Following a weekend of weather atypical of February (and another Badger victory against another inadequate Ohio State team) I'm finding it easier to turn my sights toward the spring elections in April. Happily, election season has two components, and the first chance to vote in 2011 is today—the spring primaries.
Getting out the vote on campus is a massive event every couple of Novembers, and I'm sure you all have delightful memories of the scores of pieces of campaign literature thrust into your hands by earnest candidates and volunteers. Thus, the lower-budget campaigns for local government conducted each spring can go quite unnoticed by many in the campus community. In reality, these effects should be flipped; in many ways, local government has the final say on the most important things in student life.
Here are just a few examples: the recent Edgewater development, the proposed Badger Catholic renovation, student safety ordinances and Madison's alcohol policy. All of these things are issues that I care deeply about as a student here at the UW, but also as a member of the larger Madison community. Thankfully, I live in a district that has a candidate for city alderman that embodies the best possible fusion of those two viewpoints—Scott Resnick.
Scott, an '09 UW graduate, has been an active and influential member of the Madison community since his arrival on campus, and especially since graduation. For the past two years, Scott has served the State and Langdon Association as its president, working intimately on campus safety, housing ordinances and liquor policy.
Scott's willingness to acknowledge and confront problems is a great asset, and is seen in a couple of his most recent campaign proposals. First, Scott wants to improve lock policy ordinances in Madison. While this seems mundane, there are still many buildings in Madison where locks and/or passcodes are not changed year to year. A frightening thought, especially when coupled with the at-times lackadaisical attitude of landlords toward key returns. In a similar vein, Scott also wants to protect tenant rights more extensively. Everyone has heard stories or had themselves one of ""those apartments""—run-down, nonfunctional and an antithesis of the beautified places seen during showings. Scott would fight for legislation imposing random inspections on landlord-owned properties, helping to limit these abuses against tenants through city oversight.
When Scott decided to run for alderman of District 8 (the largest student district on campus, comprising the Southeast dorms and most of Lakeshore, as well as the College court and part of the Langdon street neighborhood), he did so as someone who will constantly work on behalf of his constituents. He has even pledged to run a ""text-your-alderperson"" service, with the stated goal of improving response time in the case of constituent emergencies. Today, I hope you'll join me in casting a ballot for Scott, and then again in April.
—Jordan Weibel
Communications Chair
UW-Madison College Democrats
