David Michael Miller
Nine of the 20 members of Madison’s Common Council, which meets in the City County Building, were replaced on April 2.
The Common Council needs to focus on things like service cuts, public health and the social justice issues that impact people's lives directly.
Every two years, after a new Common Council is elected, the old and new alders gather for a special noontime meeting.
During the meeting, the departing council members say goodbye and are honored with resolutions and long speeches by their colleagues. Then the new and departing council members have a big lunch at Monona Terrace.
But this year — because there will be nine new alders — the lunch was moved up to brunch for the April 16 swearing-in meeting. The idea is to eat first, then move on to the speeches.
“When you have such a huge group of departing alders, the farewells can take hours and hours,” says Ald. Mike Verveer, the longest serving member of the council who was first elected in 1995 and ran unopposed this year. “Because of this certainty, we’ve changed our tradition. Because who knows when the council meeting will adjourn.”
While Madison will have a new mayor, the Common Council is also going through a sea change. Nine incumbents — Ledell Zellers, Amanda Hall, Steve King, Zach Wood, Maurice Cheeks, Larry Palm, Allen Arntsen, David Ahrens and Matt Phair — didn’t run again, guaranteeing almost half of the 20-member council would be replaced. Alds. Samba Baldeh and Keith Furman had opponents for their reelection bids, but both won. Nine incumbents ran unopposed.
According to the unofficial results, the new alders will be: Patrick Heck in District 2, covering parts of downtown and the east side; Lindsay Lemmer in the far east’s District 3; Donna V. Hurd Moreland in District 7, on the west side; Avra Reddy in District 8, which covers much of UW-Madison; Zachary Henak in the west side’s District 10; Syed Abbas in the north side’s District 12; Tag Evers in District 13, on the near west side; Grant Foster in the far east side’s District 15; and Christian Albouras in District 20, on the far west side.
Having so many new alders will pose challenges for city government, Verveer concedes, noting that meetings could take longer as the newcomers get up to speed on Robert’s Rules of Order or ask questions.
“It’ll be a big deal, not only for those of us who serve on the council, but also for city staff,” says Verveer, who was council president in 2007, when nine new alders were elected.
Ahrens says that the turnover could give even a new mayor like Satya Rhodes-Conway (who ousted incumbent Paul Soglin) more power over the council.
“I’m making a very gross generalization here, but you come into a group and people tell you stuff and you believe it,” Ahrens says. “It takes a long time for people to understand that senior staff who are appointed by the mayor are not dispassionate purveyors of the truth. They promote programs and policies that the mayor supports and will tell you things that support that notion.”
Verveer agrees that the mayor could have a more compliant council, at least at first. “From my experience, rookie alders generally keep their heads down and learn the ropes and concentrate on one or more parochial district issues, before they try to go after an initiative from the mayor’s office or make big waves during the budget deliberation,” Verveer says.
But Ahrens says that the newcomers also come with an advantage over seasoned veterans. While veteran council members might go to a lot of meetings and know the issues, newcomers have likely spent a lot of time knocking on doors all over their districts.
“They just spent an enormous amount of time meeting the people in their district and, hopefully, listening to them,” Ahrens says. Many of those residents may not be that engaged, “but they’re voters and they have concerns and ideas about the city.
“I went to neighborhoods I’d never been to before,” Ahrens says of his first campaign in 2013. “That was eye-opening to me. People who are new to the council bring that with them, the wisdom and experience of meeting 2,000 new people in the last two months.”
