[media-credit name=’YANA PASKOVA/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Although Ald. Zach Brandon, District 7, has been a resident of Madison for more than five years, he did not originally intend to stay for long. Brandon came to Madison for business reasons and serves as one of the more dissenting and conservative views on the City Council even though he's a registered Democrat.

He's also a former member of the Dane County Democratic Party Executive Board and currently serves as a member of the Democratic Leadership Council.

"I ended up falling in love with the city," Brandon said of Madison. "I've always gotten involved [in city politics] wherever I was."

As an alderperson, Brandon is not afraid to bring issues he feels needs to be addressed to the Council. With a nod from the Council, he has been examining whether Internet hotel retailers are refusing to pay taxes on hotel rooms.

Brandon, one of the owners of the local establishment Laundry 101, said he felt small businesses were underrepresented in the Council before he was elected.

"I thought the voice of small business needed to be heard. I experienced it first hand," he said, adding at the time no one on the Council had small children and he had three. "I thought it was strange that the people that are making decisions for future generations aren't raising the future generation."

And Brandon hasn't been afraid to voice his disapproval with the city's affordable housing and minimum wage ordinances.

Even his colleague and more often than not, his ideological opponent, Ald. Austin King, District 8, said Brandon's thoughtful attitude makes his contributions to the Council valuable. And King knows because he's sat next to Brandon for the past three years during hour-long Council meetings.

"I think his politics are too conservative, but I think he's sincere in his beliefs," King said. "And he does really think through every issue."

Serving on five city committees, Brandon said lowering taxes and focusing on the current job market are concerns for him and other Council members. For him, high taxes and low wages are a continuing problem, and he's trying to take a new approach to solving them.

"Instead of looking at the symptoms, we're trying to find the cure," Brandon said. "The wages that we have aren't keeping pace with the housing market. Part of the solution can be housing, but we have to look at the other side of it."

King lightheartedly said budget and tax cuts are Brandon's "signature issues."

"It was certainly [something] where he's stuck to his guns," King said.

But while trimming the city's budget and helping keep down taxes for residents are concerning for Brandon, he said college students should also be wary of such issues.

"The college age generation just doesn't realize how powerful and influential it is. The more [the] generation chooses to get involved in what's going on, the more influence they'll have, and the better the world will be," Brandon said, adding he is disappointed there are no college students on the Council.

But King, who served on the council as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, said Brandon keeps bringing a little something to the City Council.

"I won't be in politics for the rest of my life and Zach probably will," he said.