My Record Fighting for You
Over the past two years, I've spent my time advocating for student needs and making real changes that directly affect people. Here are a few of the most significant things I've accomplished.
View ALL my Accomplishments on a Map
2000+ Units of Student Housing Approved
The City of Madison historically has believed that students were a problem for the University to deal with. That began changing during past two years, and that's best exemplified by this achievement.
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Under my term, we have approved over 2000 units (5300 beds) of student housing, some of which are at a discounted rate for students achieving affordable housing.
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This was only able to happen after I organized outreach and got with over 1700+ students responding to a summer survey about housing, and over 300+ students emailing all Alders within a 72-hour timespan. The most amount of public engagement the Madison City Council had ever received from students.
Successfully Increased Building Height Limit
Through my partnership with Downtown Madison Inc. (DMI), we were successfully able to increase the downtown height limit for new construction. This allows for developers to build higher and incentive them to take part in our student affordable housing program, which would allow students to receive discounted housing units.
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By partnering students, the business community, and others, we were successfully able to increase heights in this area four yeas prior to city staff initially planned to do so.
Affordable Student Housing Project
The State of Wisconsin prevents local governments from mandating affordability in new or existing apartments. However, we were able to create an Affordable Student Housing Incentive for developers to provide discounted housing.
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The first under my term got approved in Fall of 2023, which provided nearly 170 beds at a 40% discount for students. Since this project, there has been a total of 3 projects who have used this incentive, with more developers interested each year.
Connected Sustainability Student Leaders with Federal Biden-Admin
When I first ran, I promised that I'd do more than represent students, I'd also uplift their voices. One of my proudest moments doing this was inviting then-Deputy Secretary of Commerce to speak with Student Leaders to discuss various sustainability topics.
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Students had the opportunity to meet directly with a cabinet-level official and discuss what matters most to our community, and how the federal government can better address these issues for ourselves and future generations.
Larger Voting Rooms for Elections
Facing historic levels of voter turn out during the November 2024 election, I worked with the Clerk's Office and the University to get larger rooms for poll booths during the election.
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I also worked with the Clerk's Office to allocate the most amount of resources to the UW campus compared to any other polling station within the City, and when lines hit 300+ people I even stepped in alongside two deputy mayors to help as poll workers
Lighting up Lakeshore Path
An on-going project, one I first took interest in four years ago even before I became Alder, I wanted to light up the Lakeshore path to improve safety.
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I was told this was the "impossible" project because every District 8 Alder has tried it for the past 30 years. But by taking part in a multi-group committee composing of the City, the University, and more, we finally began proposing changes to the Lakeshore Path which included lighting it up.
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The final decision is now up to the University, but a decades-old initiative may soon be coming to an end with success.
