Transcript
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway on Leading Madison (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Mon Apr 20, 2026
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It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
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Yeah, come on!
Here's Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
Dude!
Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy Monday, everybody.
Great to have you here with us as we kick off another week of Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
I am Pete Schwabba, sitting just upstate from Greg Bach, who comes to us live from a radio park in beautiful Racine, Wisconsin.
And then Dom Lee, as we affectionately call him, joins us from Madison, where he works the board and produces the show.
We are the Yatter Hay Triangle.
Happy to be of service.
Hey guys, how are you?
There you
Well, you
you know, uh
Yeah, it's an art.
It's a Well, someone is in a sassy mood this Monday, I can see right here and there
mr. Peer job you come
on mr. Conversation is an art You did there was a little bit of stank on it.
I'm not gonna lie
Well, I apologize.
It's still, it's the after effects of the anesthesia
I had.
I'll
fill you
in
in just a minute, but
I'd like to
know how you're doing, buddy.
Great.
Cause Monday is great.
You know, I mean, honestly, woke up today.
It's kind of lazy.
I had a long day yesterday.
I will talk about that in a little bit as well, but.
you know, just try to enjoy the week, getting ready for the show today, hanging out with my dog.
My wife is out of town on business.
So it's just me and the, me and the puppers.
And I want to make sure she's taken care of.
I don't like leaving her at home too much.
So I was trying to hang out with her as much as possible.
So, you know, it's a good day.
And then, and the, and it happened to not rain again today.
So that's good.
It didn't rain today.
It was.
Oh, thank goodness.
Last week, it was a nothing but water in the sky.
You guys got hit.
You guys got rain and we got cold wind.
It's brutal.
We were driving around the county this weekend and we just saw tons of flooding, like, you know, just properties just covered
it.
I
mean, not like flooding in their houses, but just like when you look, I mean, when you drive out in the farmlands, cause like you go like, you go five minutes in any direction in Kenosha, it's farmland.
And there's just like.
Sopping water everywhere because of all the rain that happened last week.
So we're very lucky.
We got nothing in our house.
We got nothing on our property.
So we're good there.
But it was nice today to have, it was chilly.
It was a crisp, chilly day, but it was sun shining and it was dry.
So I'll take that.
Absolutely.
And you know what's
that?
When there's no wind, it's not even bad.
Like I can handle 30 if
there's no
wind.
That's actually fine.
You know, so I'm totally with you.
Dom, how you doing?
But you have a good weekend, Dom?
I did, yeah.
I
in any- It's like how you said it, like, I like pickleball.
Respect my decisions.
I want to let you
know.
Anticipating an onslaught of insults.
Oh, athlete, huh?
Real jock.
No, I'm kidding.
Question.
Yeah, what's the question?
Were you the youngest person there?
Who's the whipper snapper?
Who
the ringer?
Who's Mr. I don't have to stretch.
Oh, Mr. My Knees perfectly
well for the next
learned,
I'm in
You know, that's awesome.
It's young pickleball.
It's called cucumber ball.
It's just, you know, a bunch of young people playing the exact same.
Cause see what happens is when you take a pickle, pickle used to be a cucumber.
That's fine.
I'll tell you about it later.
By the way, folks, if you want to be part of the conversation, as we already starting to see on the live stream, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five.
Civic leave a comment on the live stream.
We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform.
We still call Twitter.
Our buddy Tony up in Ashland said, hmm, pickleball.
Interesting.
Are you trying to hustle in the park here, buddy?
Tony,
don't want
Rob from Tigerton says, I was 30 miles from the Ringel tornado and the new London floods.
Well, Rob, I'm glad you're here with us today.
Staying safe, being amazing.
And don't forget, Rob, drink that water.
Okay.
Drink that water.
He knows what I'm talking about.
Is that an inside joke?
It's not even an inside joke.
It's a real thing.
He was talking about the fact last year or the year before that he was, you know, it was, he was drinking more water, getting more water in his life because he needs it.
And that's important.
We all need more water as Dom pulls out his water bottle.
