Middleton Mayor Gurdip Brar Reflects on His Terms as Mayor: Guided by Science and Compassion
Mayor Gurdip Brar, in the Middleton Common Council chambers, sought to be independent, use science and listen to the will of all of the people in Middleton.
Part 1 of 2
By Jonathan Gramling
I have known Gurdip Brar for over 20 years, several years before he entered Middleton politics. I found him to be a kind man, dedicated to community. Back in those days, I primarily knew him through the Sikh community in the Madison area as they established a Temple in Middleton in a house and through other Indian American events. He was always willing to have a conversation and was always intellectually curious.
“I was raised as a Sikh in Northern India in Punjab,” Brar said. “The Sikh temple was right next to our house, so I learned a lot about the Sikh history and the scriptures, everything. The Sikh temple is not a huge congregation in Middleton. But the temple serves Madison and the whole area.”
About 15 years ago, Brar entered Middleton politics as an aldermanic candidate. He had been very active in his kids’ schools and that concern spread to the whole school. Brar was active in Kiwanis.
“I think I was doing things all over the city while I was in Kiwanis,” Brar said. “I started a Key Club at Middleton High School. We had 300 members at that time. I also started another Kiwanis group called Builders Club. It’s a service club at the junior high and middle school level. They also had quite a few members. And I started a group for the younger kids called Kiwanis Kids. It was teaching them leadership, helping them to think not for themselves, but to think about the other people.”
But Brar wasn’t interested in entering politics. But in some ways, the position came to him.
“Becoming an alder was essentially not something that I had wanted,” Brar confided. “I didn’t even know how to spell alder basically. I thought it was elder. The neighborhood was unhappy with their alder. Since I was very active in the community and had retired from working at Agracetus, they wanted someone who was involved with the community, who listened to them, listened to their concerns and who would represent them. So they came to me and I said that I was quite happy with my life. Why would I want to do that? They sent some different people. There was a group of them. Finally I talked to my wife. I talked to my kids. And we had just come back from a trip in 2007. They said, ‘Why not?’ I agreed. There was a primary. I beat the other two in the primary. And I beat the incumbent by 74 to 26 in the election.”
In some ways, Brar was Plato’s philosopher king. He could legislate according to what the people needed because he had no political ambitions.
“It was community service, helping people, that caused me to run,” Brar said. “This is what they wanted to help them. I had no ambition other than making our city better, giving them what they wanted, and meeting their needs and expectations. That’s why I go around and ask people even now, ‘How can I help you?’ My job is to meet their needs and address their concerns. And that was it; nothing for myself because I have everything that I could ask for.’
Brar is a retired scientist. His wife worked at UW-Madison for over 30 years and their children graduated from MIT and are now professors at UW-Madison and UC-Berkeley. But he had a desire to serve.
“After two years, I thought I would have done my job,” Brar recalled. “And they came back and said that they wanted me to run again. I said, ‘Okay.’ And then after the second term, no one was really running again. They just kept asking me. I was just about ready to not run for city council because our son had to make a decision on whether he took a professorship here or in California. He was at Cal Tech in Pasadena. He had multiple offers including two UC campuses. He took the position here, so then I said that I would do another term.”
During his fifth term as alder, Brar was approached about running for Middleton mayor. His son had chosen to teach at UW-Madison, so Brar knew he could make a three-year commitment. And has he had done as alderman, Brar approached his service with a scientific mindset. He had been randomly going around the city of Middleton asking them about what their needs were. And so through the scientific method, he got a sense of what the Middleton community needed and wanted.
“I told them I was doing what they wanted me to do,” Brar said. “But they said that they wanted me to serve the whole city. After a while, I said, ‘Okay.’ There was competition. There was someone else running who was supported by all of the previous mayors and also by the developers. For me, it was again the common people. I wasn’t really in anyone’s pocket. It started with the people. And I didn’t care that I was only the alder for this area. I went all over the city and asked everyone even when I was just an alder. We are not a little unit here and a little unit there. We are all together. So people knew me because I was also involved with the schools for a long time starting when my daughter was in kindergarten. I led a grassroots campaign. It was all of the people. It wasn’t the mayors. The second time I ran, Senator Feingold was supporting me too. He lived in Middleton.”