is it the expectation that the agendas and the minutes of these meetings will be part of the board packet after each of the meetings of this group?

And for clarification, do you mean the school board?

The school board. The school board. According to the original ordinance, it said, maintain a community truancy task force which works collaboratively to meet the interest of the district, the courts, the families, and the students, and reports to the school board.

So what I would, I will seek guidance from our school board members on this. what they would like to see in those reports. And so from what our collective board decides, that will help me formulate exactly what is provided in each of those reports.

And our reasoning for this initially was we wanted as a council who is bound to the constituency who have elected us, The board is the group that is bound by the elected constituency and we want them to have some guidance or some say or at least some information about what this other work group is do I Understand what you're saying, but there I think believe is also a limit as to what we can ask the board the school board a separate entity to

We can recommend it. I mean, looking at Attorney Glad for some legal guidance, there's a limit as to what we can ask for.

That's correct. I mean, we can't find them, but at the same time, you know, it sounds like we wanted to more empower them by giving them the ability to review the results of this.

Yeah, and I think they've shown that they're very responsive to those asks and inquiries. So, Superintendent Hartges, did you want to respond to that?

Yeah, our board obviously is concerned about attendance as everybody else is. So we have already built into our operational expectations that we do report to our board. It is part of our goal setting every year, and the goal setting process has us report out after the end of the first semester and after the end of second semester. So there's already a structure in place for the administration and our staff to report to our board. It will be very easy for us to update them on the work of the work group, within those presentations.

Okay, thank you. Okay, did you have something additional?

And my second one was actually to you, Chair.

Okay.

So when in the part of the amendment by substitution where it says the effectiveness and administration of this section will be evaluated periodically by the Common Council, blah, blah, blah, by taking into consideration expectations, data, and related information is more particularly set forth in Resolution No. 3, Am I to understand that we will have the same expectations if this resolution is passed as we agreed to by passing the resolution last year?

Same expectations, I think I would ask for some clarity on that. My expectation would be that we would get a occasional or regular updates from the district, maybe not at the cadence that we were at this past year, which was very frequent. I would say at a minimum mid-year, end-year, and maybe one or two others as needed throughout the year, if that's what you're referring to.

I'm referring to the specific pieces of information.

In the original resolution?

I mean, there are a list of specific pieces of, which we have been provided all along, and is your expectation in this amendment by substitution that we would be asking for the same data? It seems a little, it just says by taking into consideration expectations data and related information.

I would say the answer is yes. I think the format and, again, cadence might be different, but I think the district has demonstrated that they're very responsive to the requests for information. More information's better in this case, and I truly hope a year from now we're looking at even better numbers. for student attendance and also student success, which is the ultimate goal. Hopefully, you know, I'm really viewing this as an extension of the trial that we took, you know, to give it another full year with an opportunity for some time after that school year to evaluate whether or not to go forward with this permanently or on an additional trial period. Does that answer the question? I think the answer is yes. information, and I think the district will be more than willing to provide that in some format at some level. Some of it hasn't applied, and the answer has simply been not applicable. Alder Hayden, go ahead.

Do you have anything additional?

No, thank you. That's good for now.

Thank you, Chair. One thing I would be looking for next year if we move forward with this is consistency in the reporting. And I understand in your defense, you're trying to hit a moving target because you give us one thing and then we ask for something else. Some of that's on us. But what it would be nice to do next year if we move through this is to have an apples to apples comparison semester to semester, quarter to quarter, because I think then it's a lot easier to tell the story rather than craft a story with data and analytics.

Absolutely, I think what would be really important for us as well is to have a clear message from the council on what information they have. We received numerous emails from alders requesting information, all different information. We've had lots of requests. The last one we said no to would have taken 75 hours. for us to provide that all with the information. So what we're going to look for, we didn't ask for that up front. If this moves forward, we would simply ask for what information do you want as a full council, meaning we're not going to answer emails from individuals. We'll answer them, but we're not going to bring forward different pieces of information. So clear information on what you're looking for, what data points that you would want to to see and be happy to do it quarterly. I don't know if we'd have a lot to do early in the first semester, so maybe it's a second, third, and fourth quarter type of report.

Yeah, and that's kind of why I said as needed. We'll look at definitely keeping this on the agenda for the next year plus, and getting that information that everyone is looking for, and hopefully at some point we can give the district clarity as to what exactly, and I understand the challenges with the number of requests that you get for information. Hopefully in open meetings we can clearly communicate what we're looking for. Alder Hartzheim, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. To that end, I would go back to what was presented. I don't even know what link it is, but it was presented, I believe, by Ms. Marta, and it says right at the top, 10-1-25 resolution, and then it was each of the bullet points from the resolution and then the answer to them. I'd be looking specifically for that. That is a good ground-level place to come from, and that, I think, is what Alder Fenton was referring to as well, But of course, we need numbers as well. So that's gonna be a little bit more to kind of hone down for the district.

