Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I now call to order the Wednesday, 05/20/2026 meeting of the Appleton Common Council. Please rise for the invocation, which will be delivered by Alder Fircus.

Thank you. Good night. I just want to preface this that even though the backdrop of this invocation is a flooding situation, that what I'm talking about is not like some sort of catchall remedy for anyone who's been dealing with flooding situations in the recent weather events. So with that little disclaimer, growing up in Appleton, the block I lived on, had a big field in the middle of it that would flood quite frequently. The water in that field would come right up to the houses and a lot of times even into the basements.

This was causing a lot of problems for a lot of the people in the neighborhood. And a number of people, including my parents, tried to solve this by putting just a berm at the end of their backyard. And that would work for keeping the water out of their yards, but the other neighbors would have even more water going to their yards. The water that would go into the neighbors that had berms was now being diverted in greater force to the other houses. And while these berms did take a little bit of relief off of the individuals that were able to put them in, it didn't solve the real issue.

Instead, eventually, the neighbors all got together, started talking, and they decided to do something about it. So one summer, once the weather got a little bit drier, the neighbors that could went out into this field, they dug a big trench, put in drain tile, ran it right into the storm sewer. I know now that there is a program that the state has for backyard flooding. If your house was built before 1980, go ahead and take use of that. But with this and what I remember about this other than when the backyard would flood, and then the spring when there were like ice floats floating around and then falling in, and the look on my mom's face when I'd be drenched in February, and I'm in my snowsuit.

And that was not exactly a look of approval. And also the jumping over that trench, like we were Indiana Jones or something, that was also pretty fun. But what I really remember is how the entire neighborhood came together and just took care of this problem once and for all for all neighbors. And that's something that's always kind of stuck with me, and just kind of a lesson learned moving forward of how when we take ownership of things and we work together, we can solve those bigger problems. Sometimes, yes, we've to deal with the little problems in front of us that are hindering us from being able to look at the big picture.

But ultimately, when we work together, we can solve these bigger problems. And sometimes it's the neighborhood side of a block. Sometimes it's a bigger circle that you need to draw. But when we do things together, we can solve much more than we can on our own. Please

join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance, United States Of America.

All are represented with the exception of Aldersperson Stansel Martin, who is excused, and Alderspersons Jones and Schultz.

Roll call of officers and department heads.

All are represented with the exception of Library Director who is excused.

Thank you. Need a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting? We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Hearing none, please cast your votes.

That motion passes 12 to zero. The minutes have been approved. All right. On to business presented by the mayor, a number of proclamations to bring to your attention. We recognized Arbor Day, period poverty awareness month this month in the city of Appleton, Police Week last week, Municipal Clerks Week, Among American Day, Safe Boating Week, American and American Legion Poppy Day.

Text of all of these is included in your materials. Next is a special presentation. This is twenty six-six twenty one. This is an update on the food truck inspections program. And I wanted to bring this to the council's attention because it's just a really outstanding example of our team here at the City of Appleton and the leadership of one individual in particular who I'll call up here in a minute who recognized a challenge that small business owners were dealing with in the community respect to inspections for food trucks and worked together across multiple jurisdictions to try and create a solution that reduces some of those barriers and makes the practice more consistent across communities.

So I just wanted to it happened more or less administratively, but I just think it's a great program and want to take a moment and hear for all of you to hear about it, and also to celebrate the great work of Derek Henson. So with that, Chief Henson, come on up.

Good evening. I'd like to thank Mayor Woodford and the members of the Common Council and all those present tonight for giving me the opportunity to speak for you. My name is Derek Henson. I'm the division chief of fire prevention and public education for the applicant fire department. And I'm here to provide some history and update and the vision for the regional food truck inspection program that started last month.

