The Appleton Common Council met on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, at 7:00 PM in the Council Chambers. Mayor Jake Woodford presided. Fifteen alderpersons were present (Alderperson Patti Heffernan absent). The meeting included proclamations, a public hearing, separate votes on development and financial items, and approval of a substantial consent agenda.
Good evening. I now call to order the Wednesday, August 6th, 2025 meeting of the Apple and Common Council. Please rise for the invocation, which will be delivered by Alder Wolfe. Thank you, Mayor. So I want to talk about last month. I know we're looking ahead. And August is now the time to get back to work and to help the constituents of Appleton, as we all uh love to do. So rather than giving a long invocation, uh let's get to work, have fun, and work for the people of Appleton. Thank you. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the play of the States of America and to the Republic. One nation, one God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Roll call of Alders. All are represented with the exception of Alder Person Heffernan. Right. And we'll and I don't know that we heard from her, so we'll mark her absent. All right. Uh next roll call of officers and department heads. All are represented. All right, thank you. Motion to approve. We have a motion and a second. All right. Any discussion on the minutes. Hearing none, please cast your votes. Oh. Alder Doherty, how do you vote? Okay. All right, that motion passes 14 to zero. The minutes have been approved. On the business presented by the mayor, uh, noting some proclamations. Uh, breastfeeding awareness month in August, uh, recognizing women's equality day this month, and voting rights act day, uh, commemorating the anniversary of the voting rights act. So those are the proclamations uh that we've got before you tonight. I have no further business to present, so we'll move on to public participation. And uh, we have one member of the public signed up to speak. Uh, this is Oliver Zorno. Welcome, Oliver. Thank you so much. My name is Oliver Zorno. I'm with 218 East Lincoln Street. Um, super grateful for the opportunity to address you. Um, wanted to share that my comments tonight are my own and don't necessarily reflect the views of any organizations with which I may be associated. Um, I'm a father of an Edison couple of Edison students and uh former neighbor in the historic central neighborhood and part of the Safe Routes to School Task Force of the Transition Committee related to the Columbus School Closure. Um, and so just want to thank the council and the municipal services committee for their support of the change in the street occupancy permit related to our safe route to school to Edison. Um, I wanted to share that this was been a robust process. Um, the safe routes team not only worked with their internal capacities and those of the city and the school district, um, but dozens of neighbors in the historic central neighborhood got together and did walk audits identifying various routes that kids could safely get from the historic central neighborhood to Edison and want to validate and acknowledge the contributions of all of those neighbors. Um, it led to four key recommendations for this first phase of improving walkability in that area. Those include the extension of the um light bulb routes, um, but those include also a crosswalk at Atlantic Street with additional pedestrian signage and signage and um crosswalks at the railroad tracks. Um it includes adding a crossing guard at Drew and North Street, as well as the uh recommendation that the city consider additional stops at that intersection. And um, and those are the I'll say first round recommendations that came from safe routes, thinking those would be the things that the city and the district could partner together on to move quickly on.