Good evening.

I now call to order the Wednesday, January 1st, 2026 meeting of the Appleton Common Council.

Please rise for the invocation, which will be delivered by Alder Hartzheim.

Thank you, Chair.

Hearkening back to the days of your gather together to listen and share, learn and educate, and to be granted wisdom and grace as we move Appleton forward in the best interest of our community.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And one nation, God, indivisible with alders.

All are represented with the exception of Alder Person Heffernan and Alder Person Jones who are excused.

Alder Person Kraut is joining us virtually.

Roll call of officers and department heads.

All are represented.

Right.

Need a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

Anyone willing to move?

All right, thank you.

I don't know what happened there.

Okay.

We have a motion and a second to approve any discussion of the minutes.

Hearing none, please cast your votes.

On to business presented by the mayor.

Uh this evening, I've invited uh members of an organization in the community that's been doing uh some work uh in Appleton and the Fox Cities now for uh a few years, uh, fostering trying to foster a stronger community and uh and better connectivity, especially connecting across differences uh in Appleton and the Fox Cities.

And uh so at this time I'd invite representatives of Common Ground to come on up to the podium here and uh and and share a few words.

Thank you.

Uh mayor and honorable counsel and city staff for allowing us to come and update you on the crucial work of common ground.

Just as a bit of background, um, common ground grew out of um an attempt to help the community get communities of faith in times of health crises engaged along with other resources, and we served as the way pastors and other clergy would connect with the main issues that required all institutes institutions to grab an oar and resources and take part.

And that's why we're always part of the community plunges that Theta Care, uh known as chat, um, put on, and we helped out, of course, during uh the COVID responses too.

Common ground was the vision of Dr.

John Milke, who saw that churches and other houses of worship were simply not at the table often enough when leaders were addressing community-wide issues.

John asked a small group of valley clergy to bring all the different houses of worship together to the table with one primary goal.

Let's join with other community leaders on making the Fox Cities a healthy and safe place to live.

Founding board members were Dr.

Melke, Dennis Episcopal from Alliance Church, Roger Birchausen from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and Will Bledsoe from First English.

Past funding partners that have supported our work have been Thetacare, the Community Foundation, Kimberly Clark, and various faith groups.

Our present board members seated behind me are myself, uh Jerry Zabronski, who's the president of Moises Moses Montifiore Synagogue, and he's also a member of the Audogamy Board of Supervisors.

Jean Fisher is a member of the Baha'i Congregation.

Fiona Cassembo, who directs the uh Newcomer Project, and Chantel Basecki, who is the director of Hope and Help Together.

Starting in 2002, we transitioned from coming alongside other institutions, as I mentioned in our earlier years, to offer community conversations, as we called them, which were held two to four times per year around uh divisive topics utilizing uh dialogue circles led by well-trained facilitators who directed dialogues enabling understanding, empathy, and relationships across differences, and thus reducing polarization in our area.

One example was the event that was around immigration and refugees in our area at Appleton North High School that was in partnership with the New Voices Choir and Hope and Help Together in consideration of uh in partnership with North North's presentation of Fiddler on the Roof, which most of you know it was involving Jewish Unitarian, I mean Jewish Ukrainian refugees.

Also, another example is across the political dot divide in partnership with WISACT, which is the Wisconsin Alliance for Civic Trust in the past.

And we we conducted a number of other events that were community-wide, inviting people to those kind of dialogues, which is very different than debate, as we're familiar with.

In 2025, we revised our approach even further, wanting to focus our on divisive topics that were more locally relevant and personally actionable.

So we redesigned our vision and mission to reflect this adjustment, which we will now share with you.

So the common ground mission is we bring people together across differences to build meaningful relationships, engage in open dialogue, and create initiatives that strengthen the well-being of the Fox Cities.

And then our vision is common ground Fox Cities envisions a connected and thriving community where people from all backgrounds, faith-based and secular, collaborate to foster understanding, well-being, and collective action for the common good.

And we are we have planned what we call a localized gathering of geographically similar entities, ward leaders, alder persons like yourselves, and uh registered neighborhood leaders to come alongside particular divisive issues in that particular local geography, utilizing again our dialogue dialogue circle methodology to enhance ongoing relationships with individuals that can have regular contact with one another in those more local spheres.

Um we're also securing our 501c3 status and our vision and mission, as you just heard expressed, um welcomes all residents.

So we're not just focused on faith entities, but all residents of whatever kind, whether they have a faith perspective or not, around divisive issues to uh create a more harmonious and uh you know community of well-being and belonging.

Anything else you'd like to share?

I'll share a little bit.

Um we really just want to let you know that we're looking to grow and increase our board membership and participation, especially in a variety of you know, generational perspectives.

And uh we're we already have a large amount of diversity, but we're looking to increase that diversity and seeking funding as a lot of organizations are.

So thank you for letting us come before you and just update you on our crucial work.

Uh, could you just share the dates again for the sort of neighborhood-based opportunities that'll be coming up?

We haven't established those yet.

They're still in the planning, so we haven't exactly put that together, but we're working, we're gonna be working with Ward, um, Alder Persons, and registered neighborhoods or overlap.

So that's an upcoming initiative on our part.

Right.

So I when I heard about that in particular, I wanted to make sure that we we brought common ground in to talk about what they've been doing over the years, but also what they're doing moving forward.

Uh, so there'll be opportunities for for alders to help engage uh residents within your districts and and within neighborhoods in your districts uh in these kinds of opportunities because it is is so important to facilitate connection among our residents.