County Executive candidate Nancy Mistele last week unveiled her green initiatives in a press release (PDF) with an agenda to "protect the environment and jobs at the same time."
Among the items on Mistele's green list: creating a "Green Business Czar" post, keeping the county's mitts off land protected as green by other municipalities, and putting the "brakes on [Dane County Kathleen] Falk's commuter rail."
"I think that a lot of people would have you believe that growth and conservation are mutually exclusive," says Mistele. "We can and often do both. Developers are not an insensitive bunch, and we clearly recognize that in order to sell a development it has to be appealing. And typically for that you have to have greenspace, park space or swimming pools."