By Sara Mikolajczak
College Republicans
Let's face it: Dane County has been Falk-ed up"" for entirely too long. Twelve years, and what do we have to show? High taxes, policies awful for business and a 911 Call Center that may or may not prevent you from getting mugged, raped or beaten to death.
At last week's State of the State address, Gov. Doyle referred several times to the past eight years of ""bad economic policy."" Though I'm not sure whether or not he was talking about his bad economic policy or Falk's, he was right either way.
Kathleen Falk has repeatedly spent your tax money in ways that do not directly benefit you, or anyone, for that matter. She is opposed to spending tax money to keep criminals off the streets; instead pressuring judges to let them out early or off the hook entirely. So while convicted offenders are moving in next door, where exactly is all that money going? Certainly not to fix our pothole-ridden roads and broken-down infrastructure. Failure one and two.
At a time when banks are seeking government bail-outs, your neighbors can't afford their mortgages, your brother in Detroit just got laid off and you can't find a job when you graduate, do we really need to be spending money buying undevelopable land so that it can't be developed? Madison was just named one of the best places in the United States to find a job and I'll agree: Madison is a great city with much to offer. The problem is it's nestled in the heart of Dane County, and Dane County is by no means a beacon of optimism for emerging small business hopefuls and owners. Failure three.
Finally, there is the 911 Call Center. This is an especially important issue to those of us in the downtown area. Some have suggested the topic is getting old and dry, but when a majority of the student body is afraid to walk home alone at night, it is an issue. When calling 911 seems a waste of time because you're not sure if anyone will be dispatched to your rescue, it is an issue. Public safety should be a top priority, but it is being ignored by our current County Executive Kathleen Falk, who continuously fails to update our 911 Call Center. Because of her inaction, we have seen a fellow student pay the ultimate price. Failure four.
This spring, the students of UW-Madison, as residents of Dane County, should stand up once again and say ""YES, WE CAN!"" Because we can - we have to - get rid of Falk this April.
As students and residents of Dane County, albeit only for a short while, we deserve better. We need someone who will work with us and for us, not someone who simply uses her position as a stepping-stone toward a failed attorney general or gubernatorial campaign.
So far as I can tell, Kathleen Falk doesn't even care about the issues. Check out Falk's website at www.kathleenfalkforcountyexec.com. Where's her section on the issues? I see a big picture of her with President Obama, but no plans to help her constituents or provide for the future. I guess that could be failure five.
The biggest failure of all would be the one on the part of the people of Dane County: allowing Kathleen Falk another term in office.
Sara Mikolajczak is Chair of UW-Madison's College Republicans. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
