Wanda Hines’ entry into Burlington mayoral politics has added an unusual twist to the race – an independent candidate prepared to defend the administration’s accomplishments.
Since the campaign began, Republican candidate Kurt Wright, Democrat Miro Weinberger and other Democrats who sought the party’s nomination have been tough on two-term Progressive mayor Bob Kiss, who decided at the end of November not to seek another term.
At a debate on transportation and housing issues Thursday, however, Hines argued that the city has done “a great job” in encouraging alternatives to automobile use. “We are always trying to do new ideas and new ways to do things,” she said. ‘You know, if it is not broke don’t try to fix it.”
At another point Hines, who works in the city’s Community and Economic Development Office, gently chided her rivals on the stage at the Unitarian Church for blaming all of the city’s problems on Kiss.
“Being the mayor is a rough job,” she reminded the other candidates, those watching live on Channel 17, and the 200 people packing the pews.
Yet Hines never considered seeking the Progressive nomination, she explained after the event. She didn’t want to undergo a party’s caucus process, she said, but also feels that local voters simply won’t elect another Progressive this year, largely due to the administration’s handling of Burlington Telecom.
In December after former Progressive Tim Ashe lost the Democratic mayoral caucus to Weinberger, Progressives decided to delay their decision on whether to field a candidate until late January. Since then, Councilor Vince Brennan, who was considering a run, decided not to, according to local party leaders. The party’s other council member, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, announced Friday that she is taking “a temporary break from public service” when her term ends in April.
Leading up to the debate, Wright and Weinberger exchanged criticisms last week over how best to resolve the financial and legal trouble created by the handling of Burlington Telecom. Weinberger went after Wright for saying that even if the city wins in court, it would be “morally wrong” not to pay other money owed to Citibank. Wright called that a negative attack perpetuating “the kind of politics that is dividing Washington to score political points.”
Early Thursday Wright released a terse statement opposing a 10.8 percent proposed school tax increase. The current number “is simply too large,” he said in press release, asking school officials to come back with a smaller increase.
During the debate, Weinberger continued to stress his background in finance and business, but drew distinctions with Wright on the sale of the Burlington Electric Department – the Republican’s signature issue thus far – and commitment to environmental issues. At one point he directly mentioned Wright’s legislative record and low ratings from environmental groups.
Underscoring the contrast he added, “My career is about equity and green building.”
Weinberger talks downtown housing
Like the first dialogue between Weinberger and Wright on business issues at Champlain College, the latest debate was sponsored and organized by groups with specific agendas and constituencies. In this case it was AARP Vermont and Local Motion, a nonprofit that focuses on walking and biking, which probed the candidates’ views on street maintenance, affordable housing, local alternatives to the automobile, extending and improving bike paths, the long-debated Champlain Parkway in the city’s South End, and how to pay for it all.
Weinberger honed in on housing, pointing to emerging demographic and generational trends. “People want to live in Burlington, but it’s difficult to create new housing options,” he said.
When each candidate was asked for a single top priority in the areas of housing, mobility and community engagement, he argued that making it possible for more people, including a growing contingent of seniors, to live in or near downtown will have a major impact on transportation and related issues.
At the moment, however, zoning ordinances make it “virtually illegal” to build housing downtown due to a rule that 50 percent of any downtown development must be commercial, he charged. “Although we do a good job with the most affordable units, and people with great wealth in the community are always going to have good housing options, it’s the great middle where we have the problem,” Weinberger said.
Returning to the issue in closing remarks, he pointed to some additional benefits of more downtown housing: additional property taxes that can help to “grow our way out of our financial problems,” better choices for some people, and opening up other housing for families as existing residents move downtown.
Of the three candidates, Weinberger was the most critical of the current administration. During a discussion of sidewalk maintenance, Weinberger challenged budget predictions issued recently by Acting Chief Administrative Officer Scott Schrader. In a memo to the Finance Board Schrader forecasts reductions in staff and services, including sidewalk maintenance, unless city revenues somehow increase.
“I don’t trust the financial information coming out,” Weinberger said.
Therefore, he doesn’t feel limited to the choices Schrader has posed and says that “remaking the budget” is a high priority.
Earlier, he also challenged the assumption of an economic question posed by one of the moderators, Burlington Free Press Executive Editor Michael Townsend. Townsend asked how the candidates felt about either increasing property taxes or making deep cuts in services given current financial problems.
Hines said it was premature to answer until she was “properly briefed financially.”
Wright repeated his big idea – selling the Burlington Electric Department.
