The second and final round of pre-Town Meeting Day financial disclosures is in, not that anyone in the media paid the slightest attention. The deadline was February 22, so I’m in the “belated” category. Apologies. Had other stuff to get to. Plus, honestly, I felt fairly confident that I could leave it for a few days because campaign finance reportage has practically disappeared from our Incredible Shrinking Media Landscape.

Headline: The two Democratic candidates in competitive races for City Council are raking in the cash, as is the Burlington Democratic Committee. (Reminder: If the Dems win both, they retain a working Council majority. If not, the Progressives would assume the majority.) The Dems’ fundraising far outpaces their Progressive counterparts and any other Council candidate in recent history. And a lot of it is from the upper classes of the greater Burlington area, people who’d be donating to Republicans if the Burlington Republican Committee wasn’t such a disaster. (These donors include many of the Barons of Burlington and others who did, in fact, donate to Republicans in the 2024 general election.)

Subhead: The Dems had left a lot of money unspent as of February 22, which probably means they didn’t expect to raise this much cash. The Town Meeting season is so tightly compressed that there’s no time to redo your strategy because you can suddenly afford more mailers or yard signs or advertisements or balloon clowns or whatever. The upshot: The Barons aren’t getting nearly the full bang for their bucks.

Second point first. Let’s combine the top numbers for the BDC and their two candidates in competitive races, Allie Schachter and Ranjit “Buddy” Singh.

• The BDC has raised $26,777 for the campaign and spent $15,964.
• Schachter has raised $21,316 and spent $10,734. (She’s also received $3,456 in in-kind donations; more on that later.)
• Singh has raised $22,265 and spent $11,094.

Add ’em all up, and the three entities have raised $70,358 and spent $37,792. That’s a gap of $32,566. That’s almost half their fundraising total. Amazing.

Now, I’m sure they’ve spent more since February 22. But the closer you get to Town Meeting Day the less impactful your spending is, especially when ballots are available in advance and many votes have already been cast,

Let’s look separately at the BDC, Schachter, and Singh.

The city party committee raised $11,525 between the first deadline, February 2, and February 22. Almost all of it came in $500 increments from the Barons and their upper-class brethren. (Well, almost entirely “brethren.”) Names and identifications:

Barons of Burlington, who heavily backed Republican candidates in 2024: Bruce Lisman (retired Wall Street panjandrum and former Republican candidate for governor), Jon Pizzagalli (property development), George Martin (engineering design), four different people named Tarrant (if you have to ask, you’ll never know), Larry Williams (Redstone development firm), Charlotte Gardner (realtor), Charles Brush (property owner/developer), James Crook (private equity). That’s $5,500 from the Barons to the BDC.

Baroness (by marriage): Kimberly Ireland, wife of Ireland Construction boss Scott Ireland.

Not actual Barons, but might as well be: Dan Byrnes (CEO, Vermont Information Processing), Jed Dousevicz (real estate broker), Karen Belinski (Massachusetts resident, financial advisor), Scott Rieley (property management), Bryan Cairns (former owner of Champlain Oil, operator of the Jiffy Mart chain), Brett Grabowski (realtor), Stephen Gorman (former head of a healthcare billing/coding firm).

Unidentified/uncategorizable: Liz Hamilton of Williston (too common a name to easily identify on Google), Tom Rugg (former owner of T. Rugg’s Tavern), Mark Pfaff (high school basketball coach?), and Nikhil Goyal (sociologist and former advisor to Bernie Sanders).

Even if you omit those last four, that’s a hell of a lot of cash going from business/finance/real estate/development types to the coffers of the Burlington Democratic Committee.

Schachter and Singh have easily cleared the $20,000 mark, which may be unprecedented in a Burlington City Council race. (Or any council or selectboard race in Vermont history, for that matter; if you know of any higher totals, speak up in the comments.) Democratic Council President Ben Traverse had the highest fundraising total in 2024 — more than $13,000 — but spent less than half of that. In 2023, unsuccessful Democratic candidate Jason Van Driesche raised $14,425 and lost badly to incumbent Joan Shannon; no other candidates hit five figures.

Schachter and Singh’s Progressive counterparts lag behind in fundraising. Kathy Olwell (Schachter’s opponent) has raised a total of $6,787. Jennifer Monroe Zakaras (Singh’s opponent) has raised $13,677. And the Progressive Party has done little to support them; a party official tells me its total spending in the Burlington TMD campaign is below the $1,000 threshold for reporting to the Secretary of State.

(It must be noted that the Progressive Party did pay for less than $500 in Facebook ads on Olwell’s behalf, which she failed to report as an in-kind donation.)

Schachter raised $7,830 — more than Olwell’s campaign total — in the 20 days between the first and second reporting deadline. Recent donors include Brian Boardman (Hickok & Boardman), Elizabeth Pomerleau Mays (that Pomerleau clan), David Baker (family beverage distribution business), Adam Wing (executive with AbleNet, an assistive technology firm), and James Burns (attorney). Schachter has also benefited from campaign materials paid for by the BDC: $2,600 for a mailing and about $2,000 for print ads.

Singh raised $5,740 between February 2 and 22. Recent donors include Russ Scully (Baron), Brian Boardman (ditto), and Adam Wing (see above).

What does it all mean? Burlington Democrats have a huge financial edge in the battle for partisan control of City Council thanks to the Barons of Burlington and others of their ilk. (In my other post on this subject, I called them the Leunig’s Frequent Diner Club, which drew a couple of complaints from liberal types who love them some Leunig’s.)

A fundraising advantage is no guarantee of electoral success; just ask Van Driesche or Progressive Lee Morrigan, who raised $12,309 in 2024 and lost. But it sure doesn’t hurt. And it would be a bitter pill for Progressives and their voters to swallow if the Dems won this election thanks to the generosity of a bunch of business elites, many of them known Republican donors.

The unanswered question is, how does this flood of conservative money impact the Democratic Party’s agenda? Do they see opportunity in co-opting potential Republican donors? Do they see a potential threat in those donors’ newfound eagerness to give substantial support to Republican candidates? If so, the politically logical thing to do is shift toward the center, especially on fiscal issues. And, in the case of matters more specific to Burlington, a harder line on law enforcement, substance use, and homelessness.

Or hey, maybe all that conservative loot won’t have any effect at all on party thinking. I mean, when did money ever buy anything in politics?

Oh yeah. All the time.