Q&A: ‘Mayor Dan’ Bukiewicz of Oak Creek looks to help flip Wisconsin Assembly for Democrats

Control of the Wisconsin State Legislature is on the line this election as Democrats look to claim the trifecta — control of both chambers and the governor’s office.

One of those competitive races is unfolding in Wisconsin’s 21st Assembly District, which includes Oak Creek, and parts of Milwaukee and Greenfield.

Republican Jessie Rodriguez represented the district for nearly 13 years. She is not seeking reelection and instead endorsed the Republican in the race. The Democrats see an opportunity to flip the seat.

Oak Creek Mayor Dan Bukiewicz, the Democrat in the race, looks to continue working alongside Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, but this time in Madison at the Capitol.

Bukiewicz has led the Milwaukee County suburb as mayor for 10 years. Prior to that, he was an alderman for 10 years. He was born and raised in Milwaukee and graduated from Hamilton High School. He is known as “Mayor Dan” around town.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Courier, Bukiewicz said he’s worried about declining populations throughout the state and wants to draw more residents to his city, the district he seeks, and Wisconsin as a whole.

He worked with Crowley, the Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor, to help deliver the county’s first affordable subdivision to Oak Creek. In the interview, Bukiewicz discussed his tenure in municipal government, why he is seeking to become a state legislator, and the 40-year age difference between himself and his Republican opponent, Dylan Pfaffenbach.

Bukiewicz said lack of experience should be a determining factor in picking an Assemblyman. ”You've never been an active part of a community,” he said of the 21-year-old Republican.

Pfaffenbach replied to Bukiewicz in a statement to the Courier.

“I’ve spent the last five years working on public policy in both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature, most recently serving as a Legislative Aide in the State Senate,” he said. “My opponent should be more focused on knocking on doors and listening to voters than running misleading campaign ads and giving conflicting messages on data centers. To me, maturity is demonstrated through actions, not age, something I believe has become quite clear throughout this race. My focus remains on representing the community I was born and raised in.”

Here is the full interview with Bukiewicz, lightly edited for clarity:

What are you hearing on the ground? What are voters talking about to you?

You know, we've done a lot of doors. We've done 20,000-plus doors and myself, I get a fair number of them in, not all of them, but a fair number. It's affordability, people are really concerned about making ends meet. And I'm not talking about just going on vacation and doing the things people like to do recreationally. We're talking about groceries, tax bills, being able to make mortgage payments, medical bills, things of that nature. Nothing has helped on the federal level and they talk about trickled down economics, it trickled down and what trickled down was the expense of it all on the back of working people.

What would be the top priorities for the Assembly if Democrats win the trifecta?

It would be coming up with a better way to do shared revenue and getting the money back into municipalities that know where their communities need it the most. The shared revenue, the general transportation aid, all of these formulas were created a very long time ago and they need to be re-examined, so people can make sure that they have the services that they're paying taxes for. For streets, plowing, garbage pickup, police, fire, schools. The things that are the backbone of our community that make quality of life worth living throughout communities in Wisconsin. It really has to be first and foremost because that's what's going to get people. All that is supported by property taxes, and we send a lot of money to Madison, not just in the 21st District, but everywhere, and it's just not coming back to serve those folks.

You're Milwaukee born and raised, you graduated from Hamilton High School. How did you find your way into Oak Creek and eventually mayor?

I think it's pretty unique. I'm a high school graduate. What I did right out of high school is I started to work in construction and I pursued an apprenticeship through the IBW and became an electrician. I became an apprentice. And of all places, how I wound up in Oak Creek, I was serving my apprenticeship in Oak Creek (which) is home to PPG Paint. It's a factory on the southern end of Oak Creek, and they were adding on to the factory at the time, and I was a first-year apprentice. And I was sent down there to work on the construction site and it was more than a year buildout. So I was traveling down. I was still living in Milwaukee. And I was traveling down and I'd be in Oak Creek and after work, I'd stop at the grocery store, I'd stop with guys and I came to a conclusion that Oak Creek would be a pretty cool place to live. And, when I was at that age, where I was living with my parents, it was getting time to move out. I had a career, I had my roots down, and I decided I was gonna live in Oak Creek. It was a pretty cool kept secret at the time. And I pursued a house, much like now, housing costs were high, interest rates were high. I was an apprentice. I couldn't afford a lot. I put a bid on a house anyway. I couldn't make the deal happen. And I decided to build because it was affordable down here. And I literally bought a lot and built a house. I'm still in that house today. And that's how I wound up in Oak Creek. And as I advanced through my career, I became a journey person in the electrical trade, and a foreman and a project manager, and then I ran a department, and people in my neighborhood were like, you volunteer for everything, you're very community minded, civic minded, you'd make a good alder person. Why don't you run? And like most people, when the question's put before you, you start to come up with excuses. I don't have time. I don't have this. My wife said to me, ‘you always say if you can make a difference, go for it. It's time to walk the walk if you're going to talk the talk.’ So she was right, and I ran for alder person, and I won, and I won successfully for another five terms. So I was an alder person for 10 years. And then the opportunity came to be the mayor and people encouraged me. They liked the way I handled my district as an alder person. And I became the mayor and I've been the mayor for another 10 years. So, I'm going on my 20th year of part-time municipal government.

Oak Creek is one of those municipalities within Milwaukee County. Have you had an opportunity to work closely with County Executive Crowley?

