The Appleton Common Council met on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting included presentation of Flag Day Parade awards, proclamations, a public hearing on a rezoning, and action on several committee recommendations. Key decisions included rescinding the No Mow May ordinance in favor of an educational 'Slow Mow Summer' program, approval of a $256,000 endpoint switches contract, and adoption of wheel tax ordinances.
Good evening. I now call to order the Wednesday, July seventeenth, two thousand twenty-four meeting of the Apple and Common Council. For tonight's invocation, please rise and join me in a moment of silent reflection. And all are represented. Is there any discussion of the minutes? Tonight we have a special presentation with our friends from the parade committee. So at this time, I'd like to welcome up Corey Otis. So at this time, I'd like to welcome up Corey Otis to hand out the Flag Day Parade Awards. We can use this one here, Corey. That's fine. Welcome. Thank you. All right, I'm joined tonight by Carl Kaufman, uh longtime member of the Appleton Parade Committee. Megan Warner, who is also a member of the committee, and my longtime sister. Younger sister, yeah, sorry. Um, and this young gentleman right here is Grady Warner, Megan's son and future parade committee member. He just learned that tonight. Uh on oops sorry, Saturday, June 8th, 2024. We held the 73rd Appleton Flag Day Parade. The theme was rockin' in the USA. No G on Rocking, Rock In the USA. Um, Grand Marshal is always the U.S. flag. The escort to the flag this year was Chip Waters, a Vietnam era veteran of the United States Army, which was our spotlighted uh branch this year. I want to thank just a few uh groups and people, and then we'll hand out the parades. Uh, we want to send out a special thank you to our parade partners. Um without them, we it wouldn't be possible, especially WFRV. Um, over 30 years we've had a partnership with Channel 5. Our volunteers, uh, some of them help on all the parades. We get up early in the morning, eat a hearty breakfast, and then start preparing the staging area. Uh, again, without them, this one happened the city of Appleton, that includes you folks on the common council. Sherry Hartzheim is on our committee, and she's a great advocate for our parades. Uh, the Department of Public Works, the Appleton Police Department, uh, special thanks to those groups as well. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the mayor, Mayor Jake Woodford. Thank you for your support. I want to thank uh members of our committee, all of our committee, Carl, Megan, Eric Stadler. We have about a dozen people, and I feel really blessed and fortunate to work with such a dedicated group of individuals. I want to thank our weather chairman who serves up above. Uh, this is probably I've been in this role five years, and I think it's four out of five. We had we got a little wet. Uh, but it's almost magical. It was about noon, parade started at two, the clouds parted, the sun came down, there was a beam right on the start of the uh parade, and I heard a little kid go, oh. So I knew it was gonna be a good day. Um, I also want to thank our spectators out in the crowd. Uh it's all for you. And I want to thank our participants, and we'll thank some of them specifically in a moment. In fact, we'll do that right now. The first award is the Bud Otis Memorial Award. It's named after a weather chairman, named after the chairman of the parade committee, my grandfather, Megan's grandfather, your great grandfather. This one is for the best non-commercial entry, and it goes to the city of Appleton, which I know we're not supposed to do.