So yeah.
I want
to make a joke about how Tony may because he's an Ashland pickleball hasn't gotten there yet because it's such a small town.
But look at me, the pot calling the kettle black.
I was going to
say,
I
was here.
I'm sure Tony has it.
Although I learned how to play pickleball in the streets, fellas.
I would carry my paddle around going head to head with guys.
And that's how I learned.
So go walking around the area here, looking for a pickup pickup, pick a pickleball game.
It's really hard to really hard sentence to say, pick a pickleball game.
He can't do it.
I started with
chicken.
Yeah, go ahead, Rob.
I'm looking at the stream.
I
was going to say, uh, what do we have?
We have a packed show tonight.
We got a big show.
Great show.
We have a huge show tonight.
It's, it's a massive show.
Um, and tonight we have a Satya Rhodes Conway.
Do you know who she is?
Greg?
Yes, I do.
She is the mayor of Madison, the 58th mayor of Madison is here with us tonight on the show.
We're going to talk to her about Madison and it's a great topic because.
Who doesn't love to talk about our state's capital?
And she is the mayor of her beloved city and we'll talk to her about Madison and what's going on there and her challenges she faces, all kinds of stuff at 535.
Then we have Dr. Kristen Lyrely, rock star OBGYN.
You probably never thought those two things would be used in the same sentence, but if there is one, she is it.
And she's also a very successful podcaster and does a great job as a host of her own podcast.
So
Uh, Kristen Lyrely will be here at 620 and you know what we're going to talk about guys at 620 with Dr. Lyrely?
What?
My colonoscopy that I had today.
All right.
Good.
I'm glad you
got one.
I did.
Did I take a day off though?
No, I'm still dealing with the effects of the anesthesia, which is the reason I was scared to get a colonoscopy.
I don't like going under, but I
bet you don't really go under on that stuff.
Like it's not like super going under.
Like it's like the lead.
It's like the light
stuff.
It's the light stuff.
You're right.
But I
will say, Greg, I, he gave me, he said, all right, we're going to hook you up here.
I, my face started tingling in about two seconds.
In the next thing I knew I woke up and it was over.
It was fast, but there's like five people in the room, all about business.
And, uh, but the everybody, what everybody says is correct.
The prep is the worst because I had to drink about 200 ounces of water yesterday with these pills.
And
you spend so much time in the bathroom.
You got to plan your whole day around it.
Like you got to.
basically plug your phone in in the bathroom.
That's where you're going to be.
You know, it was kind of brutal.
I mean, the prep isn't great, but I will tell you, I'll, I'll say this, you know, for my, I had one last year, the prep was wildly overdone by the people around me.
They were making it seem like it was going to be miserable.
For me, in fact, the worst thing was the, the eating guidelines.
I got this piece of paper.
They said, you have to do it like this, like how you can eat, what you can eat, when you can eat it.
And that was the, the prep wasn't that bad.
I mean,
The effects of the prep were not great, but I expected that.
I knew that was
going
to happen.
It was just the matter of like, all right, from this time, this time, I can no longer eat these foods.
And
that, you know, that kind of thing.
So I'm not saying it was an enjoyable experience.
I'm glad I did it.
I have to go back in a couple of years, but it was not as tough as I thought it was going to be.
And I didn't even know they had pills.
So.
Those
I think the pills are kind of new here's the weird thing quickly I just I found out that once your body is completely cleansed of everything Yeah, I felt weird eat.
I'm like I almost didn't want to eat.
I'm like I'm as pure as the day I was born more or less
But, you know, you're starving by
the
time.
Oh,
when I got home, I had pasta and ice cream waiting for me.
That was what I was like.
Before we get into the news, really quick, Cindy from Appleton is on the
line
talking about colonoscopies.
Good afternoon,
Cindy.
Hello.
Well, I guess if you don't have a high risk, you know, history in your family, there is apparently a blood test now you can have done where you don't have to go through all that other crap.
Well, good words.
You're right, Cindy.
And I think there's something you can kind of do at home and mail it in.
