APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — City officials in Appleton have shot down an effort to revitalize Soldier’s Square.
The hope was to add the project to Appleton’s five-year capital improvements plan, but it wasn’t viewed as a priority, at this time.
Appleton’s Municipal Services Committee unanimously denied a resolution to put the revitalization of Soldier’s Square on the city’s five-year plan. It failed last Monday in a 5 to 0 vote.
“We’re disappointed, but we’re not discouraged,” executive director of the Hearthstone Historic House Museum George Schroeder said. “We vehemently disagree with the premise that somehow honoring veterans is not a necessity.”
Although committee members say they support the Soldier’s Square memorials, some say the city has other, more pressing needs.
“I, for one, would not be supportive of spending city dollars on this project at any point in the near future, just given all of the other infrastructure needs that we have that we’re not currently keeping up with,” alderperson Chad Doran said.
The committee chair says, adding the Soldier’s Square project to the city’s CIP would require dropping another, possibly more important city project.
“Something’s got to come out of the five-year plan for this to go into the five-year plan,” committee chair Bill Siebers said. “I haven’t heard anything in regards to that.”
If the Common Council upholds the committee’s denial of the resolution, that doesn’t necessarily mean the project is over.
“If it ends up being the support is quite high and fundraising can happen quite rapidly, maybe we take a look at this again during the budget season when we’re trying to put together a five-year CIP plan then,” alderperson Brad Firkus said. “I am not optimistic that that’s going to be the case.”
In response to that, Schroeder says, “Anybody who makes that statement hasn’t heard the already ground swell of community support for this! They haven’t talked to the mothers and fathers of veterans like I have, they haven’t talked to the brothers and sisters of veterans and veterans, themselves.”
In 2019, the Hearthstone Historic House Museum and Sculpture Valley, started selling engraved bricks that would be laid into the hardscape of Soldier’s Square to raise money.
Those efforts have stalled, but Schroeder says that’s because of the city.
“At first, we had to wait and see if the library was going to be built there, then we had to wait and see if the ramp was going to be built there,” he said. “We have an opportunity now, with the construction going on right next door to make this right. Why don’t we just avail ourselves of that opportunity?”
Appleton’s Common Council will decide on Wednesday whether the resolution should be denied.
Comments