District 8 candidate Austin King says he will be a mover and shaker if elected to the Madison City Council. King plans to promote active representation and introduce at least 10 bills if elected to the council, including legislation to increase the minimum wage and safeguard security deposits.

King said he would like to see the minimum wage reach approximately $9.75 in the next 4 to 5 years.

“I want to forecast to employers that in the future they will have to pay living wages,” King said.

The second important part of his plan, securing security deposits, stems from his personal experience. According to King, landlords often charge extra fees that go beyond the scope of damage to apartments, such as carpet cleaning or even blatantly making up things in order to collect the whole deposit.

“I had one landlord that charged us a $20 late fee for every month’s rent even though we were only late in January when we were all out of town,” King said. “He was supposed to give us our water and utility bill every month, but instead he just took them out of the security deposit, which is illegal, and it took up almost all of our deposit.”

King said landlords take advantage of students because students aren’t likely to take the landlord to small-claims court to try to get their money back. King’s proposal would allow tenants to give their safety deposits to the city treasury; when a lease ran out, the landlord would file claims with the treasury. King said the treasury would only allow legitimate deductions to be taken out of the deposit, so tenants would be protected from false charges such as carpet cleaning.

King would like to see student housing options increased in the future.

“I would like to work with the university to build one more large dorm on campus, but it will take time,” King said.

He said the university needs to provide housing to students and get away from putting people in expanded housing in the fall.

More dorms would decrease rent downtown due to the increased supply, King said. He also said he would create more affordable housing by rolling back density caps to allow larger buildings to be built downtown and more apartments to be open for rent. He said he would also like to establish mandatory inclusionary zoning to force landowners to have a certain number of affordable housing apartments in each building.

King doesn’t think city meddling can help with student drinking. He said he believes alcohol use and abuse need to be minimized in order to help prevent the harmful effects that go along with them, such as fights, drunk driving and sexual assault. He said the majority of alcohol abuse takes place at house parties.

“The last thing the city should be doing is pushing students out of bars and into house parties by banning drink specials,” King said.

King said he also thinks there should be more places for underage students to hang out with students of age so they can go out together without having to attend house parties. King said that before he turned 21, he had this problem and spent his nights playing pool with friends.

King also said he would like to introduce a State Street law similar to one used in Colorado called the Pearl Street ordinance.

“Pearl Street has a zoning ordinance that said if you have a store anywhere else in the city, you can’t have a spot on the street,” King said.

He said this would be a good way to keep chain stores off of State Street. King is also concerned with the State Street Redesign Program.

“Thirty-two million dollars is a hell of a lot of money on six blocks. I think State Street needs a face lift, but not a change in character,” King said.

Traffic on the isthmus also concerns King. He said Madison Metro is the most basic way to get people from point A to point B.

“We need to make sure the Metro runs all night; the third-shift workers are not able to get the same services as the first-shift workers,” King said.

King proposed possibly using smaller vans at night in order to be more environmentally conscious.

“I will first represent pedestrians, bikers, transit users and lastly, small-car owners in the City Council,” King said.

King is a pedestrian around campus and understands the need for more precautions to be taken to protect pedestrians from cars.

“One of the first things I’m going to do is put a stop sign on Frances and Langdon. I don’t want to be terrified of cars in front of my house,” King said.

King said he’s a “pretty normal guy” who likes “The Simpsons” and reading books by his favorite authors, including J.D. Salinger.

“I’m a literature nerd. I have a fairly expansive personal library,” King said.

He also said he likes jazz music and plays the bass in his free time.