Kola guard.
Kola guard, right.
But if they find something, it could take a month.
And that's what I was worried about.
Like, what if they find something that's nothing, you still have to wait a month.
But everybody does things differently.
The important thing is just to get checked.
Exactly,
exactly.
And we'll talk to Dr. Lyle about that, specifically about men's health as well and the importance of men.
Thank you so much, by the way, Cindy, for calling.
Always love hearing from you.
But it's important for men.
to really, you know, there is, there is a problem with men going to the doctor, listening to the doctor, getting what they need to get done, done.
So we'll talk to Dr. Lyley about that in the second hour as well.
And really quick too, Tony on the live stream says, speaking of drinking enough water, how is everyone's CPAP machines?
My CPAP machine is great.
It's clean.
It's amazing.
It's keeping me from not falling asleep.
I
love it.
Look at Greg with his water.
Hey, before we get to some news, folks, let's quickly get to the question of the night here on Monday.
Oh, yeah, that's
right.
That's right.
Oh my goodness.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Domanda.
Question.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, here's your question for Monday on Nightlight.
What is a really overrated song?
Oh boy.
What is a really overrated song?
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2-8-5-5-7-5 Civic.
You can also text us on the app.
Or if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or ex Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment there too and let us know a song you think is overrated.
There's tons of them.
I feel like this is going to be a popular question
tonight.
Oh yes.
I feel like we're going to have a lot of answers this evening.
But without any further ado, before we have to hit the first break, let us get to our first story of the evening.
the first big story.
So apparently, Zoom will now check if you are a human or an AI imposter during video meetings, to which I say, what?
Like,
I've been on
Zoom meetings.
I've been on, I mean, I've been on work calls with video components and I've never once in my life thought that anybody on there was an AI image.
So, but apparently,
Pete, this is such a big deal that the feature of there's a feature on their newly launched update.
Oh, no, I take it back.
No, this is the funny part.
So to do the zoom call checks, they are going to they are going to implement a feature will ask you whether you're human.
And they're partnering with world, which is Sam Altman's iris scanning identify identity company previously known as world coin.
That sounds suspicious.
And
Sam Altman is the creator of chat GPT at open AI.
Like he is the AI king, essentially.
And he's going to be the one in charge of making sure we're real.
I find this very weird.
I
feel like fundamental, like we have to identify ourselves basically to AI.
We're asking AI for acceptance now.
It's so strange.
I mean, just look for the coworkers with the five or six fingers, you know, the AI, but obviously.
There's a, uh, there's a monetary component to this.
Somebody ripped
off
a company or something.
I don't even know how that happened, but yeah, it is a weird age we live in.
And there's like, there's going to be verification processes, like a three step thing.
It sounds like a headache to me where people won't even want to have zoom meet.
People go back to old fashioned meetings, Greg, where we all meet in the boardroom.
Oh, thank God.
I've always wanted a key to the executive washroom myself.
I think the easiest way to verify if people are actually real is just to say, hey, who on this call doesn't want to be on this call?
Just watch all the hands rise.
They're all human.
Every
single one of them are human.
Boom.
Done.
Check.
I don't even need Zoom to pay me for that.
That is free for you, Zoom.
Don't work with Sam Ultman.
They're ruining the world.
All
right.
They're ruining the world from world.
Folks, we have two more huge stories coming up and a great show for you tonight.
Kristen Lyrely is here.
The mayor of Madison is coming up after the news at 535.
And when we come back, one of our big stories, well, let's just say it involves a fruit and a cake.
I'm Pete Schwabba.
He's Greg Box.
This is Nightlight.
Great to have you on this Monday.
We're coming right back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
started.
What is that song down?
Let's say the name of that again.
That is soul
finger by the bar case.
Yes soul finger.
I love that tune.
One of the funniest lines from a movie ever Spies like us where they say that's soul finger by the bar case in their middle of like wintery Russia and Chevy Chase just says they must have trouble getting gigs
That's a great movie like it had like five really funny moments in it, but it was so ridiculous like I wonder if
I like
it
Oh my gosh.
