Campus safety, bar policies and tenants' rights issues highlighted Sunday night's first and only District 8 alder debate in the Humanities building. The four candidates for Madison's largely student district - Bryon Eagon, Katrina Flores, Jacob Schmidt and Mark Woulf - placed student safety as their top priority.
Schmidt, a UW-Madison student, stressed safety starts at the home,"" with students being aware of their right to live in safe housing. He proposed expanding current District 8 Ald. Eli Judge's Downtown Lighting Initiative, giving more grants to local property owners to light up dark streets.
Flores, a UW-Madison graduate and community organizer, said she would increase the number of blue phones on campus, specifically in areas like Langdon Street, that would allow students to contact police in case of emergency.
Woulf, a UW-Madison junior, disagreed with Flores. He said communicating with officers is not the problem since most students carry cell phones. Instead, Woulf, who recently spoke out against police accessibility after a student mugging, proposed shifting officers away from bars and house parties and onto the streets.
Woulf also plans to encourage bar owners to purchase entertainment licenses that would allow 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds into bars. This, he said, would provide safe venues for minors while also ""concentrating the area to bring law enforcement out onto the street."" Although his opponents also proposed increasing entertainment licenses, Woulf said he would ""broaden the definition of 'entertainment'"" to include televised sporting games.
Eagon, a UW student, said one way to decrease bar raids and curb city spending would be to cut the mobilized e-scanners currently used by police during bar raids. Eagon also proposed increasing neighborhood watch programs on campus.
The candidates agreed landlord-tenant relationships in Madison are, as Flores noted, ""tumultuous."" Each called for raising tenant-rights awareness among students. Flores said the Tenant Bill of Rights should be posted in all properties, and Eagon said the university should do more to educate freshmen and set up a system for building inspectors to rate landlords.
The District 8 election will be held in April. Students are encouraged to check out the candidates' websites for further proposals.
