From left: Wes Sparkman, Dana Pellebon, Regina Vidaver and Melissa Agard.
Over the last 27 years, there have been just two elected Dane County executives: Kathleen Falk, who served from 1997 until 2011 and Joe Parisi, who served from 2011 to his resignation on May 3, 2024. Jamie Kuhn was appointed in May as the county’s interim executive.
Now, four candidates are vying for the open seat; the race is nonpartisan.
The top two candidates from the Aug. 13 primary will advance to the Nov. 5 general election. Whoever wins will spend six months in office before having to face another election in April 2025: the winner of that contest will serve a full four-year term.
Isthmus sat down with the candidates — Madison Ald. Regina Vidaver, Democratic state Sen. Melissa Agard, Dane County Office of Equity and Inclusion Director Wes Sparkman, and Sexual Violence Resource Center Executive Director Dana Pellebon — to hear their perspectives on some of the most pressing issues facing the county.
We asked candidates how they would continue the climate change work of Parisi’s administration and whether they think the new jail will meet demand. We also asked for their views on how the county can build more housing (a regional housing strategy calls for 7,000 more units annually) and how to grow Dane County’s profile by modernizing the out-of-date Alliant Energy Center.
Candidate responses have been edited for clarity and space.
Do you identify as a progressive candidate, and if so, what do you think sets you apart from your opponents?
VIDAVER: I generally don’t really like labels, but I think “progressive” is an appropriate one. I am a firm Democrat — I mean, anybody who knows me knows that.
I am the only candidate with executive management experience who has [worked at] the federal and the state level, at the university and in nonprofit, and the only one with experience at a municipal elected level. I have been inside every space that the county interacts with.
I am also the only candidate with emergency management response experience…[and] also the only candidate who’s a scientist. I approach things from a hypothesis-based perspective, and I’m outcomes oriented. I want to know that what we’re investing in works.
AGARD: I do define myself as a progressive candidate.
What sets me apart? I was born and raised here in Dane County, and I’m raising my four boys here. I served on the Dane County Board of Supervisors for four years and chaired the Health and Human Needs committee — I put together the budgets for the county’s biggest department and served in the Legislature, both in the Assembly and Senate and as the leader of the Senate Democrats.
In addition to that, [there is] a broad coalition of people that I have brought together — county executives from across Wisconsin, including former [Dane County] executives [Joe] Parisi and [Kathleen] Falk — who believe in my leadership, vision and collaborative style for the community I would have an opportunity to lead.
SPARKMAN: I would say [I’m] moderate to progressive.
I do think my experience sets me apart — I’ve served as a police and fire commissioner for 10 years and served on numerous boards. What I’ve learned through the process, on a bigger and long term level, is developing trust [with businesses and local cities].
PELLEBON: Yes, I am a progressive candidate. Things that set me apart: I have worked in collaboration and planning with these agencies that are in the county for decades. I have an extensive amount of executive experience that lends to the breadth and width of the agencies that the county manages and the issues that are the focal point of our community.
Climate change and sustainability were top priorities for former county executive Joe Parisi. Do you share that commitment and can you name one particular policy you would pursue to address climate change?
VIDAVER: One hundred percent, I share [the commitment]. My line is “I want to keep everything going.”
The addition is thinking about housing and transportation. We want to concentrate our city and housing in our existing transportation corridors and urban cores so that we’re not creating sprawl and contributing to climate change. It has to be done in concert with our municipalities, because the county can’t tell them what to do.
AGARD: Green and renewable investments and [a plan to get] us to net neutral as a county is really impressive. [But] our county is growing
— we’re gonna continue to have to keep our foot on the gas when it comes to that.
The next chapter is decarbonization. In addition to the immense growth we see here in Dane County, a lot of the heritage of our community is family farms and agricultural lands. The next chapter is making sure that we continue to protect our culture and our heritage, with an eye on environmental protections. PFAS is a real problem in our community. The county executive is going to play an important role in addressing that.
SPARKMAN: It’s important to me, climate action is necessary. The policies that I will continue — the Suck the Muck campaign for water, trying to eliminate unnecessary phosphorus in the lakes and water, and thinking about emissions in the air.
[I’m] also thinking about innovation. Right now there’s a discussion about electric vehicles. I think that we need to show some interest. When you think about car manufacturing, and what’s available right now, dealerships are still selling gas vehicles. The conversations about electric vehicles are great, but we have to look at our actual supply and what’s available.
PELLEBON: There is an amazing climate change plan that we are currently working on. It is something that has been vetted. It is something that has shown proven results — I want to continue that plan.
From there, advocate at the state level for things that we do not have control over, like PFAS, and the [F-35] jets. Those are things that the county does not necessarily have purview over, there is only a limited amount that we can do. This is where we rely on our legislators to fill that gap. Otherwise, I really do want to focus on the good work that the county already is doing and continue that work.
With delays and a final approval this year of the Dane County Jail consolidation, incarceration and justice have been top-of-mind issues for some Dane County residents. Even as work proceeds on a new county jail, it is widely acknowledged that the new facility won’t meet demand. How would you address that issue?
VIDAVER: I like to think of criminal justice as similar to medicine, where we have primary prevention and secondary prevention. On the primary prevention side, what are our community supports: housing, childcare, the best education, job opportunities?
