Today as Mayor Dave Cieslewicz is sworn in, we encourage him to consider his new role and his relationship to Madison's student community.
On the issues, both Cieslewicz and his former opponent, Paul Soglin, represented stances that would be agreeable with the majority of the student body. Cieslewicz's campaign, however, began with disregard for student votes in the primary and ended with the rather condescending tone of the campus literature distributed two days before the general election.
It is important for the mayor of Madison to listen to students and respect their voice. The consequences of failing to do so were exemplified by the Halloween riots, which occurred last October, where there were not enough police officers on staff to control the large crowd even while the students had said the turnout would be on Saturday night instead of the city-planned Thursday.
Two days before the general election, classrooms were bombarded by Cieslewicz's literature, which abused the intelligence of student voters by prominently sensationalizing local drug enforcement policy. The piece tried to glamorize the candidate touting Cieslewicz as \a mayor for our generation"" and the only candidate in support of legalizing marijuana. In assuming that the only matter important to students was the war on drugs, Cieslewicz ignored important issues like minimum wage and transportation systems.
Yet Cieslewicz's support for affordable housing is commendable. This is where the line was drawn between the two candidates in a race where most of their opinions on the issues were similar. Cieslewicz should view following through with his campaign promises to make downtown housing more affordable as his chance to prove himself to his student constituency.
The students that voted for Cieslewicz did so because they preferred a fresh face in office over Soglin's experience. That said, now is the time for Cieslewicz to get his feet wet in office and prove his inexperience does not hinder his ability to manage the city.
In this election, many members of Progressive Dane were voted into office. PD did not endorse Cieslewicz, who joined the party mid-way through the campaign, and we hope he will not pander to its agenda. It is essential that our mayor develops a style of management that is his own, and not simply adopt the agenda of PD or, perhaps more likely in Cieslewicz's case, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, his political mentor.
We hope Cieslewicz will take these suggestions into consideration and make good on his promises to develop more affordable housing, fix the city's ill-conceived transportation system and prove himself to the students who were so crucial in getting him elected.
