Despite demands to delay Wisconsin's spring election due to coronavirus concerns, it's still set for April 7. So on Tuesday, Milwaukee County residents will vote for the next county executive. Two state lawmakers are vying for the position: Democratic state Rep. David Crowley and Democratic state Sen. Chris Larson.
>>Wisconsin Spring Election Blog
>>Meet The Milwaukee County Executive Candidates
>>What Lies Ahead For The Future Milwaukee County Executive
To learn more about each candidate, we interviewed both of them. You can listen to Crowley’s interview here, and Larson’s is below.
What are the biggest challenges facing the county?
“Grappling with COVID-19. Making sure that the health care professionals are coordinated across the county, making sure that public resources are available," Larson says. "As much as the community needs to step up, I know in other parts of the country, they've been making masks and making other things available to them. We're going to do that. And then beyond that, we're gonna have an economic scar that we have to heal."
The county budget has been a problem for the county to balance. How does the current public health crisis exacerbate that or what is the effect?
“Even when we started this campaign, we knew it was going to be dire once we got in office. But I do think we have to look at it as an opportunity. After the 2008 economic crisis, there were stimulus funds available. For those communities that put their hand up, those are the places that got the funds. For us, we're going to make sure we have those blueprints ready so that we have something like a jobs program right here to put people back to work,” Larson says.
What is one last message you want to send to voters before they head to the polls?
“I think there's been a tendency to say the government should act like a business. And if this crisis is exposing anything, it's that's not the case," Larson explains. "We need to be looking at each other more as a family, looking at each other not as strangers but as neighbors. And when you start to do that, you recognize we need to take care of each other. And we can do bigger things when we work together, like build roads, maintain our parks, right? If we are working together as one neighborhood, there's nothing we can do. And that's why we're running. That's why I'm excited to be the next Milwaukee County executive.”
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