Good evening.

I now call to order the Wednesday, May 20th, 2026 meeting of the Appleton Common Council.

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

Thank you.

Good night.

I just want to preface this that even though the backdrop of this uh invocation is a uh flooding situation, that what I'm talking about is not like some sort of catch-all remedy for anyone who's been dealing with flooding situations in the recent uh weather events.

So with that little disclaimer, uh growing up in Appleton, the block I lived on, uh had a big field in the middle of it that would flood quite frequently.

The water in that field would come right up to the houses and a lot of times even into the basements.

Uh this was causing a lot of problems for a lot of the people in the neighborhood, and a number of people, including my parents, uh tried to solve this by putting just a berm at the end of their backyard.

And that would work for keeping the water out of their yards, but the other neighbors would have even more water going to their yards.

The water that would go into the neighbors that had berms was now being diverted in greater force to the other houses.

And while these berms did take a little bit of relief off of the individuals that were able to put them in, it didn't solve the real issue.

Instead, eventually the neighbors all got together, started talking, and they decided to do something about it.

So one summer, once the weather got a little bit drier, the neighbors that could went out into this field, they dug a big trench, put in drain tile, ran it right into the storm sewer.

I know now that uh there is a program that city has so uh for backyard flooding.

Um, if your house was born before uh built before 1980, go ahead and take use of that.

But with this and and what I remember about this, other than you know, when the backyard would flood, and then the spring when there were like ice flows floating around and then falling in and the look on my mom's face when I'd be you know drenched and it's February and I'm in my snowsuit, and uh that was not exactly a look of uh approval.

And also the jumping over that trench, like we were Indiana Jones or something.

That was also pretty fun.

But what I really remember is like how the entire neighborhood came together and just took care of this problem once and for all for all the neighbors.

And that's something that's always kind of stuck with me, and just kind of a lesson learned moving forward of how when we take ownership of things and we work together, we can solve those bigger problems.

Sometimes we yes, we got to deal with the little problems in front of us that are hindering us from being able to look at the big picture.

But ultimately, when we work together, we can solve these bigger problems.

And it's sometimes it's the neighborhood side of a block, sometimes it's a bigger uh circle that you need to draw.

But when we do things together, we can solve much more than we can on our own.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance of America.

One nation liberty and justice.

Roll call of Alders.

Oh, sorry, yeah, you need that.

All are represented with the exception of Alder Person Stancil Martin, who is excused, and Alder Persons Jones and Schultz.

Okay.

Roll call of officers, department heads.

All are represented with the exception of Library Director Wortbett, who is excused.

Thank you.

All right, on a business presented by the mayor, a number of proclamations uh to bring to your attention.

We recognized Arbor Day, uh, period poverty awareness month uh this month in the city of Appleton, uh police week last week, municipal clerks week, among American Day, Safe Voting Week, American and American Legion Poppy Day.

Text of all of these uh is included in uh your materials.

Uh next is uh a special presentation.

This is 26-0621.

And I wanted to bring this to the council's attention because it's just a really outstanding example of this our team here at the city of Appleton and the leadership of one individual in particular, who I'll call up here in a minute, who recognized a challenge that small business owners were dealing with in the community with respect to inspections for food trucks and work together across multiple jurisdictions to try and create a solution that reduces some of those barriers and makes the practice more consistent across communities.

So I just wanted to it happened more or less administratively, but I just think it's a great program and uh want to take a moment and hear for all of you to hear about it and also to celebrate the great work of uh Derek Henson.

So uh with that, Chief Henson, come on up.

All right.

Uh good evening.

Um I'd like to thank Mayor Woodford and the members of the common council and all those present tonight for giving me the opportunity to speak for you.

Um my name is Derek Henson.

I'm the division chief of fire prevention and public education for the Appalachian Fire Department, and I'm here to provide some history and update and the vision for the regional food truck inspection program that started last month.

So as I'm sure all of you are aware, the food truck industry in Northeast Wisconsin has been growing dramatically for the past several years.

Two years ago, we saw 60 food trucks at Oktoberfest, which at the time was a record.

Last year we saw more than that.

Um during this time, the fire prevention division started noticing a significant gap between our desired state for food trucks and the current state of actual what food trucks were experiencing in Wisconsin.

Um our desired state was that all food trucks operate in compliance with fire codes.

Unfortunately, the actual state that food trucks were largely was that food trucks were largely not compliant with fire codes.

Um to add to this, food trucks were really only being inspected during special events, which led to no opportunity for follow-up or time to correct any issues that may have been discovered during that inspection.

This also meant that most food trucks were not getting an inspection if they weren't present at a special event, which led to inconsistent enforcement basically across the industry, not just in Appleton, but really statewide.

Um, so why is this important, you may ask?

So there have been several catastrophic incidents with food trucks, including several recent incidents right here in Wisconsin.

Um, one of the most infamous incidents is a food truck that exploded in Philadelphia in 2014.

It killed two people, injured 10 more.