In a little over a week, UW-Madison students, faculty and staff will be blessed at long last with the ability to listen to our own college radio station, WSUM, over the airwaves.
It will, however, be awful for anyone running for the Dane County Board of Supervisors, in that the candidates will lose this prominent aspect of their campaign platforms. Historically, candidates have supplemented the tower issue with a secondary focus on environmental and affordable housing concerns. This time around, candidates should resist the temptation to elevate those issues to primary concerns and instead concentrate on the matters before the board that directly involve students.
Candidates in the April 2 election must now focus on retaining funding for the Dane County Rape Crisis Center; Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment; and the Tenants' Resource Center'programs partially funded by the county that directly affect students.
When the board had the power to stop construction of the tower, candidates competed simply by pledging to work the hardest to make sure that power wasn't exercised. With the radio tower in place and ready to broadcast, county supervisors representing student districts may become more insignificant. Perhaps that is why there has yet to be a candidate for any one of the local County Board seats to begin significant campaigning for office. Maybe the lack of action is caused by the fact that two of the three student-district representatives will not face an opponent. Or maybe it is still too early to get their campaigns in full swing.
Nonetheless, we challenge board candidates to a daunting but necessary task: Make yourselves relevant. Do something for us.
It has happened before, and will happen again. A student-district supervisor candidate promises students more affordable housing downtown. While increasing affordable housing opportunities for those living on Simpson Street or Allied Drive is all well and good, the candidates know there is almost nothing they can do to loosen the stranglehold that inflated rent and greedy landlords have on the collective student neck.
Beyond that, this issue is already in the process of being dealt with at the city level. In short, candidates should not promise this and other undeliverable goods.
There are things that you as a candidate can promise a student as a county supervisor. The county has been doing good work with sexual assault prevention, namely through its Rape Crisis Center, 128 E. Olin Ave., and its involvement with PAVE. In addition, the County Board provides the invaluable Tenant Resource Center, 1202 Williamson St., with approximately $37,000 of its budget.
It will be a difficult task to maintain funding for these valuable programs in the face of a tight county budget. Nothing is off the table in the upcoming round of budget cuts, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has said, and it will take skillful representation from downtown supervisors to preserve the entities that serve students. Candidates should focus on maintaining or improving these programs instead of exalting lofty goals that cannot be realized.