As I'm sure all of you are aware, the food truck industry in Northeast Wisconsin has been growing dramatically for the past several years. Two years ago, we saw 60 food trucks at Oktoberfest, which at the time was a record. Last year, we saw more than that. During this time, the fire prevention division started noticing a significant gap between our desired state for food trucks and the current state of actual what food trucks were experiencing in Wisconsin. Our desired state was that all food trucks operate compliance with fire codes.

Unfortunately, the actual state that food trucks were largely was that food trucks were largely not compliant with fire codes. To add to this, trucks were really only being inspected during special events which led to no opportunity for follow-up or time to correct any issues that may have been discovered during that inspection. This also meant that most food trucks were not getting an inspection if they weren't present at a special event which led to inconsistent enforcement basically across industry, not just in Appleton but really statewide. So why is this important you may ask? So there have been several catastrophic incidents with food trucks including several recent incidents right here in Wisconsin.

One of the most infamous incidents is a food truck that exploded Philadelphia in 2014. It killed two people, injured 10 more. One of the survivors had burns on a hundred percent of their body. So a really catastrophic incident. More recently there was a 2025 a food truck was destroyed by fire in Sheboygan.

Five months ago a food truck was destroyed by fire which also damaged a building in Milwaukee and even more recently two days ago Madison, a food truck caught fire in Downtown Madison as a result of a generator that caught fire on the food truck. So some reasons as to why we're doing what we're doing with this. So in order to improve conditions, a stop gap solution was implemented in February 2025. The fire department reached out to the Appleton Health Department and inquired about becoming a sign off on mobile health licenses. This is similar to the process that's in place for restaurants currently or fixed facilities currently.

The health department agreed and we started inspecting food trucks that were licensed in the city of Appleton later that month. Special thanks to Steve Kiel for always being great to work with, being a great source of health code knowledge. Helped a lot through that process. This solution furthered our mission of food truck compliance but was not the desired comprehensive solution. This really only impacted food trucks that were operating in the city of Appleton that were licensed by the city of Appleton.

As we know, state health codes allow food trucks to be licensed in any municipality in the state. So we were still getting inconsistent enforcement of fire regionally. Depending on the area where they were licensed, that enforcement varied greatly. Some areas had little to no enforcement, and some areas had enforcement that was consistent to what we would expect here in Appleton. In April 2025, I reached out to several Fox Valley Fire Departments to see if there was interest in forming a food truck inspection consortium.

The response was a resounding yes from these departments. These departments included Green Bay, Oshkosh, Grand Chute, our partners in the fire service. In May 2025, in partnership with these agencies, we began working on developing this food truck inspection program. During development, the goals of the program became clear. We wanted to provide a consistent requirement for food trucks.

We wanted consistent requirements across the region so that one requirement here was the same as Green Bay, the same as Neenah Menasha, the same as Fond Du Lac. We wanted a consistent record management system. We wanted to be able to see who was doing the inspections and when they were doing them and then what the results of those were across our region. We wanted to have easy access for information for food truck operators and we wanted a quick way of identifying which trucks had inspections. Requirements were based on the state adopted fire code. It was consistent throughout the state. It was the lowest common denominator. It was easier for us to use. State fire code was our choice. For a record management system, we developed that based on GIS and survey 123.

Both of those are systems that we're familiar with in the fire service and we use in times of emergency, especially severe weather. A website was further developed outlining the requirements for food trucks. Serves as a central hub information, including both health code and fire code information for food trucks. It really serves as a to do list for prospective food truck operators to go to this website and outline all of the requirements that are necessary to open a successful food truck. And then finally, a compliance sticker system was developed similar to license plate tabs.

We have a sticker. I have an example right here. And it is the color will change with the annual inspection cycle. They place this on the lower right rear of the vehicle, and it is clear to us who has had a past inspection and who has not. So that was a huge win for us as well. Our next step was to formalize the agreement. A memorandum of understanding was developed outlining expectations for participating agencies and legal disclaimers. I worked with legal services to draft this agreement, and once complete, City of Appleton and the town of Grand Chute were the first two municipalities to enter this agreement. Since then, eight other agencies have signed on. These agencies are Fond Du Lac, Fox Crossing, Green Bay, Harrison, Kimberly, Neenah Menasha, Oshkosh and Waupon.