It's got like 30 funny moments in that movie.
There's like a thousand funny moments in that movie.
I think we have a contender for a potential
movie night.
There you go.
There you go.
This is Nightlight, folks.
Great to have you with us on this Monday.
Hoping we are helping you ease into your week.
We're in the middle of our three big stories.
We've got two left.
Dom, if you please.
The second big story.
Well, go ahead, Greg.
I know this one is near and dear to your heart.
This is a great one.
So if anyone knew this late 2024, early 2025, the onion was in the running to purchase the intellectual property.
The onion, by the way, if you don't know is a satirical newspaper.
World famous started in Madison.
They were in the running.
They were actually going to be purchasing the intellectual property that was info wars.
The website and show still run by Alex Jones.
But due to court matters, it was that deal did not go through.
Well, there has been new information that the onion is getting closer and closer to striking a deal.
to use the name likeness and all of the Infowars material for their own satirical side project, if you will, from the Onion, where it would be specifically satirizing political conspiracy theories, or I'm sorry, just conspiracy theories itself.
So that is back on the line again.
And according to, according to this article in the New York Times, and I love this, the Onion's parent company, which is called Global Tetrahedron, which
God, I love that set of those two words together.
Would pay $81,000 a month to licenseinfowars.com and it's associated intellectual property such as the name.
It's for the initial six months and then would renew after another six months depending on the deal.
But we could be seeing an info wars run by the onion.
And what's really, really a fun part of this whole story, Pete, is that they hired as their, what did, I want to see here,
There's their chief director of info wars.
This is a real title Tim Highdecker of Tim and Eric awesome show great job And also he's been in Marvel movies and he's been on TV shows and movies as well He is their chief director of info wars and they have this is not a joke.
They have a plan there They want to they want to have characters on there that are in the Alex Jones world and they're going to
basically satirized conspiracy theories in the realm of what they do on the actual info wars website.
It's kind of strange.
Like the onion can do no wrong.
Like some of their headlines are funnier than others.
I don't know why they kind of, well, they, they satirize things anyway, but to actually purchase or license info wars.
And I think it's funny too that the words intellectual property or intellectual at all has anything to do with info wars because there's nothing intellectual about it.
But it is strange that they want to spend all that money, but I guess the onion has the money because they're going to, they're going to satirize it anyway.
Um, so I don't know.
It's, it's interesting.
Well, and then the other great thing too, it says in the article here, uh, they're, they're, um, CEO of global tetrahedron.
I just like saying the name Ben Collins says, he says, we're excited to lie constantly for cold hard cash, but this time in a cool way, and we'll make sure some of it gets back to the families.
In fact, one of the great things about it was that the families agreed to let.
the onion or their parent company do a bidding on this, even though it was far below, because the whole thing is they want to sell off info wars to pay these families because Alex Jones owns them like, you know, $1.6 billion.
Yeah.
So they actually said, you know what, we know it's for less, but we know you'll do something great.
And they said they made the commitment that if it happens, they will get money to them as a way of compensating.
So everyone, except for Alex Jones, hopefully wins, but it's not through yet.
A judge still has to sign off on this, but this is where it's going.
And I think this would be wonderful.
And that's the best part of the story is that the, where the money will go.
And I, what's so funny is that Alex, like the onion, if you take the two publications side by side, the onion has the facts straight more than Alex.
Oh yeah.
There are onion headlines I read and I'm like, is that true?
Oh no, it's the onion.
But it's just how crazy our world, I still see headlines where I'm like, the onion didn't write this.
Like.
In this New York Times article, they have a picture of, which by the way, I love the fact that I think four times a year, they do a physical print of the onion again, which
the onion has
changed over the past couple of years.
It's left its big corporate thing.
A bunch of artists got together and bought the property and now they're in charge.
I think it's great.
But even looking at this one right here, it just says twin absorbed sibling at 62.
I'm like, come on.
That's an amazing headline.
I
posted like three of them in the last month.
