Arnold for Alder

Age 59; married (two daughters, four grandchildren); employed as Practice Director for information technology strategy and information security, University of Wisconsin-Madison E-Business Consortium; resident since 1994 (fifteen years)

City of Fitchburg:
City Council since 2005; member since 2005 and vice chair, Public Safety and Human Services Committee; member since 2004 and past chair, Transportation and Transit Commission; member since 2007, Resource Conservation Commission; member 2005-2007, Broadband Telecommunications Commission; chair, Northeast Neighborhood Land Use Committee; member, North McGaw Neighborhood Plan Steering Committee; vice chair, Ad Hoc Committee on Substation Facility Planning

Other organizations:
Past vice president, Byrnewood Neighborhood Association; Fitchburg district 4 captain, Obama Campaign for Change; working group member, Dane County Council of Governments; land use action team leader, Dane County United; volunteer, Meals on Wheels; volunteer, The Road Home (formerly Interfaith Hospitality Network); Key Club member, United Way of Dane County

As alder, I want to help implement the Fitchburg Comprehensive Plan, construct a municipal library, build good urban neighborhoods, develop new transportation options, strengthen the local agricultural sector, and work toward a sustainable economy for Fitchburg while protecting our environmental resources.

The most important issue may be control of development: what will Fitchburg look like in the future? So many of the maladies we have are connected to our settlement pattern: traffic congestion, the cost of city services and the taxes we pay for them, safety and security, the health of our economy, and the health of our population.

I believe we must build the new neighborhoods in Fitchburg as compact, complete, contiguous, and connected (to existing neighborhoods) urban places. The land we save by rejecting sprawl development can be used to grow local food, purify our water, capture energy, and restore our souls. So my vision of Fitchburg is of dynamic urbanism adjacent to beautiful and productive natural and agricultural areas.

These goals are explicit in our draft Comprehensive Plan. We need to implement that plan and our new neighborhood plans; update our zoning to legalize and encourage vibrant, mixed-use neighborhoods; develop additional transportation options; and strengthen our local food system. Together, these kinds of changes will create the healthy, beautiful, sustainable Fitchburg of the future.

For five years, I've studied local policy options and how they would apply to Fitchburg. I've adopted those that seem to work best in the long run, and enjoy discussing these matters with Fitchburg stake holders. I'm ready to continue this work for another two years!