The [Community Alternative Response Emergency Services] program is a fantastic example of [secondary prevention]. In Madison, it’s been going for three years, and there’s been about 5,000 calls and only a 2% conversion rate to police calls. That is a program that is working.
I push back on the notion that we’re going to fill that jail.
AGARD: You don’t have to go back far in the history of our county to know that even when we have growth in our communities, we have the ability to decrease jail populations. I’m not sure that I necessarily agree with the premise of your question. There are many things that are being asked for by our community to divert people from being inside of the jail.
[We should focus] on evidence-based, human service-based priorities: bail reform, bracelet monitoring, alternatives to incarceration, training 911 operators to actually have mental health first responders as opposed to police, increasing the CARES program to outside of the city of Madison.
I think we’re actually doing our jobs if we’re not filling all those beds in the jail.
SPARKMAN: What I want is that all our programs produce healthy life outcomes for everybody. When I think about the jail, I think about the people that are there — I’m concerned about the work we’re doing to prevent recidivism.
A lot of those efforts we have in the Human Services Department, and thinking about rehabilitation services and mental illness services, do impact the individuals that may be in the jail; the high rate of individuals that may have mental health issues, the ability to put needs first: rehabilitation needs, but also literacy needs.
I would be glad to work with the sheriff’s department [too] — we all need to be honest about what our capabilities are, what our jurisdiction is, and the sheriff is on top of what he’s doing.
I think as a candidate I’m in better gear to deal with those issues than the other candidates.
PELLEBON: By instituting the reforms that we have been talking about. Our new office of justice inequity reform is specifically set up to work on these issues to keep the [jail] population down.
In addition, we will never keep that population down unless we adequately address the root causes that bring people to these spaces in the first place.
Housing accessibility and affordability are strained in Dane County — a 2024 action plan stated the county must add 7,000 units annually to meet existing needs and match growth. What actions would you take to address the housing shortage and lack of affordable housing in Dane County?
VIDAVER: We’ve got those 17 strategies — I want to put them all in practice. I mean I’m chomping at the bit to say, let’s go.
The county can play a role providing technical assistance about gently increasing density in areas that can handle it both from an infrastructure and a transportation perspective. I really struggle because there are some people who say, “Well, we’re building too much, we’re building too fast.” But there is a basic economics of supply and demand.
AGARD: Municipalities have a lot of power. If you read the regional housing strategy and that roadmap, we’re starting in a deficit. We need to do everything that we can to fill that hole, knowing that we have projected growth and if we don’t [fill housing gaps], that it’s going to be worse.
[For partnership], there’s the Affordable Housing Trust Fund that we can look at or ways that we can incentivize new affordable housing that is actually safe. For example, [in] the Bayview Apartments that are [downtown], we increased density with more services. [I’m highlighting] that as a success, but we do need more condos and single family homes — 7,000 units is across the board. That’s not simply in the bucket of affordable housing.
SPARKMAN: My goal would be to immediately implement the roadmap and consider the low-hanging fruit there is [for] what we can do. Often those types of considerations have to take into account each action’s consequences and whether it’s something that we can maintain long term.
[Some] individuals are working and homeless at the same time — there are veterans staying in a veteran’s hospital that are also homeless. That’s their form of shelter or housing. That’s unacceptable.
I served on something called the [advisory] Economic Stability Council [composed of businesses, Dane County, Madison and nonprofit representatives], and their conversations [were] about how we could provide subsidized housing opportunities for individuals — thinking at the early phase of development about what types of subsidized housing we will need in order to provide housing opportunities for people from different walks of life.
PELLEBON: The first thing that we’ve got to do is take a look at the spaces that are available for housing, and make sure that they are in spaces — especially for affordable housing — that are accessible to the needs of the people that are going to get housing.
Second, we need to work with cities to look at zoning regulations and say, “Hey, can we do something with this?” Making [tax incremental finance] districts more compatible with affordable housing [or] giving folks access to our affordable housing funds who do not meet the criteria to obtain tax credits.
Redevelopment of the Alliant Energy Center is an ongoing question for the county; how would your office approach the variety of proposals for the center?
VIDAVER: We need a strong economic engine, a place for events, a place for food service, all of those things on-site. What is going to be the best approach? Committees have put forward these plans. We need to move forward with looking for the right partner to move and implement that plan.
One of the issues right now is that the county does not have a capital improvement plan. The Alliant Energy Center redevelopment [has to be part of it], and we have to be able to show this is how much it’s gonna cost the county over time [and] where the private investment is going to come [from].
AGARD: It needs to be a priority at the county executive’s office in order for it to get done. It is an economic driver for our community. With investments into tourism, you see great investments into the community. The redesign of the Alliant Energy Center isn’t just about redesigning it for the use that it has now — how [can it be] a driver and a builder for the future?
SPARKMAN: We need to act immediately on the Alliant Energy Center, because costs are going up, just like any other building, project or renovation. The impact on the community is something that we need to consider. [We should also consider] the costs and thinking about how to engage the people in the community.
We have capable county employees that are looking at ways to develop [it] in the planning department. We’ve had past plans that we need to consider already and can act upon.
PELLEBON: There are a lot of industries that intersect with that center. We need to figure out what it is that they are looking for, because they are the ones that are going to be utilizing the center. We need to talk to our local business owners in our county and [ask] what are the needs of the center? What is missing?
From there, we engage the community and ask them these questions…there are partners that are not always engaged in those processes. None of us at the county have the full solution.