Yep, good point. That's exactly what I would have been looking forward to is a response to each one of those things, whether it happened or it didn't happen, and what action was taken. So I think a lot of the information that was presented over the last 10 plus months is gonna be relevant information going forward. And to Alder Hayden's comment about trying to have consistent data that looks at last year, this year, so we can compare and hopefully look at some improved numbers. All right, any other comments or questions? I know there's other members of the public here. Is there anyone that would like to speak on this? You have an opportunity for the public? Okay, come on up. And try to keep it on what's on the table and pretty open at this point.

My name is Michelle Polly, 316 East Benton Drive, District 7. I guess if we're asking direct questions to the district as a member of the community, I do have a couple of direct questions. As a member of the public that attended the initial listening sessions, The concern that I have always had and many committee members had was we're starting with a small group of students that were identified as unreachable, never coming to school. My concern has always been that this will become a slippery slope. It'll become a bigger thing with more students involved. I've spent a lot of time in meetings, watching meetings online, coming here to speak. Very little of that time has been spent on the students that this ordinance was originally supposed to be about. The numbers are great. I do not want to take anything away from the district for the work they have done. I have always been very impressed that AASD has done the groundwork, has done the services, has committed staff. They are doing the work that makes students want to come to school and has always been the reason why I've been not in favor of this ordinance. but I keep hearing numbers about everything in the broad. What about those students that the community was told this was supposed to be about? It's a trust issue. When there were rooms of many, many people, I know I've been a single voice, at least personally attending, um, But I almost gave up coming to these meetings because I was told it was about this small group of students. And really, even in my own opinion, in my own biased self, I thought, well, what does it really matter? This isn't gonna affect that many people. But we haven't talked about those students. And we keep giving credit to this ordinance when I believe it's really about the hard work that's going in every day in these services done by staff. And that's not anything new. I know you've probably received emails with research that I found that has been cited. And I just go back to that. And I appreciate the chance to ask my question. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Anyone else from the public that would like to speak?

No? Okay.

All right, any other questions or comments from committee? Alder Fenton, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Ms. Pauley stole a little bit of my thunder, and while I voted for the amendment to the amendment last year for the trial period, I believe that the numbers we were seeing, thanks to the incredible work by the district and the attendance support team, We were seeing a downward trend already. And if I look at some of these numbers, I see a bigger jump between 23-24 and 24-25 than I do since the ordinance was enacted. And my gut is that I would truly like to have seen the progression without the stick at the end. um i'm gonna vote against this tonight i am not absolutely certain we had only a couple hours notice that that this would be before us tonight but i still need to think about it some more thank you okay

Well, you may have another week to think about it at least. And my apologies for not getting it included in the packet. I had intended to do that actually, took some steps and it didn't happen, so my apologies for that. But that was my intent to take some level of action tonight.

It was not a dig, Chair.

It's okay, it's fair. Alder Lambert, go ahead.

So I've been very invested in this topic since the very beginning, even before I became an alder because my predecessor was kind of an architect for bringing about this conversation again. And in listening to the conversations from the very beginning, one of the things I remember hearing was the true concern was chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is the key to ensuring that folks are getting into school or not getting to school. And unfortunately, within the state of Wisconsin, we don't have a statutory definition for chronic absenteeism, and therefore one of the mechanisms, my understanding, for us to move forward with was this truancy ordinance. And so, What I'm seeing with regards to the data, and I definitely remember hearing about the 30 students, I know for a fact that at least in one of the updates we did get some information about what was happening with those students, some of which have aged out, others of which may be unenrolled or enrolled in alternative programming. But I do think that it is very compelling to see the decrease in chronic absenteeism that has occurred in conjunction with the ordinance that we've moved forward. And so, in my perspective, I think it would be valuable to continue the temporary aspect of this, to continue to see if those trends continue, and if there might be other techniques or tools that get built into the toolkit that might, again, help prevent us from ever having to write a truancy citation, because at the end of the day, if no truancy citation was ever written, I would be comfortable with that, knowing that it is having an effect on some of the other aspects of the academic success for those students. And so, I will support this. I don't want anyone to get a truancy citation, but I recognize the value of that potential tool in the right circumstances. And I guess the last thing I will say is that my observation of this process and not having been a part of some of the prior truancy situations i think there is a lot of trust needing to be earned through this process and what i would just like to say to the public is through my experiences and my interactions with aasd they have been very forthcoming transparent and willing to answer those questions and so I feel comfortable and confident, again, that I want to partner with AASD to try and address this need as much as possible. I also am very aware of the ways that this can go, what a lot of the research shows, and that's why I feel only comfortable with that temporary status and continuing to receive those updates because we do need to make sure that we are building that trust for the community as a whole because of, unfortunately, things that have happened

