The Appleton Common Council held an informal organizational meeting on April 15, 2025, to discuss proposed changes to the council rules, review existing rules, and address other business including a resolution on council member attendance. The meeting was led by the Mayor and included roll call, an explanation of the consent agenda format, and a rule-by-rule walkthrough. No formal votes were taken, but the discussions set the stage for the formal organizational meeting scheduled for April 16, 2025.
All right, good evening. We're gonna informally call to order the informal meeting. All right. And my tie has been removed. In recognition of the informality, but uh first uh let's rise and uh join me in the Pledge of Allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice. Roll call of Alders. All are represented. And roll call of officers and department heads. And all are represented. Right. So before we uh proceed here, I want to welcome our new colleagues who are with us. Welcome. Uh we'll we'll try and slow things down a little bit as as we go, especially in the informal meeting. But um even tomorrow night we'll we'll try and take our time a little bit. And if if at any point you have questions, you you all have helpful neighbors, and um please don't hesitate to raise a point of order and ask if if you have a question. And you don't even really need to raise a point of order, just flag me down or you know, get up get our attention if you have a question. It's okay, nobody expects you to know everything right now, right away. Um you may not even know where the bathroom is, uh, which is right through this hallway. Um if your card's working, otherwise hold it. Um and good luck. Uh long line of alders who've held it. Uh but but um as as we get as we get settled in here, we'll we'll make sure to build some time in. And if you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Um first I think we'll just talk through a little bit of our agenda format uh to to give you a sense. Uh hopefully you've been following some meetings. I've seen seen a couple of at meetings, but uh the council uses a consent agenda format, and uh in on some agendas you might have seen that actually called out as a consent agenda. Um but the way this works is all of the committee reports from each of the committees where committees take action, then come in and populate the council meeting agenda, and so that shows up as reports uh uh of committees. So you'll see that on the council agenda for tomorrow night. Uh but then we we do this part of the procedure where we ask if anybody would like separate votes on items. So what's happening there is alders are requesting separate votes uh typically for discussion, but sometimes because uh of a conflict of interest, somebody's gonna abstain and they'd like a separate vote on the item. So those items then get pulled from the consent agenda and taken up separately. So if you've seen that in meetings before we get started, that's what's happening is the council all council members are asking for separate votes on items off of the consent agenda. Because the way the consent agenda works is anything on the consent agenda, once the consent agenda is moved, seconded, discussed, and then approved, is passed. Um so pulling it out for a separate vote removes it from the consent agenda, but anything that doesn't get pulled off of that consent agenda just stays in what we call the balance of the agenda. Uh so when when I ask for a vote on the balance of the agenda, effectively we're we're asking for a motion to approve the consent agenda. So that's that's just procedurally what's happening with that part of the meeting. I thought we'd just mention that now. Uh all the friend. I was just gonna point out also that sometimes we'll not worry about an item if there's somebody that just as a courtesy to separate vote on the item that they're interested in. Yes, and thank you for mentioning that. That is also something that's really helpful for alders to keep track of. So if you have constituents that you recognize that you've talked with who are here for an item, it's it is really nice uh to pull that off and and have a separate vote. Having a separate vote doesn't mean that it's a controversial or problematic item. It just is a procedural move to uh to to help make it more efficient. That way we can get folks on their way so that they don't have to hang out uh and and wait for their item uh with the consent agenda. Yeah, uh Sherry, Alder, Alder Hartzheim, excuse me. Uh it's important to note too that approving the consent agenda means that you're approving whatever was decided at those committee meetings. So if there was a denial included in the consent agenda, you're approving the denial. Yes, and thank you for that point too.