The Appleton Common Council met Wednesday, September 20, 2023, at 7:00 p.m. in Council Chambers under Mayor Jake Woodford. Fifteen alderpersons and the Mayor were present, with Mayor Woodford abstaining on most roll-call votes. The council approved routine consent items, approved the Clearwater Creek rezoning and preliminary plat, approved the 2024 Business Improvement District operating plan, denied a state shared revenue allocation resolution, and rejected a bird-safe glass resolution. No public hearings or special resolutions were held.
Good evening. I now call to order the Wednesday, September twentieth, twenty twenty-three meeting of the Appleton Common Council. Tonight's invocation will be delivered by Alder Crowe. Thank you, Mayor. We gather together to listen and share, learn and educate, and to be granted wisdom and grace as we move Appleton forward in the best interests of our community. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. And all are represented. Motion passes 15 to zero, and these reappointments have been approved. Thank you for approving these reappointments, and we thank these members of our community for their continued volunteer service. All right, we come now to a time of public participation. At each meeting, the common council reserves 30 minutes for members of the public to express their views on items which appear on our agenda. We have six people signed up to speak this evening. I want to call your name, please approach the microphone, state your name and address for the record, and we ask that you please keep your comments concise and to the point, and that you please take into consideration the comments that have been made by those who have spoken before you. The children of our neighborhood don't have a park or even access to safely get to a park, even though the city's comprehensive outdoor recreation plan has identified a need for a park in this neighborhood. Instead of securing land and dedicating it to a feature park, the city has been collecting a fee from developers in lieu of planning a park in the platform. With our subdivision being part of the fastest growing district in the city, one would think that that would be more of a priority. In fact, of the city's 29 parks, only one of them is in this district. Perhaps that park fee that has been collected for all the years would be enough to purchase the land and a safe place for the children to play. Tonight's vote isn't as simple as it may seem. It's not simply voting to rezone the land from agriculture to residential. It's the safety concerns we've been pleading for you to hear over the past few weeks. Rezoning the land means more homes. More homes means more people, more people, more congestion to an area that's already at its capacity with a single single access. By approving the rezoning tonight, you're only adding to these already significant important issues to be addressed. We cannot keep ignoring this issue just because it's always a good thing. Plans were made almost 20 years ago and they're not set in stone. In a city where every voice matters, I ask, do you hear ours? Next is uh Elaine Morgan. Welcome. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council members for providing another opportunity for us to hear our voices. My name is Elaine Morgan and I live at 5667 North Summerland Drive in Appleton, Wisconsin. I stand before you tonight, representing not only myself, but the Clearwater Creek community. We are a concerned community that believes investing in growth is good, but it has to make sense for all. As you see by the slides presented to you, in theory, this plan is showing an intended development as to what we now know consists of five phases. This area for these five phases is not defined and has loose specifications on this plan. Looking at the plan itself, you see it is based on certain critical assumptions. Number one, there would be a through a through road from East Spartan Drive to Mead. Number two, there would be an established permanent secondary access. And number three, there are no wetlands or native plant restoration areas. Hence, this plan on paper looks complete, but in reality, it is not. So how can one logically use this comprehensive plan of 2007 as a base argument for rezoning this area in phase four from our from agricultural to residential? When this comprehensive plan of today, September 20, 2023, doesn't reflect what actually the layout of the area looks like. As we have heard, and it has been reiterated, there is no plan for addressing specifically the critical access roads in the next five years. The emergency vehicle access is there, but it is changed off to prevent local traffic, even though it's owned by the city of Appleton. There is no plan for the park in our area, despite our subdivision being one of the fastest growing subdivisions. We have single we have a single access into and out of the subdivision for over 150 families, and they want to add an additional 15 homes without addressing the congestion of the safety issues if this entrance becomes impossible or impassable. Sorry. But as you know, this is being uh presented as a complete plan.