Dave Cieslewicz
From Freepedia
Dave Cieslewicz is the current Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin.
David J. Cieslewicz (chess LEV ich) was elected Mayor of Madison, WI in the spring of 2003 after besting Madison legend and former Mayor Paul Soglin in a close contest (results). Although relatively unknown by the public, the prominent support of popular Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk quickly made him a household, if mispronounced, name. In fact, his campaign materials prominently featured phonetic pronunciations of his proudly Polish last name.
Prior to seeking the mayor's office, Cieslewicz served as executive director of 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, a land use advocacy organization that successfully lobbied for Wisconsin's Smart Growth planning law. He had additional political experience as a staffer in the Wisconsin State Legislature, lobbyist for the Nature Conservancy, and as an elected member of the Dane County Board of Supervisors. He also lost a state Assembly race in 1992 to Tammy Baldwin, now representing Wisconsin's second district in Congress.
Cieslewicz was born in 1959 in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, and came to Madison as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is married to Dianne Cieslewicz, chief of staff to state Senator Fred Risser, and resides in the Regent Street neighborhood on Madison's near-west side.
Since his election, Cieslewicz has been a very active executive and successfully implemented many of his campaign's promises. First, with his leadership and the efforts of Alder Brenda Konkel, the city enacted a mandatory inclusionary zoning ordinance, which requires most new housing development to provide 15% of its units at affordable prices to people of modest incomes in exchange for density bonuses and other incentives.
Another major initiative of his administration was to establish a municipal minimum wage, which was successfully enacted in March, 2004 with the assistance of Alder Austin King. Scaled to rise to $7.75 per hour by 2008 and thereafter to be indexed to inflation, Madison's wage ordinance made it the fourth city in the country with its own minimum standard. Frustrated by the state of Wisconsin's inaction on the issue, Madison was followed by Milwaukee, La Crosse and Eau Claire establishing municipal minimum wages. By May of 2005, a deal had been struck at the state level to allow Wisconsin's minimum wage to rise to $6.50 per hour in exchange for a permanent prohibition of municipal minimum wages.
The Cieslewicz administration has also presided over the city's new comprehensive smoking ban, a new automated recycling and refuse collection program, the merger of the city's civil rights departments, the defeat of a proposed casino, the city's comprehensive planning process, the creation of the city's first municipal swimming pool, promotion of streetcars to fight congestion and urban sprawl, and many other initiatives.
Cieslewicz has some critics in the business community who balk at the city's worker-friendly regulations, as well as in the African-American community whose members view with suspicion an environmentalist meddling with civil rights enforcement. Generally, while his roots are in the environmental movement, he has made close allies with organized labor, neighborhood activists, and progressives.
Additional information can be found at his city website and campaign website.
