Madison residents will have the opportunity to elect a mayor on April 3, 2007. While incumbent Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Ray Allen are both admirable candidates, we feel the city and UW-Madison's votes should go to Cieslewicz.
Primarily, we feel Cieslewicz has a much more promising and realistic agenda to deal with the rising levels of violent crime in Madison. Still, Allen accurately suggests that crime can stem from poverty. We must work to fight poverty in the city to reverse this trend.
While we agree with Allen that poverty can be one contributor to crime, the problem does not stem from just one source.
Allen proposed adding 10 new officers to the police force each year, but this option simply is not reasonable or feasible. Cieslewicz's $100,000 crime package and his introduction of new officers, firefighters and paramedics as necessary are successful measures that also fit within Madison's budget.
Allen's main campaign focus is poverty, and while Allen has strong ideas to solve the problem in areas such as Allied Drive, we believe Cieslewicz has already done constructive work to reduce the city's crime-ridden areas. Cieslewicz invested $4.3 million to reinvigorate housing in the Allied Drive area. Police calls in the area were down 23 percent in the last year.
The two candidates disagreed on a few issues including Madison's smoking ban, Cieslewicz's Alcohol Density Plan and downtown density.
Cieslewicz said he is a firm believer in policies such as the smoking ban, which are initially not extremely popular but work well for the city and its economy in the long run. Allen said he does not believe in policies that hinder some businesses in the local economy, such as the city smoking ban and the Alcohol Density Plan.
While we do admire Cieslewicz's passion and dedication to the smoking ban, we side with Allen on the Alcohol Density Plan. We agree with him that the plan is an important step, but there are many factors that need to be considered such as patron safety and business profitability.
We encourage Cieslewicz to consider some of the criticisms to his Alcohol Density Plan so that he may better meet the needs of the city and UW-Madison students.
Despite this small incongruity, we strongly endorse Cieslewicz for mayor and feel his strong performance in the past four years is a firm indicator that he will continue to improve Madison in years to come.
