Town of Edgertonv recently issued the following announcement.
The two Pauls will be back in the saddle for another term at Janesville City Hall, and they’ll be joined by a Rock County sheriff’s captain who walked away from Tuesday’s election with the bulk of the popular vote in his first shot at running for public office.
Longtime Janesville City Council member Paul Williams and council President Paul Benson—the two incumbents in a seven-way race for three council seats—snatched reelection, trailing only Aaron Burdick, who is head of the sheriff’s detective division.
Burdick won big in the election, garnering almost 4,000 votes. Burdick said he wasn’t sure what to expect being a newcomer in a field of seven candidates that included two sitting council members with years of experience on the council.
“To be the top vote-getter when you have those two incumbents is little bit surprising. But I knew … I could tell that I had support out there for my message. So it’s a good feeling,” Burdick said.
Collectively, Burdick, Williams and Benson grabbed just over half the votes in the election, leaving the other four challengers, Brian Bridges, Richard Neeno, Thomas L. Lepinski and Steph Meiklejohn, in the dust. Susan Johnson, the other incumbent on the council whose seat was up for reelection, did not run again.
Williams said he thinks he won because he ran a campaign like he usually does—one without a lot of flash or spending and one with no outside endorsements.
“After all, it is a nonpartisan race and office. Besides using yard signs that I’ve had since 2000, I went to the forums and I did the interviews. I would hope that after 14 years on the city council, people would know who I am and my philosophy. I want to do things as frugally as you can.”
Williams during his campaign and at city council meetings has openly questioned whether the city is moving too fast by spending on consultants for the proposed $28 million ice arena project at Uptown Janesville.
Williams was one of two council members who, during the final council meeting before the election, voted against the city buying the former Sears building at the mall. That is where the new two-sheet ice arena would go if the council ultimately approves the major public-private project.
Benson, who won a third full term on the council, said he wants to push for upgrades and fixes to the city-owned outdoor sports complex on Wuthering Hills Drive on the city’s far east side. Benson said that facility, built two decades ago, has some fields showing signs of wear.
“It has gotten to the point that it needs some TLC,” Benson said.
Benson said he would also like to broach the topic of a potential move of trucking traffic off Main Street in downtown Janesville, at least during the summer months. That could require designating another nearby street, possibly Centerway, as a conduit for truck traffic during the summer growing season, Benson said.
“That’s something that businesses on Main Street have said they really care about,” Benson said.
Burdick said he expects the ice arena to be among the most important items the council will wrestle with in the coming months. He said he thinks the city will need to take a long look at a potential funding gap that could hamper public safety in the city at a time when turnover is higher than normal
In the last year, the Janesville Police Department hired 20 new officers, but he said he is aware of the competition to hire anybody at City Hall. Burdick said it troubles him that hundreds of thousands of dollars the city had used to bridge a revenue gap and bolster public safety spending will sunset at the end of 2022.
“We’ve seen 40-year lows in the local crime rate. And we need to keep looking at our fire personnel. You don’t want to see any of what we’ve reached recently diminished because of that shortfall,” Burdick said
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