I've also received several inquiries to join the program with potential future sign ons, including Ashwaubenon, Sheboygan, Stevens Point, and Wausau. Special thanks to Darren Glad for spending countless hours on this project with me going through this agreement. He's great to work with and also for being super patient with me. On 04/07/2026, the inspection program went live. We actually started inspections last month.

Being the first year of a new program, our focus has been on education. Our goal is not to shut down food trucks or to cause anybody any undue harm, but we do need to focus on education, educating them what the requirements are with strict compliance being enforced or expected next year. We are typically finding things like fire extinguishers and propane gas alarms that are needed. Those are smaller items. We're asking them to fix those this year as those items are typically less than $500 and like propane gas alarm is like $70.

So the smaller items were given them some time to fix this year. Larger items like hoods or suppression system installations, we're looking for those to be resolved by next year. Our intent is not to shut them down during their busy season but to get them some time to fix the issues and to be compliant for next year. To date, 79 inspections have been completed. 51 of those inspections have resulted in violations that need to be while the food truck remains in operation.

Three inspections resulted in violations where the food truck was not allowed to continue operations. Now I feel like I need to explain why they weren't allowed to continue operations. Two of those food trucks did not have a health license. And in addition to fire code violations, they also just did not have a health license. Not Wisconsin, not Minnesota, not Michigan, just no health license.

The third truck had two one hundred pound propane tanks that when I say loosely were attached to the truck, that's probably an exaggeration. They were barely attached to the truck. They needed to correct that before they were going to be allowed to operate. The remaining 25 food truck inspections passed with no violations. Inspections have been completed for food trucks as far away as Wausau, Luxembourg, and Jackson, which I had to look up.

It's about ten minutes Southwest Bend. Conducting these inspections has also provided feedback from food truck operators. These operators appreciate that there is no cost to this inspection. This is a free inspection for food trucks throughout our regional inspection area. The operators appreciate that it is accepted across a broad region and that the requirements are consistent across the region.

They also appreciate our tiered approach focusing on education this year with strict enforcement expected next year. So they appreciate having some time to fix some of these issues they find. The biggest complaint that we receive is that they wish more agencies would be involved. They don't like having to drive from New London to Appleton to get an inspection and so I encourage them to reach out to their fire chief and have them get in contact me and we'll get them involved. It's also nice that this feedback does closely align with the feedback that we received from the fire service.

The fire service also likes this program for a lot of the same reasons and their biggest complaint is that they wish more agencies would be involved. So it really has become a great community partnership between food truck agencies and the fire service. So looking forward, the vision for the next five years is to continue expanding the program geographically. The ultimate goal is to have reciprocity for food truck inspections in the next five years. And we will work to continue engaging agencies further and further away to include them in this important program. Driven by the passion for fire safety, the Appleton Fire Department is going to continue to be a leader in this arena and we're going to be that catalyst for change with this program. So with that, again I thank you for your time and I will now answer any questions you may have.

Any questions from the council? Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. On to public your participation.

And the Common Council sets aside time at every meeting to allow members of the public to speak on items that appear on the agenda. We ask that you limit your comments to five minutes or less. I will help you keep track of time. And we have one member of the public signed up to speak tonight, and that is Nikki Opstein. Nikki?

Need all my information?

Just your name and address again for the record, Nikki

Epstein, 112 East Roosevelt Street in Appleton, Wisconsin. I want to thank Mayor Woodford and the members of the council for allowing me to speak again this evening. Hopefully, this is the last time you guys will see me for a long time. And how. First, I would like to express my appreciation for sending council.

