Tag Archives: Burlington City Council

The Machine Will Eat What It Wants to Eat

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Well, Burlington City Council went ahead and did something that it had no good reason to do, and had no choice but to do.

The topic of this riddle: Council’s approval of a 25-year extension of the Vermont Air National Guard’s lease at Burlington International Airport. A lease that wasn’t due to expire until The Year Of Our Lord 2048, which is so far in the future that Gov. Phil Scott doesn’t mind planning to cut greenhouse gas emissions by then.

Now that the lease will run until 2073, I guess the VTANG can go ahead and buy green bananas and renew their magazine subscriptions. (Surely they’ve got a coffee table in the break room littered with old copies of Aviation Week & Space Technology, Janes Defence Weekly, Combat Aircraft Journal, and such.)

Really, it was pointless. But Council was forced to act by the rules about federal airbase spending. See, the feds won’t invest in ANG bases with less than 25 years remaining on their leases. And airports like St. Patrick Leahy Memorial International are dependent on the infrastructure improvements that money will buy.

It all works together, and not for the good of anyone outside the military-industrial-aviatic complex.

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Scott to Burlington: Eh

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Gov. Phil Scott’s Thursday press conference was meant to deflect attention from his administration’s painfully slow approach to emissions reductions. The governor opted for his favorite diversionary tactic: Finding a straw man to punch. But the bigger takeaway from the event is his steadfast refusal to consider new policies — or even a drive up I-89 — in response to Vermont’s opioids crisis.

Let’s tackle climate first. Scott and Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore (she of the excessively deliberate “progress” toward meeting our legally mandated 2025 emissions targets) asserted that an emissions-focused policy was wrongheaded. Instead, they said, there needs to be a balance between cutting greenhouse gases and making Vermont more resilient in the face of future climate disasters.

Scott backhanded “those who didn’t want us to focus on resiliency work” in the Legislature and claimed that “there’s been some pushback” on resiliency in the Vermont Climate Council.

I’d like some names, please.

There might be different opinions on the balance, but there is no one in the Legislature “who didn’t want us to focus on resiliency work.” As for the Climate Council, it was created by the Global Warming Solutions Act to further its statutory emissions targets. Resiliency isn’t the Council’s job. It’s like accusing FEMA of failing to enact permitting reform.

Enough of that. Now back to Burlington.

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No Matter How Loud You Whistle, the Graveyard Is Still There

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So let’s see if I got this straight.

We’re two weeks away from the unhousing of more than 1,000 Vermonters when tighter eligibility standards take effect on the motel voucher program, and six weeks away from unhousing another 1,500 or so. On Monday night, the Burlington City Council considered a resolution to study the city’s existing camping policy. In the end, they approved a watered-down version.

Of a study.

Of an issue that’s about to become a humanitarian crisis.

And on that textbook definition of legislative timidity, they barely managed to act.

The blame goes to the nominal Democratic majority. They feared the resolution might send a message that more city lands could be open to encampments of the unhoused.

Do I need to make that clearer? They were more concerned about a perception than they were about preparing for an explosion of homelessness.

It’s just the latest chapter in the Democrats’ complete mishandling of the voucher program and their seeming obliviousness to the scale of tragedy that’s about to unfold.

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The Cognitive Dissonance is Getting Thick Around Here

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There’s a boatload of infuriating details in a story by VTDigger’s Lola Duffort about the ending of the motel voucher program. One of them stood out for me, not because it’s the most telling or most impactful, but because it’s so painfully ironic.

The story opens with Rebecca Duprey, a voucher client who’s struggled to regain her footing after years of evading a violently abusive ex-husband. Her motel stay has given her half a chance, but now she’s facing a return to living in her car with her two sons.

Duprey’s case strikes at the heart of the lobotomy-style disconnect between state policymaking and, well, basic humanity. As it happens, she’s had years-long relationships with two prominent lawmakers — Rep. Anne Donahue and Sen. Anne Cummings. Each has offered assistance to Duprey, and yet each has voted in favor of an FY2024 budget that will force her back on the streets.

That’s all bad enough, but here’s the topper.

When the two lawmakers learned that Duprey was back in Washington County and spending cold nights in her car, they did not reach out to administration officials or state workers, but instead to Brenda Siegel, an advocate and former gubernatorial candidate, who took over Duprey’s casework and found her the room she currently lives in.

That would be the same Brenda Siegel who’s been treated so shabbily by lawmakers personally inconvenienced by her advocacy. She has, in fact, become the face of the housing advocacy community because, due to her lopsided defeat in last November’s gubernatorial election, she’s an easy political figure to dismiss. Which makes the issue easier to dismiss.

And these two prominent lawmakers turned to Siegel to help when they didn’t think anyone else would. Hmm.

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When Dr. Astroturf Comes Calling

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The person pictured above, who bears a striking resemblance to a morality crusader in a TV detective show who’s eventually revealed as the killer, is Michael Shively, PhD.