Literally, I was on the floor.
They're just
so
great and they're still crushing it.
Let's get to our third and final story.
There we go.
The third big story.
All right, Greg.
This one's all mine, buddy.
Okay.
Pineapple upside down cake.
Oh, yeah.
National pineapple
upside
down cake day.
Love it.
It's okay.
Some cake.
Ever.
There was a
cake that deserved a national holiday.
It's the pineapple upside down cake.
Now I don't like
I like fruit.
I like cake.
I don't like them together.
There's something about the texture.
So you don't
like
cherry pie?
Not particularly.
Well, that's pie.
Pie is different.
It's a different texture with the crust.
I don't like the spongy cake with the fruit, typically, or exceptions to every rule.
But yeah, fruit cake at Christmas, pass.
Pineapple upside down cake.
I don't think I'd like it.
I'm sure the cake gets saturated with that delicious pineapple, but I just don't need those two things together.
You
heard it here first, folks.
Pete Schwabba passes on fruit cake.
Conversation is an art.
See, I don't have an opinion because I've actually never had it.
I've always wanted to have it, but honestly, it's one of those cakes nowadays.
People don't really make, you know.
They don't really, I mean, I'm sure you can buy one in the store, but I feel like
pineapple upside down cake is one of those homemade cakes because of everything goes into it.
But yeah, I mean, what I love though, Pete, about you is that you totally gave it its flowers and then totally spoke honestly about your opinion about what I have to imagine is a delicious, very heavy cake.
What are we doing here?
Dom, would it kill you to have a pineapple upside down cake ready tomorrow
when I went to the studio?
I will prepare
it.
Yes.
Okay.
By
the way, I'll be in Madison tomorrow.
Excited to see Dom.
Greg will include you.
We're not going to say anything behind your back.
I promise.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.
We are coming right back with the mayor of Madison folks.
Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.
We're coming to you live.
I'm in Racine at Radio Park.
Dom is all the way in HQ in Madison and rounding out the Yadarhe Triangle in Marinette, Wisconsin, AKA Christmas City, USA, is Mr. Pete Schwabba.
And we're so happy to have you with us today.
We're also very, very happy to have our guest with us tonight.
She is Madison's Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway is with us.
How are you today, Mayor Conway?
What's going on?
How is Madison?
Is everything perfect as always there?
Oh, I wish, I wish.
Hi guys, it's great to see you.
Thanks so much for the invitation to be here.
Madison's in pretty good shape, but you know, this whole climate change thing pushing the storms through with the hail and the tornadoes, it's a little much.
It's a little much, gotta be honest.
It's like, we always want to get spring, like everyone's complain as we go, it feels like we go right from winter, right into summer, and we're like, can we get some spring, but spring involves rain.
and then we're like, oh, that's too much rain.
Less rain, please.
I'll just be counting down the days until someone says it's too hot outside, but that's for another conversation.
We are headed in that direction.
Absolutely.
Now, before we get started with, you know, what's going on in Madison, I want to talk about you and your journey, your story, what brought you to the mayor's office, your life in public service.
And can you just give us like a brief idea of how you got involved in the world of local politics?
Yeah, well, it is not an obvious journey.
I think, you know, when I was younger and high school, like if you had asked me who the mayor of my hometown was, I could not have told you.
don't even know if I knew there was local government.
So yeah, failure on the civics education there.
But I entered into local government actually through my job and I was on track to be a scientist, was going to get a PhD.
That didn't happen.
Long story short, I got an internship working on state level environmental policy, which led to a job working on state and local energy policy.
And that's how I discovered local government.
And I ended up working at UW Madison for 13 years with local governments.
I managed a project called the Mayor's Innovation Project.
So I worked with mayors from all over the country and learned a lot about local policy, a lot about city government, ended up serving on the Madison City Council for six years and stepped down from that to focus on the national work and people wouldn't stop.
asking me to run for mayor.
So at some point
I thought,
well, maybe I should listen to them.
No, in all seriousness, I first ran because I had that knowledge of other cities around the country, and I had seen their trajectories specifically with respect to housing, transit, and climate work.
