Arvina Martin will resign from the council on May 25.
West-side Ald. Arvina Martin is resigning early from the Madison city council. In a May 13 email to alders, Martin states she’ll be stepping down May 25.
“We have made some important improvements in the city from redesigning our flag, so that we can visually represent our city in the most appropriate and respectful way, to updating our historic preservation ordinances, and piloting The CARES Program,” writes Martin, who was first elected to the council in 2017. “It’s been a gift to have been a part of these initiatives and to have served my constituents as their elected representative.”
Martin, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, was the first Indigenous person elected to the Madison city council. She says she is leaving the council to focus on her family and her new job as executive director of Emerge Wisconsin, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for public office.
“Fortunately, this work means I get to continue to strive to improve the city of Madison and the state of Wisconsin every day,” writes Martin. “The work I do at Emerge Wisconsin will help create a pipeline of strong, effective leaders that will usher our state into the future.”
The number of vacant aldermanic seats that will need to be filled by temporary appointments has grown the last few weeks. Ald. Lindsay Lemmer resigned earlier this month and Ald. Christian Albouras is leaving May 20. Ald. Syed Abbas is running for state Assembly and tells Isthmus he expects to give up his seat and move to Sun Prairie sometime this summer.
The city is accepting applications for Martin's seat (District 11) until May 27 and Albouras' seat (District 20) until May 20.