Okay, thank you for those comments. Alder Hayden. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the community members that have come out. I'm sure most of you are excited to get your Wednesdays back now that you've been out here for three months. I would like to acknowledge the remarks that Ms. Pauley made, and she's absolutely right. When we kind of talked about this late last year, there was big focus on 30 students, 30 students, 30 students. And then we saw it rolled out. The impact was a little bit larger, not in citations issued, but letters sent to homes and students who were mentioned or told that there is a citation that exists. When I look at this program and the numbers that are coming out, it's hard to attribute the decrease in habitual truancy with the ordinance itself. That said, the programs that are in place that the school district has put together have been thorough in attempting to find a solution for students who aren't coming to school. And they seem invested in the students and their success. and that we've only had one citation kind of leads me to support continuing this for a year. Seeing what the school district can do with the runway going into the year along with a full year to prove out that this is having an impact. My expectations are that one or fewer citations will be issued if If it's a student who is absolutely not coming to school that you've been through all the pace with, I think that's a conversation that we need to have is, what have we been doing to prevent it from getting to that level? So those are my expectations. I think Ms. Pauley has very valid points, and I appreciate all the research that she's done and provided to the full council. I'll be supporting this, but watching the ordinance and its implementation throughout next year if it passes. Thank you, Alder Hayden. Okay, anyone else?

All right, just a couple comments from my perspective. I think everyone is aware of the history of the truancy ordinance in Appleton. So for the past year plus, I've been really proud of the work that this committee and the council did to reevaluate that based on the history. I think we've demonstrated a very meticulous and methodical process to review information and be very careful about what we put forward. I think showing that we did it temporarily and now we're maybe willing to do it temporarily again just shows that this is an important thing, but we also know that some trust has to be built and there's that history that we wanna leave in the past. And hopefully, like I said, a year from now, we're looking at even better numbers. Hopefully, as Alder Fenton said, the stick doesn't have to come out that often, but I think having this as a tool in the toolbox, the last resort type tool in addition to all of the supports that the district, and all of the supports, let's face it, are making a difference. To Alder Hayden's point, it's hard to tie the ordinance, the truancy ordinance, to the successes, but I feel like it's making some level of positive impact.

Other comments or questions before we take a vote? No? Anyone else? Alder Hartzheim, nothing else?

Okay. All right, let's take a vote on the substitute resolution, which I put forward. We had a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Any abstentions?

Point of order. Are we voting on the substitution?

Yes, on the substitution amendment, which extends it for that time period.

Okay. Not on the resolution as amended?

That's what was on the table, correct? Correct. Well, one more vote. Right.

Okay, so we're voting. Okay, so I'm an aye on the amendment.

Okay, okay. So that, I believe, was 5-0.

Is that correct?

Okay, all right. So 5-0 on the item as amended, I guess we'll call it. Now we're on the item as amended. Okay, so we need one more vote on this, which we'll send it to the council as a recommendation. If there's no final comments or questions, we'll take that vote. All those in favor of approving, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? All right, 4-1, with Alder Fenton being the one. Okay, week from tonight, this will be on the council agenda, 7 o'clock. If you want to speak to the full city council, sign up ahead of time. I recommend getting about 10, 15 minutes early to do that. And your opportunity will be when the mayor acknowledges you during public participation.

Okay.

All right, moving on to the rest of the agenda is a number of action items. Is there a motion, Alder Fenton?

Yes, I move to approve the balance of the agenda, Chair.

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

Okay, motion and a second. So that includes 26-0849, 26-0909, 26-0894, 26-0863, 26-0858, 26-0904, 26-0860, 26-0885, 26-0861, 26-0888, and 26-0886. That is a variety of different license applications, including beer license applications, mobile home license applications, pet store applications, taxi cab applications. Are there any that anyone would like separated out? Not seeing any, okay. We can take a vote on all of them together. All those in favor of approving the rest of the action items, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Any abstentions? All right, five zero, they are approved. or recommended for approval. That takes us to information items. We have a number of special events listed. Some occurred, some will be occurring. And director's reports, we have nothing for city clerk, nothing for Fire Chief Hanson, but we do have a hiring promotions update from Chief Olson. And which microphone do you have, Chief? District two should be on.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I just wanted to provide the committee a quick update. We had a recent resignation by one of our lieutenants who took a position as an ICAC investigator with the Department of Criminal Investigation with the state. So that's basically doing child computer-related investigations. So she, her last day I think is actually tomorrow. But because of that, then that created a lieutenant opening at our department. We also had a retirement on July 1st for one of our lieutenants, John Berkeley. So that created a second lieutenant opening at our department. So we ended up promoting two people on July 1st. One of them was Nate Hoffman, who was the school resource officer most recently at West High School. And then the other is Blake Herbert, who was a patrol officer Um, both of them, I think we'll do great in their new roles. Um, and then that also we had, we had actually done an overhire for Lieutenant Berkeley cause we knew he was retiring quite some time ago. So we actually have one vacancy right now that we're looking to fill. We have an open process, um, applications closed on Sunday, and then we're hoping to have that position filled sometime in September.

Okay. Thank you.

And then, obviously, the chief's process is ongoing as well.

Okay. Any questions for Chief Olson? Congratulations to the officers.

Yes.

All right. If there's no questions, we can move on to number eight. Move to adjourn.

Second.

Motion and second to adjourn. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Five-zero. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.