Chawla has drawn on his own life experiences as well as his progressive values to elevate his voice in the public sphere.

“I look at a lot of the values that we have here on the eastside and the community we are trying to build and how we are trying to help each other out,” Chawla said. “I want to take these values that we have here and even more than, thinking about growing up as an immigrant, how different it was 30-40 years ago when there was more support from the community. There was more of a welcoming atmosphere in the country. And there were more opportunities for advancement. I really want to take those principles and make them available to the community at-large. These days what I am really looking to do is stem the tide of what is kind of a disintegrating democracy and country.”

Chawla feels privileged to have gone to school when a quality education didn’t cause one to become an indentured worker for a good part of their lives.

“I went to SUNY – Binghamton,” Chawla said. “It’s really interesting, especially these days, how hard it is to get a high quality, affordable education. I think the SUNY system does a very good job with that and continues to do a very good job with that when you think about all of the kids who are graduating with crippling college debt and very little opportunity. I think about how lucky I was. I went to a world-class public school that when they made the list of the best non-Ivy League schools, it was on that list. And you get a high quality education adjacent to New York City and you have a lot of job opportunities from New York. And you leave school without that crippling debt. A lot of people graduating from school right now have that debt. It’s like you leave college and you bought a house you don’t live in. That’s how much debt you are under. I keep thinking about how lucky we were and how it would be great if other states would invest that kind of money in their public university system and invest those resources to really make school affordable.”

And it is the high cost of education today, in Chawla’s view, that has contributed to the erosion of our democracy

“I think the younger generations don’t feel as invested in because they are up against these unimaginable financial obstacles to first pay back their college loan and then try to figure out how to find enough money to afford a house or place to live. It makes it very hard to start a family, be in the community, really fully live your life when you are just always behind. It does on and on and on. After a while, you have to think you are on treadmill not making any strides forward. We see in the degradation of our society where there is just so much income inequality and so much lack of opportunity where our civic and political institutions are all basically failing right now right in front of us.”

Chawla feels that he is at the right level of government at the right time. With the stranglehold Republicans have on the state legislature, it is extremely difficult for Democratic legislators to get anything even introduced. And in the federal government, the situation is even worse. And although county government has had its hands tied behind its back in terms of some things it can do, it also can take a lot of initiative.

“On the County Board, we really have the power to do a lot,” Chawla said. “Some of the things in the last year that we were able to do is one we were able to get PFAS fire-fighting foam out of the airport fire fighting operation. That was a huge deal. PFAS chemicals are hazardous in the parts per trillion. And we have a big clean-up to deal with. But to be able to remove those chemicals from being there in the future is a big win.”

County government can also advance affordable housing.

“We’ve been able to get $28 million for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund,” Chawla said. “When I first started on the board, that number was closer to $2-4 million. But just to see the rapid expansion of that investment in affordable housing — which is not enough and never will be enough — is a good start.”

And it has been able to take control of its environmental future by enacting important measures today.

“We’ve been able to invest a lot of money to purchase land in Dane County and convert that land back into wetlands, to put it back into park space and by doing that, we are not only preventing some of the bigger climate disasters like wide scale flooding, but we are also able to preserve some of that land to develop around Dane County in a more smart and savvy way,” Chawla said.

Chawla has also worked to encourage civic participation by all of Dane County’s residents.

“On the Dane County Board, if you see an issue that is a problem, you can work on solutions to that problem,” Chawla said. “It can be small solutions like when I first got elected, we did a voting drive at The Beacon because if you are homeless, you are housing insecure. You should still be able to vote. Or it could be tackling some the bigger issues that we have. Having that ability to affect your community in that way is something that is really cool and something that you can do as an elected official. And you can see the direct impacts right in your community and neighborhood.”

While Dane County has some control over its future, Chawla is frustrated by the roadblocks and barriers that the Wisconsin legislature has put in place that prevent local government from addressing local needs.

“If you think about the fact that we can’t have a regional transit authority,” Chawla said. “We can’t help set up transportation networks between Madison, Sun Prairie, Verona, Waunakee and our region at-large, which is interconnected. When you think of the fact that we can’t set what our local minimum wage is. The state has taken that ability away. When we think about all of the jurisdictions that have to constantly go to referendum because the state is not funding things properly when it comes to schools or revenue support back to municipalities.”

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