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account to the concerns expressed by my neighbors as well that showed up. I would also like to thank Alderman Lembrecht, Wolf, and Croats for taking time out of their busy schedules to listen to concerns. In some cases, even visit the street firsthand to better understand the situation. Additionally, I want to thank miss Youngworth and the public work staff again for revisiting the proposal and thoughtfully considering the neighborhood feedback. I appreciate the recognition that maintaining the street at its current width represents the safest and most practical option for the residents and visitors alike.

This past weekend, an estate sale on the block brought significant traffic to the area. With vehicles parked bumper to bumper on both sides of the street, it was certainly a very chaotic headache to say the least. While it certainly created a congestion, it also served as a clear example and reminder of the ongoing parking demands in the neighborhood. Residents can breathe easier knowing that there's a revised proposal that preserves the current street width while also addressing those parking concerns. I respectfully ask the council to vote in favor of this revised proposal.

As it supports the best interest in both the neighborhood and the many visitors who come to the area because of Error Park. The revision represents a thoughtful compromise that balances the street's improvement with practical realities of how the street is used every day. Maintaining the current street width helps ensure safer traffic flow, preserves necessary on street parking, and prevents additional congestion in an already heavy utilized area. I believe that this proposal achieves the right balance between safety, accessibility, and neighborhood functionality. And I respectfully encourage the council to support this same proposal this evening. Thank you again for allowing me to speak and for all the work that you guys do.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who'd like to speak on an item that's on the agenda but she didn't have a chance to sign up? Hearing none, we'll close public participation. We have no public hearings, no special resolutions, so we will establish the order of the day. Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, chair. From Municipal Services, item 20 six-four 94, the Roosevelt reconstruction for 2028. And also, I would like to please request a refer back of item number 20 six-six 23 from Community Development. That is Resolution 5R26, the admin fees for snow and lawn nuisance

removal. Any objections to the refer back? Hearing none, that will be referred back. Yes,

I can give a reason if you'd like. If you would. I spoke with Director Holman, and there are some calculation questions that I had that have yet to be resolved with the staff.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. So rather than handle that here, take care of Correct. Correct. All right. Sounds good. So that will be referred back to committee that will appear on the next agenda. Moving along, Alder Van Zeeland.

Thank you, Chair. From the City Plan Commission, item 260,582 and item two hundred sixty zero five eight four please. Those are the rezoning of South Street and Union Street.

That's good. Alder Krott.

Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Separate vote on finance item 26 dash zero six five four, please.

Okay. That is regarding central equipment agency. Right. Any others? Right. Hearing none, we'll get started with the item from Municipal Services Committee. This is item 20 six-four 94, request to approve design for 2028 paving reconstruction of Roosevelt Street from Oneida Street to Morrison Street. We have a motion and a second to approve. Discussion? Alder Lambrecht. Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to thank the residents for their active engagement in this conversation. I know that it was a long process for them, but I really also want to thank the city staff for working with them to hear their concerns. And I know that the plan we move forward with here is particular to this road, the street, and the kind of details of that. And so thank you all for all the work and advocacy.

Alder Groot.

Thank you, Mayor. And I will echo the sentiments of Alder Lambrecht. This is a great example of, and actually it aligns with the invocation tonight, of people coming together to solve a problem and get things done. Citizen engagement is always encouraged, and I was really glad to see that the citizens got involved and the voices were heard and the city listened, and we came up with a solution that is acceptable. So I hope we can approve this tonight. Thank you.

Any further discussion? We have a motion and a second to approve. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 12 to zero. That item has been approved.

Right. We'll move on to the items from Plan Commission. All right. First of which is 26Dash0582. Request to approve rezoning number 226 for the subject parcel located at 816 East South Street from PI to R2.

We have a motion and a second to approve. We'll open the floor for discussion. Hearing none, please cast cast your votes. All right, that motion passes passes 10 to two with Alders Smith and Van Zeeland abstaining. Next is also from Planning Commission twenty six-five eighty four request to approve rezoning number 326 for the subject parcels located at 209 North Union Street, 217 North Union Street, 221 North Union Street, and 229 North Union Street from PI to R2.