And I didn't feel like Madison was being proactive enough on any of those fronts.
And so I wanted to
Instead of just complaining about it, I wanted to put myself in a position to do something about it.
And that is ultimately why I ran for mayor the first time.
Wow, that's a great answer.
Let's talk about Madison.
So every year, it seems like it's rated, if not the best place to live in the world, it's top five.
And you take horrible weather out of the equation.
So it's got that going against it from the get-go, which means all the other things, it's banging on all cylinders.
And Greg joked about how everything is perfect in Madison.
But as mayor, you see all facets.
What is a big challenge for you as mayor?
Because Madison does seem like this shining city on a hill.
It functions.
But what are challenges the rest of us might not see that are specific to Madison, not just like climate change or something, but a real issue for the city?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Madison is a pretty incredible place to live.
We have a lot of advantages.
whether that's natural resources or lakes or our economic base with the state and UW and a growing tech cluster.
We have a lot of strengths.
But I would say a couple of things that are real challenges for us.
And the first is that although we do end up on all of those top 10 lists, we are very aware that Madison is not a great place to live for everyone.
And we have consistently had deep racial disparities in opportunity and sort of education or income or whatever metric you want to look at.
We have some deep racial disparities that have been true for decades and not all of them are going in the right direction.
So that is a real challenge for Madison.
And one of the things that I've tried to do is to
make sure that we're increasing opportunity for everyone in an equitable way and that we start to chip away at some of those disparities.
The other challenges that we face really have to do with growth because we have very rapid population growth in the city of Madison.
And one of the things that has not kept up with that is our housing stock.
So we've got a lot of challenges from just literally not having enough housing that causes prices to rise.
And we also, thanks to the state legislature, don't have any tenant protection laws anymore.
So there's a lot of challenges that center around that.
And again, something that we've put a lot of thought and work into to make it easier to build housing, to build more subsidized housing that's affordable for low income folks.
And then just, you know, growing city, you need more infrastructure, right?
And in order to be able to do that, we need resources from the state, again, super constrained by the state legislature in the current configuration.
So, you know, that's really, I think, most of our challenges
are related either to inequity or to our growth and our need to keep up with it.
You mentioned the state legislature twice there and you are a mayor in a unique position of not only being in charge of a city, but also in charge of a city that happens to be the capital of the state.
And I know that when it comes to places like Madison and Milwaukee specifically, those are two really
Regular examples, those cities are used as examples from the state legislature as why things, quote, aren't going correctly or who we don't wanna be.
What is it like being the mayor of a capital city and having, and what is your relationship with the state legislature on what you're trying to get done while also trying to create a city that is, as you said, equitable and enjoyable for all people?
You know, one of my pet peeves is when people say,
things aren't going right in Madison
or we've
got it when they mean the legislature.
Yes.
Don't conflate us,
please.
Yeah.
No, in all seriousness, you're right.
We do end up being a little bit of a punching bag for some folks in the legislature.
And there's been some very sort of specific policy that's been created mostly to punish Milwaukee, but also to punish Madison.
We don't always see eye to eye with the majority and that has been frustrating for sure.
We do try and educate the legislature about the importance of cities and the importance of Madison in particular.
We have lobbyists that work at the state level and try and
you know, move things that are important to us and with, you know, limited success.
But I think that the thing at the end of the day that's most important here is that people like to complain about Madison or how Madison's not a good example.
If Madison wasn't in Wisconsin, the population of the state would be falling and the economy would be in the pits that because
Madison and Dane County are driving the population growth of the state of Wisconsin, and we are driving the economic success of the state of Wisconsin.
So you can complain about our politics all day long.
The truth is that we are the economic center of the state, and that the businesses, the institutions that are located in Madison benefit and have supply chains all throughout the state of Wisconsin.
you know, but people who work here, businesses that are located here are purchasing goods from Eau Claire, right?
And Green Bay and all sorts of other places across the state.
So we really do have a huge economic impact on the state.