Weinberger insisted there are other choices, returning to the five-point plan he has been hawking since October. As he explained, it involves new people in leadership positions, new technology and innovation, seeking a Burlington Telecom settlement that preserves competition, improving airport management, and convening a stakeholder summit – during his first month in office – on the future of retirement benefits.
Wright proposes to lead in a crisis
Wright’s official campaign slogan is “citizenship not partisanship,” a soft-sell way of asking voters not to be influenced by a candidate’s party affiliation. Announcing his first web video ad, he said it is the only way to “succeed in moving our city forward.”
On economic questions, another slogan could be “everything is on the table.” Wright often makes the argument, asserting that the city faces a fiscal crisis requiring hard choices that might not otherwise be considered.
Even if Burlington Telecom can be rescued, he warns, there is still the city’s recent credit downgrade and large unfunded pension liability to consider. “I don’t want to sell BED,” Wright said. But he does want Burlington voters to decide whether to do so after public examination and debate.
He also notes that, despite Weinberger’s dismissal of the idea, their positions are not so different. In a press release last week, he went further, charging Weinberger with continuing the Kiss administration’s approach by withholding the true extent of the city’s “huge fiscal problems” from residents.
At the debate he was less critical of Weinberger and, when relating to the audience, more ingratiating. In part it was due to the format – 90-second answers and little time for followup. Wright says he would prefer a more open format allowing back-and-forth discussion in a future debates.
He and Weinberger basically agreed on a number of issues. On transportation policy, they saw eye-to-eye on improving oversight of the Public Works Department, rewriting zoning rules, completing the Champlain Parkway, continued city maintenance of sidewalks, and the need for a downtown transportation center.
Beyond that, Wright was less critical of the last six years at City Hall. Burlington “does a good job” in providing affordable housing, he said. Asked what he would do to speed up action on road and street projects, he blamed the regulatory process and praised CEDO’s ability to obtain federal grants.
Wright also found occasional common ground with Hines. Responding to one of Weinberger’s arguments – that a fresh perspective, preferably his, “can bring new ideas and new technologies to old problems” – Hines defended the city’s record on multi-modal transportation. “It’s not about fresh ideas,” she said.
“I think Wanda is right,” Wright said before pivoting to one of his own key arguments – the mayor should lead by example. That is why, even though he doesn’t use local buses he promises to start. “Older people don’t make radical changes,” he explained, so he wants to begin early.
Wright, who turns 56 in February, repeatedly mentioned his age. “I’m catching up to you,” he joked in closing remarks. However, he knows the campaign is “not about me,” but rather about “people working together” and “moving past party politics.”
His final argument combined a reminder about his long record of local engagement with an implicit criticism of his Democratic rival, who is running for public office for the first time. “My listening tour began 30 years ago,” he said.
Hines charts an advocacy path
For Hines, participating in her first debate was like joining a conversation that began before she entered the room. She listened closely and occasionally deferred responding substantively until later in the campaign.
Although she began contemplating a run for mayor last summer, Hines announced less than two weeks ago. Weinberger had to defeat three Democratic rivals to win the nomination, and has been seeking out expert advice and discussing local issues with voters for months. Wright has run for mayor twice before and deals with almost every city issue as a member of the City Council, not to mention the policy knowledge he has acquired through five terms in the state Legislature.
In her public announcement at the Old North End Studio, Hines said she was counting on turnout, on “getting people excited again,” and would focus her campaign on local economic development, affordable housing, and public transportation. She plans to take a month-long leave of absence from her work heading CEDO’s Social Equity Investment Project to campaign.
In her first debate she was tentative at the start, and low key throughout. After listening to Weinberger outline his financial rescue plan and garner a respectable round of applause, her first reaction was to smile and agree with “what he said.” But Hines quickly clarified, calling it premature for her to say how she would handle the choice between service cuts and a tax increase.
Hines agreed with Wright when he said that improving local bus service should take priority over making Burlington a destination for passenger rail service. “Let’s keep doing what we’re doing,” she argued.
But she parted company with both men on two controversial issues – completing an access road and increasing population density downtown.
For decades local officials have been struggling to complete the Champlain Parkway, once known as the Southern Connector. Acknowledging the neighborhood impacts, Weinberger nevertheless feels that reduced congestion, along with new jobs, tip the balance in favor.
Wright agreed, saying it is time to get the truck traffic out of neighborhoods. He also noted it is a necessary incentive for Dealer.com, which promises to employ up to 700 people in the south end. The company needs assurance that the project will be completed, he said.