We have a motion and a second to approve. Any discussion? Hearing none, please cast your votes. On abstaining. On to the item from Finance Committee.

This is 2054, request for recommendation to common counsel to authorize staff to proceed with development of a final implementation plan for modification of central equipment agency funding structure. We have a motion and a second to approve. We'll open the floor for discussion. First is Alder Krop.

Thank you, mayor. I asked for a separate vote just for the opportunity to speak to this. I plan on supporting it, and I will admit somewhat reluctantly. We did have if you haven't watched the video from finance, I would encourage you to watch it. We had a very good robust discussion about this with concerns expressed, questions asked, and some things that I would call remaining open that will be addressed.

The mayor made some remarks about addressing those questions and concerns that were brought up by alders there. So just to clarify for everyone, there will be another vote on this. And if mayor, if you could just speak to that a little bit. What you're basically authorizing is staff to proceed with the development of the final plan, which will come before us for another vote. At that point, we can decide if you like this measure to free up some general fund dollars for the budget for 2027 or go in a different direction. And if you watch the meeting, you'll learn a little bit more about what different direction might look like. So, mayor, if you wanted to comment on that at all, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, I'd

be happy to. Just just to reiterate what what Alder Croats said and and what was stated at the committee meeting, this this vote tonight would would allow us to continue with development of a plan for an alternative funding model for the central equipment agency for for portions of the central equipment agency. And so we would then proceed with development of a plan, bring that back to the council. Our goal would be mid summer. That would be our target to have something back in front of committee and council for further review.

At that point, even then, that would be a provisional plan that would then be incorporated into the 2027 executive budget and service plan. So another opportunity through the budget process to review and make any final decisions that the council wishes to make with respect to the funding model. So this does not mean that we are absolutely headed in this direction with a vote tonight. All it does is give us the signal that the council is interested learning more about the possibilities.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that follow-up. This is one of those items where I have a whole page full of notes from the meeting. That's not very common. I usually make some notes, but not a whole page full. So more to come on this. Thank you.

Alder Furkus. Thank you,

Mayor. I think proceeding with this is a good idea for us. We are in a position where, at one point or another, we're going to have to make some sort of hard decision. And this isn't necessarily an easy one to make, but it's one that I think, at this point, looks better than what the alternatives look like from where we're standing. So proceeding with this, getting a proposal in front of the council, and being able to make an informed decision in a few weeks sounds a lot better than asking staff to go the other route right now. Thank you.

Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to echo my Finance Committee comments on, A, I hate this, B, that I'm looking for some skin in the game from the departmental budget portion of this potential plan. And I look forward to more information on this plan. But I would like some clarification of your statement just prior to this. We will have another opportunity before budget

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Again, hate this.

Yeah. Understood. I don't think anybody's happy about it. Also, just to make the point for the rest of the council's benefit, in previous budget cycles where we've either run into gaps in the budget or anticipated them and we've made significant changes to funding models for portions of the budget, we received feedback from the council that it would have been preferable to have the opportunity to talk through those things advance. And that's the purpose of this process that we're going through now, which is rather than baking in a significant shift in the budget to a funding model for a program, and then you get your budget books first week of October and we have four or five weeks to sort it out, this gives all of us the opportunity to talk about it, review it, and come to some sort of decision point about it so that we can incorporate whatever we need to into the executive budget and service plan.

That way we're not scrambling or feeling backed into a corner when it comes time for budget adoption. So that's really the underlying purpose of the way this process is moving forward.

Alder Croats. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for saying that because I appreciate the fact that you're bringing this forward five to six months before we'd be adopting a budget for next year. I also appreciate the fact that you've engaged Baird in this process to evaluate the data and present the financial components of this. I think that's a very important piece. So thank you.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, have a motion and a second to approve. Please cast your votes. That motion passes 12 to zero. The item has been approved.

