[media-credit name=’AJ MACLEAN/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Ald. Austin King, District 8, spoke at the Memorial Union Monday encouraging students to vote in Madison’s spring elections today. Only two City Council districts within the University of Wisconsin campus are contested.

Falk, who is un-opposed in the upcoming election, took this chance to encourage students to participate in local government.

“[City Council’s] decisions affect citizens from the moment they leave their house,” Falk said in a phone interview. “They really affect people hourly.”

From traffic downtown to whether the city is safe, Falk said, city government has a large impact on the lives of students. King said it was a “bummer” that many students are not involved in the local government and his and Falk’s efforts Monday were an attempt for change.

King, who spearheaded Madison’s minimum wage ordinance and is a strong supporter of tenant’s rights, said the City Council affects a range of issues from affordable housing to police activity to alcohol policies.

“All of these [issues] really hit home with students and their daily lives,” King said in a phone interview.

According to King, his views on tenants’ rights and affordable housing laws separate him from his opponent, Kami Eshraghi, owner of the Kimia Lounge, who has called tenants’ rights “social engineering.”

However, Eshraghi said vacancy rates in the city are the highest they have been in history and the cost of rent is still rising.

“I blame it on the partisan ordinances that have been passed in the recent two years,” Eshraghi said.

The spring elections usually receive less attention because they are non-partisan and a smaller amount of money goes into the campaigns, Falk added.

Eshraghi said he would like to remove some of the “barriers” affecting tenants and pursue a “competitive” and “fair market” approach to housing.

City Council District 8 includes the southeast portion of campus.

Ald. Robbie Webber, District 5, who is contested by biomedical engineering graduate student Ben Moga, said she believes land use and planning downtown and on campus, including the Campus Master Plan, are key issues in the upcoming elections.

“I think students think what happens on the city level doesn’t affect them, but it does,” Webber said, adding she is proud to have worked on tenants’ rights and transportation issues over her two-year term.

Moga said as a non-partisan candidate, he would be “responsive” to students because as a student, he understands their needs.

“Although we compromise a substantial portion of Madison’s population, the student voice is far from heard on the City Council,” Moga said. “I promise to fight for students and the issues that matter to them.”

District 5 includes the lakeshore residence halls and a majority of student housing around Camp Randall.

The state school superintendent, the only elected member of the UW Board of Regents and other important referendums dealing with state and local spending are on the spring ballot, Falk added.

Incumbent State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster, a Democrat, will face state Rep. Gregg Underheim, R-Oshkosh, as a challenger.

For more information on the 2005 City Council candidates or where to vote, visit www.cityofmadison.com.