Students need a Dane County Board Supervisor focused on accomplishing the day-to-day administrative duties that keep essential county services working. Students need a technocrat. They need to cast their vote for UW-Madison junior Sean Cornelius Tuesday.
Cornelius is the type of person who you might find in a late-night C-SPAN binge or enjoying an afternoon scouring over pages of bureaucratic jargon. It does not sound flashy or exciting to most people, but it is the type of attitude we need in a Dane County Supervisor.
During an interview with The Daily Cardinal Editorial Board last week, Cornelius displayed this attitude when he said he wanted to get things done that may not get a lot of news coverage, but still matter to UW-Madison students.
From his work with the UW-Madison Limnology Department, Cornelius offers technical knowledge of an individual issue, lakes, that no other candidate offers on any issue. It is important to have expertise and enthusiasm combined for a single issue, as Cornelius does, if an individual supervisor expects to rise above the noise of 37 supervisors with separate agendas.
Students do not need an activist on the Dane County Board. Ashok Kumar can list many on campus accomplishments through his enthusiastic activism. Given his personality and zeal for student issues, we believe Kumar would make a great Associated Students of Madison chair, but the county board is the wrong environment for this activist.
A freshman from Illinois, David Lapidus, lacks a strong enough connection to Dane County and the concerns people have on the county level. He has overemphasized, in relation to students' actual concerns, the enforcement of drug-use sentences in the county court system. Lapidus' plan for a Dane County 'smart community transportation system' is too idealistic and not really in touch with what students need. Yet, other candidates should take note of his plan for an online landlord-rating system.
It seems Adam Korn is not completely clear on what he will be capable of as one of 37 county supervisors. His platform includes addressing many issues with which the county board is only minimally linked'Halloween, birth control and late-night transportation. He also has not focused, or at least not communicated any focus, on a few key issues. He has some commendable ideas and legislative experience, and if Korn would more clearly define the key points in his platform on the county-level he would be a better candidate.
It has been refreshing to see so many students interested in representing a campus district on the county board.
This is not an election about choosing an ideological side or looking for the most outspoken candidate, instead it is about choosing the person most likely to produce results on the board. That person is Sean Cornelius.