That's it for separate votes. We need a motion on the balance of the agenda. We have a motion and a second to approve the balance of the agenda. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, please cast your votes.

The board. Ordinances? Sorry. Hearing none, please cast your votes. That motion passes 12 to zero. The ordinances have been approved. License applications and communications refer to committees of jurisdiction. Resolution submitted by Alders referred to committees of jurisdiction. Have there been any resolutions submitted?

There have. We have one resolution tonight. This is Resolution 6R26 regarding the council meeting schedule. This was submitted by Alderson Meltzer. It reads, whereas council has a tradition not to meet at certain times and has consistently voted to cancel certain meetings, therefore be it resolved that the city council will add to the council rules, Common Council will not meet within seven days of Independence Day, July 4, and New Year's Day, January 1.

All right. So seeing as this is a council rule issue and you've already sorted out this year, we'll refer this to the next organizational meeting of the Common Council whenever that organizational meeting occurs. So that'll go on the next one and look forward to the discussion on that.

All right.

That's it for resolutions. Is there any other business? Yes, Alder Hartzheim. There is.

Thank you, Chair. As a member of the Parade Committee, am happy to say that we will have some parades coming up. Mayor, would you like to expound further?

So we have, of course, the Memorial Day Parade coming up on Monday. And we would love to have folks join us for that. It, I think, means a lot to the community to see a presence from the council. We'll walk the parade route, the same route we've used for many years. And then there's a ceremony that follows the parade at Riverside Cemetery. And if you haven't had the opportunity to experience that ceremony, it's really a nice event. So would love to have a good showing from counsel for that one. When do we step off for that one? Don't know

9AM.

9AM. Yeah, bright and early. So we'll see you at 9AM Monday morning, and then we'll be talking about the Flag Day Parade before long coming up on the June 13.

Please follow the social media pages for the city and the parades.

Yes. Look forward to seeing you all out there. Alder Croats.

Thank you, Mayor. I realize this is not on the agenda and I do not intend to blindside you with this, but would it be possible for you to give us and the community an update on when we might see flock cameras come back to us in some form? I know it was referred to your office, the resolution.

Yes. So an update on that. We are in active discussions with Flock Safety, and we are working through the process of terms around termination of an agreement. So that work is ongoing between the city attorney's office, police department, my office. As soon as we have a clear path forward with respect to the termination, that item will be referred to committee of jurisdiction, likely safety and licensing.

So that's an active process. It's a little bit different for Appleton than other communities, as I've said before, in that we're in the middle of a term. So we're not up for renewal at this point. So it's a bit of a process to work through, but we did have a productive initial discussion with representatives from the company.

Okay, thank you. And I appreciate that because there are members of our community that are

following this and interested in new news on that. Absolutely. And we'll refer additional information to the Safety and Licensing Committee. That's likely where this item So will be we'll make sure to relay information via Safety and Licensing. And with respect to this issue, we'll make sure that information is coming through committee the agenda when there's going be a discussion of it. I understand this is a matter of public concern and interest. So I'm saying more than we ordinarily would, given that it's not on the agenda. But I understand the Alder Hayden. Thank you, Chair. I wanted

to congratulate Interim Director Flick and Laura with the work that they did. A couple weeks back, I missed it at the last meeting, but the effort that they put on for the spring recital was insane. And if you were there, they packed out the entire auditorium first at Southwest High School. So community turnout was unprecedented. And eventually, I think we're going have to start using the pack.

Great. Thank you. And also, tomorrow night is our city celebration, so the Touch Truck event that will be out at Veterans Memorial Park. And that is also a great time. So come on down, check that out. More information on the city's Facebook page about that, city website, and lots of departments participating and plenty of cool stuff to see. So hope to see a good showing for that as well. All right. There being no other business, we need a motion to adjourn. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. The ayes have it. We are adjourned.