Hines opposes completion of the parkway, which has been on the drawing board in various forms for more than 40 years, due to its impacts on neighborhoods along the route. She also expressed doubts about increasing downtown density, yet acknowledged that more housing is needed and didn’t detail her concerns.
In her closing remarks, Hines called the debate “a learning opportunity” and acknowledged that she has some catching up to do, since her opponents are already “well-tuned.” Nevertheless, she believes her edge is “the ability to see the big picture and delegate” to the right people.
Hines’ presence served to modify a tendency of the other candidates to blame most of Burlington’s problems on the current administration.
Progressive transitions, then and now
Thirty-one years ago, a memorable moment in local politics occurred at the Unitarian Church where the candidates spoke last Thursday. In February 1981 Bernie Sanders was running an independent campaign against five-term incumbent Gordon Paquette, who had avoided debating him through most of the race.
The response to Sanders at the church was warm, almost electric. But he also drew on audience anger toward local government by linking the mayor with developer Antonio Pomerleau, whose pending waterfront plan might have transformed the area into a condominium and commercial showplace. In later years, Sanders and Pomerleau became allies.
“I’m not with the big money men,” Paquette protested that night. “He’s trying to put me with them.” Desperate to hit back, he warned darkly that if Bernie Sanders became mayor, Burlington would become like Brooklyn. The mayor was honestly surprised when people hissed at him.
The dynamics of the current race don’t look much like that. But on the surface they are a bit like 2006, when Sander’s successor, Peter Clavelle, retired after running city government for 15 years, the longest tenure in local history.
In 2004, Clavelle, who ran for mayor as a Progressive (and sometimes also as a Democrat), lost to James Douglas as the Democratic candidate for governor. The next year he suffered another defeat: advisory vote rejection of a plan to let the Greater Burlington YMCA turn the decaying Moran generating station into a state-of-the-art recreational facility.
The opposition included Wright. A more recent plan shepherded by Kiss has also stalled, and Wright recently argued that no decisions should be made until the next mayor is chosen.
By late 2005 Clavelle was ready to retire from office, but he and others didn’t believe a Progressive candidate could win and endorsed Democrat Hinda Miller, a state legislator. At the last minute, Kiss was persuaded to run as a Progressive and won, in part due to instant run-off voting.
Theoretically, that could happen again, depending on the outcome of the Progressive caucus scheduled for Jan. 22. But the differences between then and now are also obvious. Burlington repealed IRV in 2010, in part due to Wright’s near win in 2009. The city is in tougher economic shape, a Progressive mayor is considered largely responsible and, despite defending her boss and the administration’s record last week, Hines is running her own race – without the Progressive endorsement.
In a self-selecting “straw poll,” blogger Haik Bedrosian recently asked residents to choose between Hines, Weinberger and Wright. As of Oct. 12, about 300 people voted 43 percent for Wright, 42 percent for Weinberger and 15 percent for Hines. Bedrosian called the results “just a snapshot” but they underline a possible outcome; someone may win by coming in first with more than 40 percent.
Hines has been a political wild card in the past. Prior to joining the CEDO staff her work as an advocate and organizer with the Chittenden County Emergency Food Shelf sometimes put her at odds with the establishment, progressive and otherwise. As her campaign manager Jodi Harrington recalled at Hines’ campaign launch, “I worked community outreach at City Market for seven years. She was an outspoken opponent, and my first job was to get her to like us.”
Progressives have never achieved a majority on the City Council but have come within one vote. By 2009 the party was nevertheless down to three seats. Today it has two, and is about to lose Mulvaney-Stanak, who served one term and was elected to the Board of Finance in 2011.
To date, the only announced Progressive Council candidate is Max Tracy, a public works commissioner and UVM union organizer who lost to Democrat Bram Kranichfeld in 2010 by just 13 votes.
The Democrats are doing somewhat better. Although City Council President Bill Keogh and Ward 2 Councilor Dave Berezniak are stepping down, Democrats have thus far announced for seats in Wards 1, 4 and 5.
In Ward 4 a race is shaping up between Ellie Kenworthy, a Republican who ran for the same seat in 2009, and Democrat Bryan Aubin, a local history teacher. In Wards 1 and 5 incumbent Ed Adrian and Chip Mason, both lawyers and Democrats, may end up running unopposed.
Two other incumbents, Ward 6 Independent Karen Paul and Ward 7 Republican Paul Decelles, have not yet announced their plans.
Petitions for candidates can be filed until 5 p.m. on Jan. 30.
