Deputy Mayor Dr. Linda Vakunta never has a typical day at the mayor’s office. Instead, she faces new challenges, attends community events, and searches for new solutions.
“When I took on this job from the mayor, I said I want to do the job with joy,” she tells Madison365.
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway appointed Vakunta to the position last May. Since, Vakunta has visited numerous groups, schools, celebrations and meetings. After her 4 p.m. break, she decides which one out of the 25 committee meetings to attend on her list.
“When I started out, I was meeting with a lot of community leaders just to outline our priorities and to decrease the gaps of communication,” Vakunta said.
She wanted to introduce herself to the city as a resource, she explained. Before working for the City, Vakunta gained more than a decade of experience in grassroots community engagement and program development, monitoring and evaluation work.
Vakunta is also a founder and executive director of a Wisconsin-based non-profit called Project 1808, an organization working to improve the quality of education for students in Sierra Leone. Most recently, she worked as a researcher with Sustaining Natural Circle’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded grant on understanding the impacts of opioid use among African-American women in Madison.
“My role as a qualitative researcher was a way to understand the issues,” she said.
Vakunta found that there were a lot of systemic issues that stimulated the use of opioids among the women she met. In her current role, she attempts to improve the quality of life for residents of Madison. She focuses on housing, human services and health.
“The system needs to work hand and hand with those experiencing those issues,” she said.
However, her first priority is to move the Mayor’s agenda along. Vakunta shares this task with four other Deputy Mayors. This includes collaborating with other departments to ensure quality transportation, working to create racial equity, and creating more opportunities for affordable housing among maintaining the resources that keep the city running.
“I visited a lot of schools. There’s a lot of kids that want to participate in afterschool programs but we just don’t have enough of them so that is one of the things we’ve been working on,” Vakunta said.
Vakunta said the city works with private businesses, nonprofits, community organizations, and contractors to make sure the work of the city gets done. She also said the city is also working on improving the Request for Proposals (RFPs) to make it easier for residents to work with the city.
“We have to work with community members which is why we as deputy mayors are constantly out. There is nothing that can be solely solved by the city,” she said.
Vakunta also has one on one meetings with some of her colleagues. She said it has been important to develop working relationships within the city.
“We keep an eye out for policies coming from our alders so we meet their needs,” Vakunta said.
She also responds to constituents, connecting them with resources to address specific needs. Vakunta said the Mayor’s Office would like to be represented in as many communities as possible. She’s visited the Caribbean Association of Madison, African Association of Madison (AAM), Bayview and other communities.
“There’s a certain population that knows how to access this office and you hear from them all the time,” Vakunta said.
She said it is important that she is accessible to people that do not always view the Mayor’s Office as someone to call for help. Vakunta, alongside some of her colleagues, has an equitable focus or response to community engagement.
“For example, I’ve got people of color asking me about starting a business because as we know people of color struggle with starting a business and don’t always have access to resources,” Vakunta said.
She’s just one email away. Vakunta said the job feels more stable than before. She and her colleagues have found a natural rhythm to their work.
“I think we have some routine. We’ve built relationships. I think we have some priorities,” she said.
