Former Dane County Board Supervisor April Kigeya has launched a campaign for mayor of Madison, joining a growing field challenging incumbent Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, who is seeking a third term. Kigeya announced her candidacy Sept. 10 at Hayes Place, 1145 N. Sherman Ave. Rather than hold a traditional news conference, she organized the event as a community mixer, saying she wanted residents to meet people they might not otherwise encounter. “I didn’t want a traditional press conference,” Kigeya said. “I wanted this to be a space where you could meet people that you wouldn’t have otherwise met.” Kigeya described herself as a “relationship builder” and said her campaign would be grounded in the experiences of residents, particularly people most affected by the city’s challenges. She pointed to her experience as a single mother of four children and the concerns she has faced around economic stability. “People in the city, their voice matters, and I want to bring that and incorporate that into the campaign,” she said. The first of Kigeya’s seven campaign priorities is “community-led government.” Her proposal calls for neighborhood advisory councils with meaningful influence, participatory budgeting, regular listening sessions with the mayor and public reports explaining how community input shaped city decisions. Kigeya said residents closest to a problem are often best positioned to help develop solutions. She also called for a more transparent process for showing what happens after public engagement. Her other priorities include safe communities, expanded mental health services, attainable housing, improved transportation, equitable opportunities across neighborhoods and a government residents can trust. On public safety, Kigeya’s platform calls for fully staffing police, fire and emergency medical services while also expanding crisis response, mental health co-response, violence prevention, youth mentorship and neighborhood partnerships. Housing is another central issue in the campaign. Kigeya said the term “affordable housing” can obscure the different financial realities facing residents across income levels. She said the city should consider whether longtime residents, seniors and homeowners facing rising property taxes can remain in their homes and neighborhoods. “Affordability, that’s a label,” Kigeya said. “What’s affordable to me may not be affordable to you.” Her campaign proposes expanding housing supply across income levels, creating practical paths to homeownership, helping longtime residents stay in their neighborhoods and pairing new development with clearer measures of affordability and access. Kigeya also criticized what she described as the city’s reliance on the number of affordable housing units built as a measure of success, saying Madison needs a metric that better reflects whether housing meets residents’ needs. She said she has not yet settled on an alternative measure but intends to develop one. The mayoral field also includes former Madison Alders Syed Abbas and Brian Benford, along with One City Schools founder Kaleem Caire. The February 2027 primary will narrow the field to the two candidates who advance to the April general election.