Editor’s note: This two-part story is accompanied by a four-segment video, “Assessing Burlington’s Fresh Start.” Segments One and Two are also embedded below. Read Part 2.
After two months Mayor Miro Weinberger flashed a big smile and said, “I’m still loving it, but it has been quite intense.”
Then he listed some of the city business that has dominated his days and nights – finding enough savings to avoid a tax increase (check), reviewing every department with the City Council to prepare a new budget (under way), reviewing and offering a list of key staff appointments (a bit late), and what he now calls “the self-inflicted” July 1 deadline for reaching a decision on whether to pursue or abandon a redevelopment plan for the Moran generating station on the waterfront.
“That’s a lot of work,” he said almost casually during a wide-ranging interview last week. “There’s also a major software change going on in the city.” In addition to the budget, appointment and Moran deadlines, “we’re going to go to a new accounting system on July 1 as well,” he explained.
As a result he has decided that this isn’t the best time to fulfill another campaign pledge – to hold a summit meeting on the city’s looming pension fund liability, recently estimated at $55 million and requiring millions in general fund support each year.
“The fall would a good time in that the next round of negotiations for some public employees unions begins in January and February,” he suggested. “So, I think there is a moment in the fall where, removed from the pressures on any immediate deadlines and collective bargaining, we can really have a discussion about where to go.”
Weinberger acknowledged that he has learned a few lessons and adjusted some of his expectations since taking the oath of office in April, after a decisive victory over Republican Kurt Wright and Independent Wanda Hines on Town Meeting Day in March. For example, he hadn’t “fully appreciated” the political sensitivity surrounding his choices for Chief Administrative Officer and City Attorney.
A tale of two appointees
The City Council approved the appointment of Paul Sisson as Interim CAO in April, but with the understanding that a nationwide search would be conducted before a permanent appointment is requested. The search is still under way – and Sisson is plenty busy – so an extension beyond July 1 will be part of Weinberger’s letter to the council with requests about city appointments.
Sisson found ways to eliminate the deficit through spending reductions and changes in revenue forecasts. On May 3, he and Weinberger were able to announce the fulfillment of his first campaign promise: No property tax increase will be needed to produce a balanced budget for FY 2013.
The largest saving they found was based on an internal audit and re-computation of labor contract impacts, a $350,000 decrease in cost of living adjustments (COLA) for employees. About $200,000 more was cut from expenses for the police department’s North Avenue building by prepaying a lease with bond proceeds. Changes worth $300,000 were found in the Department of Public Works, and the forecast for gross receipts tax increased by $50,000.
Bonds will be used to save $105,000 in lease payments for capital projects, for DPW equipment and a heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit at the airport. The Burlington Electric Department will handle $60,000 in workers’ compensation costs previously covered by the general fund.
Bottom line: a promise kept.
On the other hand, Weinberger’s choice for city attorney became his first misstep. Ian Carlton, a personal friend, former council president and past Democratic Party leader, wanted a salary bump to $112,000, up from the budgeted $105,000. The public reaction was immediate and negative.
In an open letter withdrawing his name from consideration in early May, Carlton apologized for citing his Yale degree as one reason for the higher pay. For Weinberger there were several lessons. One was what he called “a tension” between his excitement about the prospect of bringing new perspectives and energy into local government – “it’s what I talked a fair amount about doing,” he interjected – and the reality that “I have very little maneuverability in terms of what I can offer them around salaries.”
The city attorney incident also showed him the danger of sending a mixed message. “Even if the money is very small,” he said, “it is very difficult to say to the other 650 employees, and the public, ‘We need to be financially prudent and austere. We need to be careful about our spending – except for the appointees that I want to bring in.’”
Despite that slip-up, he feels that progress is being made in changing the government’s organizational culture. Weinberger blames the administration of his predecessor Bob Kiss for creating “real morale problems in many parts of the city. I’m not saying we’ve solved them,” he explained, “but I think the fact that there had been so much discord and distrust had affected the ability of public employees to do their job, and their ability to get things done. “
“Public employees want a fresh start as much as anybody coming out of this last period of time,” he continued. The approach he has chosen includes visits to various work sites across the city to demonstrate his support and appreciation for public employees. But it also features what he described as an “uncharacteristic” public administration move – asking all appointees and department head to reapply for their jobs.
The announcement has garnered a mixed response. Some city workers say it shows disrespect for their previous efforts, produces insecurity and undermines loyalty. Weinberger argued that he made a commitment to bring in new people. “I thought that was the appropriate thing to do and the feedback from the public has been positive,” he said.
High noon for the Moran project
Weinberger blames the Kiss administration’s mishandling of Burlington Telecom, along with the complex financial structure of the deal it made for redevelopment of the Moran plant, for delaying and undermining that long-awaited waterfront reclamation project.
