Hey, look what came up in the alphabet soup! Former state representative Linda Joy Sullivan is running for mayor.

Of Newport, Vermont.

Three hours away from her last known residence of Dorset.

The mayoralty of Newport suddenly opened up last month following the resignation of newly-elected mayor Beth Barnes, who apparently committed the cardinal sin of Not Being One Of Us. In her resignation statement, Barnes said she’d been “intimidated and bullied [and] commanded not to do certain things” by city councilors and then-city manager Laura Dolgin, now freshly retired and living out of state.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like Barnes, who’d never held elective office before, had an incomplete grasp of the niceties of being mayor in a community with a “weak mayor, strong manager” kind of government. But even granting that she may have stepped on a toe or two, it also seems clear that the Old Guard didn’t like having a newcomer in the mayor’s chair (her predecessor had held the office for 14 years) and did their level best to force her out.

Seems like an ideal job for Sullivan, who completely alienated the House Democratic Caucus with her self-promoting contrarianism. She then decided it’d be a great idea to challenge incumbent Auditor Doug Hoffer in the August 2022 primary, which Hoffer won without breaking a sweat.

Sometime between then and now, to give her the benefit of the doubt, she moved to Newport?

The city will elect a new mayor in a special election on August 1. Sullivan has put up a campaign website which consists of a single page on which she presents herself as a conciliator, which would make a lot of people in Montpelier laugh out loud. She claims “a reputation during my years in public office for Collaboration, Inclusiveness, Accountability, Transparency and Independence” and adds that her campaign is all about “approachability” and “collegiality.”

Yeah, well.

The right-hand column of her campaign webpage contains a laundry list of alleged accomplishments including her status as a certified public accountant and her membership on the Vermont Housing Authority Board, to which she was appointed this year by Gov. Phil Scott. Also, “Founder, Nat’l Anti-Human Trafficking Not-for-Profit.” That’s a reference to Building Empowerment by Stopping Trafficking, or B.E.S.T. for short, an organization with a rather evanescent online footprint. Let’s just say it’s not one of the larger outfits in the field.

She also lists herself as a “Professional Tap Instructor and Choreographer.” Gotta say, it sounds like the next mayor will need to be light on their feet. This might actually be a relevant qualification.

Otherwise, wow. If the city powers couldn’t stand a new voice who’d been a member of the community for a long time, I can’t imagine how they’d take to Linda Joy Sullivan. Somehow I doubt we’ll ever find out. Her new campaign will almost certainly end in defeat, and will mark another step on the road to becoming the next H. Brooke Paige or Cris Ericson of Vermont politics.