“People deserve to live in dignity, and alders are here to facilitate that,” said Ellen Zhang, recently elected District 8 alder.
Zhang was recently elected as the campus-area alder for the City of Madison and will be sworn in today at noon in a special ceremony at the City-County Building downtown. She comes in with the endorsement of its previous alder, MGR Govindarjan, who announced he would not run for reelection this past November. She beat another student, Bobby Gornet, by over 1,200 votes. Zhang ran on a platform of increased affordability, tenant protections, transportation, public safety, sustainable infrastructure and affirming Madison’s sanctuary city status.
Zhang is a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studies economics and sociology while also pursuing certificates in gender and women’s studies and data science. She describes herself as a student, artist and activist of Chinese-American parents from the Green Bay area.
Politics isn’t necessarily what Zhang wanted to get into, but she believed it was the best vehicle to make meaningful change.
“I care about solving people’s problems, and I really like talking to people, and I really like reading reports,” Zhang said. “I ran for alder because I think that [checks] all those boxes.”
She thinks an aldership maximizes the impact she can make.
“I think that if the city has jurisdiction over transportation and has pretty strong influence over housing affordability, development, those kinds of projects, then it seems very natural that looking towards the city as a vehicle to solve these very immediate material conditions is the way to go,” Zhang said.
But she does not necessarily see herself as a career politician — unless that is what is the avenue for maximum impact.
“I am more interested in solving problems than getting clout for it,” Zhang said. “Right now, it seems like alder is a really effective way to do that. But, if down the line, it’s just being a policy analyst in some other area, or working at a think tank nonprofit, then I’ll do that. I try to live in the moment, and I take opportunities as they come. I’m not going to close any doors.”
(Photo supplied.)
Inequalities in housing for communities of color are one of the key points Zhang hopes to work on. She notes that there is projected to be a solid, continuous rise in the city’s population that needs to be proactively addressed, but the quality of life needs to be preserved for those who are already here.
Zhang envisions diversifying the kinds of housing available as a solution as opposed to “imposing new high rises everywhere,” she said.
“There’s a lot of high rise apartment buildings, and then there’s a lot of single family homes, but there’s not many townhouses, condos, triplexes, and I think people want to have flexible options and locations where they can live rather than just having the amenities of downtown without the space, or being further away and then being unable to get around,” Zhang said.
There is no middle mode of residency for the people of Madison, Zhang said.
A key aspect of Zhang’s housing push is to also maintain the quality and hold landlords accountable — especially in bolstering the few tenant protections in the state.
No ready solution comes to mind for Zhang. Creativity is needed to get around rights and zoning that were banned at the state level, she said.
“It’s about investigation and asking questions,” Zhang said. “One organization I’ve been in contact with is Madison Tenant Power, which has a vision for really strong tenant organizing and people being able to understand the issues of their neighbors, and how there’s a common struggle.”
One of the means, and a central point that ties her platform on sustainable infrastructure to housing, is requiring buildings to disclose if they’re energy efficient. Part of Zhang’s motivation stems from her own experience when she moved into her apartment — and how others may be baffled by unrealized costs.
In the winter, Zhang was told to keep her heat on for the entire month of January. While residents can expect generally higher utilities during the colder months, Zhang did not expect a bill $110 higher than her bill in October.
“I didn’t really know what other fees would look like after I moved in,” Zhang said. “That kind of transparency, I think, a lot of people are looking for when they move into a place. The landlord will tell you this is how much parking is, but other fees come up that, for a lot of first-time renters, like students, they don’t even know to be asking questions about or have that kind of cognizance for.”
An energy-efficient building can alleviate some of the financial strain on residents and landlords. In 2025, Efficiency Navigator in Madison and Fitchburg improved affordable housing to become more energy efficient. The result led to a reduction in energy bills by $700-$900 across 128 units in 20 buildings.
Keeping students centered in changes to the city
Zhang’s district encompasses the campus area, but not all students live there, and the population cycles heavily based on the time of year.
Some big decisions in Madison have been made while students have been gone — like the Madison Metro bus route revamp in June 2023. Students were largely not there for the rollout and community sessions and were not able to give ample feedback on changes until their return near the start of the semester.
Zhang believes that it is her job to keep students as informed as possible, even when they’re away from Madison.
“A lot of the campaign was conducted on social media because anyone can look at their phone at any time,” Zhang said. “Having that kind of information really easily transmissible is important.”
Students are a permanent fixture of Madison, albeit transient in how often they move around, and need to have a solid place at the table for decisions in the city, Zhang said. While her district only has around 15,000 residents, its over 40,000 students are still affected by decisions made for the entire city.
“There’s a lot of shared struggle between their students in their rental situations and this kind of transience and difficulty navigating new situations,” Zhang said.
Zhang has skin in the game for how decisions affect both students and residents. Her family is now all across Dane County, so she feels a vested interest in the progress of both the campus area and the suburbs and rural outskirts. She hopes to make them both equally livable and accessible.
One key example of the shared struggles, past housing, is certain intersections that feel both “inconvenient for everybody and unsafe for everybody,” Zhang calls some areas of the city.
She pointed to areas like University Avenue near UW-Madison’s engineering building that branches into the old university area on Campus Drive. A bike lane suddenly cuts through three lanes of traffic and a bus lane on the street near the railroad.
“There’s the juxtaposition of terrible intersections, but I do love biking around. There’s hope for the future,” Zhang said.
Zhang hopes that people know that the government can be an avenue to solve problems that people see, and that she can use her position to help address issues.
“There is a city and administration that exists to serve and exists to solve these problems and make life more livable so that people can have fun rather than worrying about how they’re going to get home and how they’re going to pay for rent,” Zhang said.
Zhang will be sworn into office today at the City-County Building.