Shively is a researcher on sex trafficking for the benignly-named National Center on Sexual Exploitation. In the past two weeks, he has appeared before the Montpelier and Burlington City Councils to speak against proposals to decriminalize prostitution. Proposals that, in his words, “would allow any home, any apartment, any nail salon to become a brothel.”

His appearances and affiliation have been duly parroted in media accounts of his “testimony,” which in each case amounted to two minutes during public comment time.

Well, let me fill you in. But first, in case you thought I was unfair in my description of Shively, here’s Levi Beecher, morality crusader slash murderer from an episode of the CBC series “Murdoch Mysteries.”

Yes, that’s him, officer. Now, about the NCOSE…

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Matt Dunne gets a major boost

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I suppose they couldn’t change the timetable, but two of Vermont’s biggest unions picked a bad time to release their endorsements for governor and lieutenant governor. They were revealed on Tuesday, when practically all eyes were turned toward the last round of presidential primaries — and the few remaining eyes were focused on Governor Shumlin’s veto of S.230 and the legislative effort to rewrite the bill or override the veto.

But let’s not allow the nods to vanish into the mists of history just yet, because they are likely to carry great weight in our new, improved, low-turnout August primary.

The Vermont State Employees Association and the Vermont Labor Council AFL-CIO both opted for Matt Dunne for governor, and David Zuckerman for lieutenant governor. Last week, the VSEA’s legislative committee recommended Galbraith to its members, but the board of trustees went with Dunne after taking a straw poll among the union membership.

In both races, the unions opted for the person least associated with the Shumlin administration and the Democratic legislative caucuses. I guess that’s not surprising, given VSEA’s very contentious relationship with the administration. Just think of it as another of Shumlin’s little gifts to the Democrats who would succeed him.

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Burlington Mayoral Race Cools Down

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(In honor of the hackneyed campaign headline, “_________ Race Heats Up,” the favorite of unimaginative headline writers desperate to gin up a little reader interest. And yes, the Free Press deployed it during the campaign for mayor of Burlington, which was never, ever, ever close.)

Well, if there’s any widespread revolt over Miro Weinberger’s alleged secret plot to pave the open spaces and fill the city with skyscrapers, it sure didn’t show itself on Town Meeting Day. Weinberger won a second term with 68% of the vote; the two challengers beating the anti-development drum managed less than 30%.

So, Monday Morning Quarterback, what does it mean? Glad you asked.

The accusations against Weinberger didn’t stick because (1) anti-development sentiment in Burlington represents a loud minority; most residents, I think, would like to see reasonable growth, (2) Weinberger consistently presented a reasonable approach and hasn’t given the voters any big reason to mistrust him, and (3) by all appearances, he ran the city competently in his first term. And after the Bob Kiss Experience, voters were happy to see simple managerial competence.

Corollary to point 3: the Burlington Progs are still suffering from the aftereffects of the Kiss Experience. Especially when their candidate is a hippie-lookin’ holdover from past Progressive administrations. It’ll take them a while longer to win back the trust of Queen City voters.

The Progs’ candidate, Steve Goodkind, refused to admit that Weinberger might actually be popular, heaven forfend; he credited the mayor’s “great machine.” By which he presumably meant Weinberger’s massive fundraising advantage.

That certainly didn’t hurt, but if we’ve learned anything from recent gubernatorial elections, it’s that Money Can’t Buy You Love. If there was widespread disaffection with Weinberger, the voters would have scrambled to the nearest available Scott Milne, no matter how underfunded or dubiously qualified. It’s tough to argue with 68% support.

On the other hand, there’s the City Council vote, which saw the Democrats lose ground and the Progs gain, probably leading to a Progressive council president. Was this a mixed verdict by the voters?

Yes and no, but mostly unclear. If the voters were convinced by the anti-development argument, it seems to me that they would have concentrated their ire on Weinberger. Also, and more saliently, the council results are tough to interpret because of the massive overhaul of ward boundaries. You’d really have to do a deep analysis of the vote, comparing it to previous elections.

One example: a new ward was created in student-dominated precincts. Students, as they are wont to do, stayed away in droves. (Overall turnout was 25%, but in Ward 8 it was under 10%.) As a result, Prog-leaning independent Adam Roof beat the Democrat despite getting less than 200 votes. That total would have earned him a brutal defeat in any other ward.

So the Progs had an unearned edge in Ward 8. I have no idea if that’s true across the city because I’m not a deep-numbers guy. I’ll leave that task to the experts.

The result does leave Weinberger facing a divided City Council with the Progressives likely enjoying a narrow organizational majority. He’ll have to work with the Progs and independents, which could mean a slightly more measured approach to development.

Of course, I’m not convinced that Weinberger ever had a secret plan to pave Burlington. By all indications, he wants to pursue a measured approach anyway. For the crowd that thinks “developer” is a dirty word, his intentions will always be suspect. But that crowd suffered a pretty thorough defeat in Burlington yesterday.