Milwaukee educator Amber Danyus has thrown her hat into the ring to represent Milwaukee’s far north side on the Common Council.
“Milwaukee is my home, and I care deeply about it,” Danyus said in an interview Friday.
She is one of six candidates vying to replace Chantia Lewis, who was removed from office after admitting to misuse of campaign funds.
Danyus works as an academic interventionist in a Milwaukee city charter school, and has previously worked in Milwaukee Public Schools. She wants to bring her care for students to the council.
“As educators, we prioritize our kids every day. We’re charged with doing all of the things, raising them, feeding them, nurturing them, all of the things,” she said. “I want to see us do that at a city level, when they leave our school building, I want to see us as leaders do that for them in their homes, and in their neighborhoods. That’s what inspired me to run.”
The other priority for Danyus is to make sure people on the other end of the age spectrum are cared for, too.
“In my mind, the end goal is to make sure that our youth and our seniors are good. When we can say as a city that our youth and our seniors are taken care of and prospering, we can say that our city is functioning well. We can say our city is in good shape,” she said. “ This is the closest elected official to the people, and I think that’s a big responsibility. We can really have an impact there.”
She also said she hopes to get more people involved, noting that typically only about 20 percent of the roughly 26,000 voters in the district turn out to vote.
“I want to get to know folks and I want them to be able to get to know me,” she said. “That’s my whole goal is just to get more folks involved in this process … I want to see more folks being engaged. And that comes with inspiring them to know why they should pay attention. I hope that I’m able to do that.”
Danyus said she’s running with the future of her 3-year-old son in mind.
“As a mom and an educator, I’m wired differently. I’m just wired to go above and beyond the call of duty,” she said. “That’s just a natural instinct of mine. We need people like that, that put others before themselves.”
The primary election on February 21 will winnow the field of candidates to two, and the general election will take place April 4.
This story originally said Danyus is currently an educator in MPS. It has been corrected to accurately reflect that she worked in MPS previously but now works at a city charter school.