Yes, quite a few. I chair an organization called the ICC, the Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee, where all village presidents, mayors, county executives get together once a month and talk about issues that affect all of us here in Milwaukee County, from shared services, such as transportation, affiliated libraries, to parks and roads and things of that nature. So, yeah, I've worked with David on a number of projects and the most recent was affordable housing right here in Oak Creek. And the county had some land and he came in and he wanted to get some housing down here, and Oak Creek has some different zoning and what have you. We got the properties rezoned properly, and I'm proud to say that, we're going to do Habitat for Humanity down here in Oak Creek and create a subdivision of that. And it's a very unique contract, where the county will hold the land and the homes will be built, people can join the community and get down here in Oak Creek and build a new home.

Can you lay out the history of the power plant in Oak Creek?

The power plant plays an important role in Oak Creek’s history. So, the power plant came down here in the 50s, and we were the village of Oak Creek at the time in the 50s, and the city of Milwaukee was looking to annex Oak Creek to get the power plant. And at the time, the village president, the trustees, decided to incorporate the city of Oak Creek and make it a city. And long story short, they went through all the processes and what have you. And actually, it was in October of 1955 that Oak Creek made its way up to Madison and it's kind of a local legend. All the trustees and the village president at the time made themselves unavailable to the city of Milwaukee because the city of Milwaukee wanted to move quickly to annex. And they literally went down in Illinois up through Rockford to get to Madison to file the paperwork to incorporate us into a city. And that happened December 16th, 1955. So the power plant's been an important part of Oak Creek for a very, very long time. It's really the reason we've become a city.

You have a labor and working class background. Would you look to repeal Act 10 put in place by former Gov. Scott Walker’s administration?

Certainly. I mean, if the legislature is going there. That was a very unjust law to be able to say that you have to give services to people that don't contribute to them. It's very much like saying, I want to golf on a private golf course without paying the dues for it. It was a law that probably never should have been. It was unnecessary. I don't know why it was there. I mean, obviously, I come from a labor background. Unions provide a voice for working people that don't have it themselves. And unions built the middle class, and the middle class built America. You need balance in everything you do, whether it's government, family and work, balance is important, and the unions are the great equalizer in that.

Your opponent is 40 years younger than you. Do you believe youth and inexperience has a negative affect on your ability to lead the district?

Well, youth can serve you in a lot of capacities, particularly if you're young and you're playing sports and things of that nature. But when it comes to doing legislation, you need a wide view of experiences. And unfortunately, when you're young, you just haven't been exposed to them. I've come up through my apprenticeship. I figured out how to get a house, how to pay taxes, how to raise a family, I put children into school, I helped my elderly mother through Medicare. It's a wide variety of life experiences that help you to have a different vision of the things you're going to have to deal with, everything from childcare tax credits, to funding of schools, to BadgerCare, to Medicare supplements, and youth just doesn't provide that to you. You know, having paid taxes on a home for 30-plus years, you start to realize why that money is important to pay, why it should be fair and just. Again, at that age, you just don't have those experiences and you're going to be making laws that affect every community in the state without a ton of experience there. It's not that being young prohibits you from taking part in the Legislature. Just given the vast difference in experience, I can't say that it would be a plus to have somebody up there that hasn't been through developmental deals, dealt with tiffs, realized just how important development is to communities. And to deal with people's problems and quality of life, having taken those phone calls as a mayor and alder person. That all adds up to experience, and I think that's beneficial to the taxpayers.

Policy wise, what’s the difference between yourself and your opponent?

I think it’s more of the same thing we’ve always had. We didn't have representation that came to the community and said, what do you need? What are you working on? You've never been an active part of a community. That takes some time and some effort to understand how the community works, what they're striving for and who they are. I think there'd be a big disconnect, quite frankly, as to what the district needs, not only the Oak Creek portion, but in particular, the Milwaukee portion. I grew up in Milwaukee. My sister's an MPS teacher, very connected. I work in Milwaukee for my day job. So I'm very connected to Milwaukee and any issues they face as well. Which is a different set of issues than you find in Oak Creek.

So what is your current day job?

My current day job is I'm the president of the Milwaukee Building Construction Trades Council. So since being an electrician, I've become the president. I represent all the unionized trades that are building our roads and factories and buildings ensuring that people have a safe work environment, are fairly paid, that they go through registered apprenticeship, and that they have family supporting careers. And more importantly, that the developments coming forward help support the people that live here locally.

That’s a lot of hats. Would you step down as mayor of Oak Creek if elected to the Assembly?

I've had people at the doors ask me to stay. At this point in time, I'd wait to see how the election goes before I'd say, because chances are, I could fail in my attempt. And then I would run for mayor. I really very much enjoy being the mayor. But we want to make sure that the community's taken care of as well. So, you cross that bridge after the election. Right now, what's on my mind is clearing the election, winning the election.

What is the message you want to spread to readers?

You know, the message I want to spread is that the representation we need in the 21st district has to be for all the people of the 21st district. As I said, the concerns in Milwaukee vary from schools to being buried by taxes to affordability. Those are the largest three I am hearing. We need a representative that's going to take these problems and be willing to address them. And work across the aisles to come up with something, and if it's a good idea, embrace it, even if it's not yours. What you're really here to do is represent the people. And the people of the 21st deserve a representative that's going to help enhance their quality of life. I like to believe I've been doing that as an alder person and mayor for 20 years. I know what a family supporting career looks like. People shouldn't have to work three jobs to try to make ends meet. There's quality of life issues here. So, we have to get Wisconsin back on track. Make sure that opportunities are here, that the education is there. So when people get out, they're prepared for the workforce, regardless of what they choose. And if they go on to higher education and graduate, they get to make their residence here in Wisconsin. We have to make Wisconsin an attractive place, not only to educate yourself, raise your family, but to live, work and play. The way the state's been rolling lately, you see declining populations in some of the areas of the state, and we can't have that. We have to shore it all up. Whether you're deciding to live in a rural area or an urban area it makes no difference. We have to make sure that the things you need in that community are provided, and that's government's job is to make sure those things are met.