And I think it is very short-sighted for the legislature to try and sort of constrain us or punish us and
because they don't like our politics, because what they're really doing is harming the entire economy of the state.
Our guest is Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway.
It is great to have you here, Mayor.
And it truly is one of my favorite cities.
My first introduction to Madison, really, I moved to Wisconsin when I was 12, but way up here in Marinette, my dad took me to Madison when I was a senior.
And I just was like, wow, I didn't think it was Wisconsin.
Then I started doing stand-up comedy and went there and worked at clubs and it's a great comedy town.
And I've toyed with the idea of moving there over the years, but every time I look at the prices, like we just talked about, you do have an affordability problem.
It is so expensive.
And people that come into the film festival from LA and places like that are like, whoa, how do you as mayor, you talked about the legislature, but how do you as mayor
Not that you control that at all, but like what's your role there?
How do you even go about that?
It seems like such a difficult problem because you have private development you have state government How can you as mayor help that problem?
Yeah, I mean the the the real root of the problem again is that our population has grown really rapidly and our housing stock has not kept up and so the thing that we have done over
I've been in office for seven years, so over the last five or six years, is just made it easier for people to build housing.
We've done that in a number of different ways through our ordinances, through our plans, through our zoning.
dedicate a pretty significant amount of money to subsidizing housing.
So that we do have housing that is affordable for folks at lower incomes.
We're barely starting to keep up.
And when I came into office, our vacancy rental rate was like 1%.
Now it's up to over 4%.
So we're making progress, but we're not there yet.
And that's the piece that we can control.
Is the rules around
building homes for people and then helping to make sure that at least some of those homes are subsidized affordable.
Can you're the mayor of a city people want to live in?
They're willing to pay too.
It's like... It is the good side of the problem
to have, let me tell you.
You don't want the other side of the problem.
Exactly.
We have a couple of minutes before we have to go to the break.
So I'll ask a really simple question.
What is your favorite thing about being mayor in Madison in 2026?
What's something that still gives you joy to this day?
You know, it's really the community.
You know, I have the opportunity to go to just these incredible community events.
I was at a graduation yesterday for a young woman who's actually going to come work for the city, coming out of one of our training programs.
This morning, I was at Centro Espanol's strategic update, just being in community with folks.
That's what I love, is being connected to the community and hearing about all the incredible things that are happening.
around the city and you know in neighborhoods with our nonprofit organizations with our young people that's what keeps me going it's really nice to see the good work that's happening in the community and and the city is honored to be part of it but you know it's not all us it's really about the community.
That's important thing to remember.
I worked in local government as well and it's important to hear local leaders say it's an us job, not a me job.
It's not I, it's us together and that's very important and I appreciate that answer.
We're gonna keep this conversation going on the other side of the break.
Please don't go anywhere.
You were listening to Nightlight with Pete Schwab and Greg Bach.
Our guest is Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.
Don't go anywhere.
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Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.
We are talking to our guest, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway here on the program.
And before we went to break, we were talking about some of your favorite things that you do and you see as mayor.
And you said before that you've been mayor for, since 2019, seven years now.
Tell us about the evolution of the job from when you walked in from your expectations to what you see now and just some of the, you know, the things you've accomplished, but those things that you mentioned before, things you still want to get done.
But how has the job changed in those seven years?
Well, I'll tell you, you know, because I came out of the university and working with mayors around the country on policy,
I came into office thinking that I was going to do a lot of policy work, and it was very apparent to me within even the first week that a big, big chunk of the job is just managing people, right?
City of Madison has about 3,000 employees, so I'm effectively the CEO of a very large company.
And that was surprising.
It was a learning curve.
It turns out I actually enjoy it a lot.
So, and we have really great folks here at the city of Madison.
But I didn't expect that.
And then, you know, I had a few really nice months in office before the pandemic hit.
And so that changed the job.
again really dramatically and you know we had to think about a whole different set of things and it was I was much more engaged with public health perhaps obviously and we had a really strong partnership with Dane County and with our health systems here in Madison and it was just it was a completely different set of things that we had to work on and worry about and I mean that was years right that was like
a whole shift to remote work and to thinking about how we were keeping people healthy.
