Monica Avila
Gloria Reyes
Reyes: 'They say people who are closest to the problem are closer to the solution and I totally agree with that.'
Michelle McKoy met Gloria Reyes when both served on a United Way committee convened to build trust between law enforcement and communities of color. At the time McKoy was working at WHEDA in the mortgage department and Reyes was executive director at Briarpatch, which provides services to at-risk youth.
When a job to lead the parent support program opened at Briarpatch, Reyes, who is now running for Madison mayor, let McKoy know. “Looking at that position I was screaming full of joy because that’s my dream job,” says McKoy. “Gloria knew I’d be the right person because I overcame all of that,” she adds, referring to her own history as a single mother with teenagers who were getting into trouble. McKoy interviewed for the job and was the top choice. There was one glitch: McKoy didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. The organization waived the requirement and McKoy just passed her first year anniversary there.
“Gloria has a gift,” says McKoy. “She sees a lot of potential in people that we might not see in ourselves.”
McKoy says Reyes’ time at Briarpatch, where she worked from fall 2020 to July 2022, is a good reflection of what kind of mayor she would be. Mckoy says Reyes put brown and Black employees in management positions and had an “open-door policy” that encouraged collaboration and creative thinking. “We’d congregate around her office and talk about different issues so she set up a sitting area with couches,” adds McKoy. “We call it Gloria’s Garden, a place where ideas grow.”
Also important, says McKoy, is that Reyes is relatable. “She knows what it’s like to live in Kennedy Heights or Darbo and to come out and know what kind of resources are available to get her to where she is now. A lot of us can see ourselves in her. And she gives us hope. If Gloria Reyes can get this far, so can we.”
Reyes, in an interview at her far-east-side home, agrees that she has always leaned on people who have “lived experiences” to guide her decision-making in her roles as a law enforcement officer, school board president, and deputy mayor.
She points to Amigos en Azul, a group she created a few years after joining the Madison Police Department in 2002; the program’s goal is to bring together law enforcement and members of the Latino community to build trust.
She says she would continue to rely on people most affected by such things as homelessness, poverty, education gaps and crime to help her shape policy and make decisions as mayor. “We need to open up doors for people who understand those lived experiences…. They say people who are closest to the problem are closer to the solution and I totally agree with that.”
Reyes moved with her parents and siblings to Madison in the early 1970s. Her parents first visited Madison in the mid-1960s when they marched from Wautoma to the capital city in support of better working conditions for farm workers. She attended Madison’s public schools, graduating from East High before going to Madison College. She says she always wanted to be a cop, but was discouraged because of her small size. Reyes credits former Madison Police Chief Mike Koval, who at the time led the department’s training and recruitment efforts, with encouraging her to apply for the job.
She served as a police officer and detective for 14 years before being tapped by former Mayor Paul Soglin to join the mayor’s office; she worked as a deputy mayor for public safety from 2014 until 2019.
She also served on the Madison school board between April 2018 to April 2021, through the start of the COVID pandemic and the racial protests that began in the spring of 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis. Perhaps her most controversial move was when she flipped her vote and supported the removal of Madison police officers from the city’s high schools; she says she eventually voted against renewing their contract because at the time it “was not fair to keep officers in an environment where they would no longer be effective.” She denies she did so for political reasons. “I would say that I did the opposite. I stepped in and led in a time of crisis during which the current mayor was nowhere to be found. This is what leaders do. I made a hard decision.”
When asked to clarify her remarks about the mayor, Reyes says, “She failed to provide leadership through the racial protests and divided our community.” Responds Rhodes-Conway: “Changing your mind, then changing it back again — that’s a funny definition of leadership.”
Reyes says public safety would be a top priority of her administration and would involve, among other things, strengthening neighborhoods and creating an office of violence prevention in the mayor’s office to bring together public health experts, area law enforcement and nonprofits.
Addressing the city’s lack of affordable housing would also lead her agenda. She does not support zoning proposals by the current administration to create overlay districts that include historic districts, or to change how many unrelated people can occupy certain dwelling units. If one of the major goals of these policy initiatives is equity, Reyes says, the focus should instead be on increasing home ownership for people of color and building generational wealth. “That is true equity.”
Read about the other candidates in the 2023 Madison mayor's race: incumbent Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, and challenger Scott Kerr.