And then as the pandemic proceeded and the vaccines came out and we started to come back in person and then we had to shift all over again.
And so we just lost years to that.
And so it was years before we could get back to actually focusing on some of the strategic priorities that I came into office with.
And post-pandemic, being in government is really different.
I mean, there's some of the obvious ways of, you know, now we all know how to do this virtual thing, which has huge advantages, but also some disadvantages.
And then there's the less obvious things.
I feel like, you know, when we all went into isolation in our pods, we sort of forgot how to be in community.
And things got meaner.
And local governments always been a target for people's anger, but it's a lot worse now than it was before.
So, you know, there's some things that have really changed.
And we're keeping on keeping on, right?
We have the whole job of running the city and doing all the things that we do, whether that's, you know, fire service or parks or delivering the water or, you know, picking up the trash.
But still trying to stay focused on the big picture things.
And we talked about some of them already.
The housing work has been a real priority.
We also started Madison's first bus rapid transit line.
Route A is in service, and we are working on transforming Route B to be fully rapid transit as well.
And that was a huge priority for me.
And I'm real proud of that work.
And continuing to do a work on climate change.
like at 83% renewable energy for city operations.
We're gonna get to 100.
So we're doing a lot of work on that and also trying to help the community be more energy efficient and use more solar and trying to make folks particularly in affordable housing.
to have more comfortable housing and more energy efficient housing, reduce their utility bills.
So, you know, the work continues, but it is really different post-pandemic.
That was a real change.
And that's a great point about the criticism.
It's easy for people to criticize when they're hiding behind an avatar and a fake screen name and not showing up at a town hall meeting to do it.
Like, they're a lot braver with anonymity.
Mayor, let's talk a little bit about the arts, if you will, or culture.
There have been several movies shot in Madison over the years.
Do you have a favorite?
And if not, did you have an experience with those movies?
And if not, just tell us what you're binge watching.
Well, so I'm so bad at favorites.
And anyway, you can't, like,
I can't.
I'm contractually obligated not to pick Madison favorites, right?
Everybody's my favorite.
And I will tell you, though, I am.
Good question, Pete.
I will tell you, though, I am.
I'm a huge science fiction fan.
So.
And so I.
I'm totally outing myself as a geek now.
Star Trek is my jam.
I love the Star Trek movies.
And Star Trek Discovery, the newer shows, I
just think are
super fun.
And it's a great way both to disengage, but also, I'm sorry, but the vision of the world, that Star Trek.
puts out there is really appealing, particularly right now.
So I love those.
And I admit that I have been watched all of the series.
That's okay.
You shouldn't say that with any bit of... I feel like there's shame in your voice and there shouldn't be.
Not at all.
For what 60 plus years Star Trek has proposed this idea of working together community throughout the universe.
I mean, come on now.
That is something to be proud of in my opinion.
Right.
Right.
I
would
recommend a show called three body problem too.
If you like sci-fi stuff, it's great.
There's going to be a season two, but the first season I think is on Apple TV.
All right.
Really fun movie about an alien 20 years away that's coming to Earth.
Pretty cool.
That
was a great
choice.
Yeah.
There you go.
I mean, Star Trek, that's a fantastic choice.
My mom would already love you.
Let me tell you that much.
She is a huge trekker, huge trekker.
You need a Star Trek poster in
that office somewhere
in the
background.
And my wheels are turning here,
man.
Well, we'll have to have you back on sooner than later to talk more about Star Trek and all things sci-fi.
This has been a great conversation with Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway.
Thank you so much for being with us.
us this evening, Mayor.
Yeah, Pete and Greg, thank you so much for your time.
Really appreciate you guys.
All right.
We're going to take a really quick break after the news.
We're going to come back, talk about the question of the night and have some more fun.
So don't go anywhere.
You are watching and or listening to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach here on the Civic Media Network.
Stay tuned and stay close.
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