“Moran got to a point when the issue was both about it and also a larger narrative about loss of faith in the past administration,” he said. “And that’s very corrosive, and in a deal like this particularly corrosive. The other parties stopped being willing to make investments and move forward.”
With the 90-day deadline for his “go-no go” decision on the project looming, Weinberger wasn’t ready on June 5 to make an official announcement. But with only weeks left, he acknowledged that his research is complete, and the analysis he offered strongly suggests skepticism about the wisdom of spending millions in Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) on the project.
If the current plan moves forward, he explained, the Moran project would get “about $7 million worth of TIF funding that is not being generated by the Moran redevelopment and could be spent on any public waterfront need essentially. Frankly, I did not know that number was as large as it was until some point during the campaign.”
The question, he argued, is whether this is the right project to be getting the “really quite large” TIF investment. “It was a question that needed to be asked, and so we’re asking it,” he said. If his answer is no, it could well be a step toward demolition.
Plan BTV and occupancy limits
Weinberger is most decisive and animated when discussing the topic on which he has spent much of his life – housing. Aside from his tenure on the Airport Commission it was his main calling card during the campaign.
The “turning point event” in his life, he has said, came in Americus, Ga., working with Homestead Habitat, a Hurricane Andrew recovery project. “It affected me deeply, and I also learned how to break down the building process into steps,” he revealed last fall. After that he worked with the Greyston Foundation, a nonprofit community development company, and then co-founded the Hartland Group, a Burlington-based company that finances and builds both affordable and market-rate homes.
“I continue to believe that the cost of housing is one of our more acute problems and has far-reaching consequences,” he said last week. “And if we actually make progress it would have benefits that would build on each other.”
The most promising development so far, he says, is Plan BTV. This HUD-funded planning process is expected to result in a land use and development plan for downtown and the waterfront. Weinberger predicted that it will become a “hot issue” in the fall. He thinks it could work because the approach is visual, and combines talented designers with modern technology.
Land use and regulation have a huge impact on the cost of housing, he said, and “the biggest opportunity for that to change is through the Plan BTV effort.” He envisions the community reaching “a meaningful consensus” about what Burlington’s downtown and waterfront should look like and where people want to go from here.
“There are all sorts of developable parcels, either parking lots or under-utilized structures,” he said with obvious excitement, pointing specifically to the Rite Aid building on South Winooski Avenue, “a single story suburban structure surrounded by a parking lot.”
According to the Planning and Zoning Office, he noted, “it comes out to about 40 percent of the downtown where you could have more development and it would be totally consistent with the character of Burlington that we know and love today.”
“And then we could link that to our zoning ordinance in a way that allows for predictability and certainty. And if people want to build something we have this consensus around they will be able to do it relatively quickly.
“And that is not what we have today. Today, as I’ve experienced firsthand, you have a system that basically any project of any size is subject to great unpredictability and uncertainly. And I think, in the end, that is a major driver of housing costs.”
In the meantime, Weinberger said, he was not ready to endorse a proposed zoning ordinance change currently making its way back to the City Council from the Ordinance Committee. The amendment would extend a residential occupancy limit of four unrelated adults to high-density areas of the city.
“I’m not locked into any one position on this,” he claimed. However, during a discussion of objections by landlords and concerns about the possible effect on low-income people, Weinberger added, “I am hesitant to do something where I think the net effect will be to reduce the number of housing opportunities. In some sense you will limit, you will reduce the number of people who will be living in that part of town very likely if this goes through.
“I’m concerned about doing that in the absence of any other changes,” he said. Whether he would veto the proposal remains to be seen.
Waiting to commence on student housing
Another acknowledged driver of housing costs is the college and university students who live in off-campus rental units, a point also related to the push for occupancy limits. Since becoming mayor Weinberger has met with both University of Vermont and Champlain College officials. But despite the expiration of two current agreements with UVM this summer, negotiations are likely to be put on hold for several months.
New UVM President Tom Sullivan doesn’t begin work until July 15, but Weinberger has talked with Interim President John Bramley. “He didn’t feel as outgoing president he should take on broad array of issues,” Weinberger reported. But the two of them did discuss extending the current agreements and “the idea of taking this in pieces” after the new administration is in place.
One memo of understanding (MOU) cover issues such as traffic, student housing, parking, fire and police services and taxes. In a separate letter UVM recognizes its “financial commitment to the City in consideration of its impact” and agrees to pay $1.1 million in annual fees to the city.
“My administration is new and the other hasn’t even arrived yet,” Weinberger said. “In the near term my preference is to extend the current agreement for one year without substantial negotiations.” When the talks do commence he will bring up both priorities adopted by the City Council, plus some issues “I want to put on the table,” as the basis for discussions.
In the meantime, he is encouraged “by the way they are talking about housing,” as well as what he has heard about a UVM housing needs analysis. The report is due out soon. “My sense is that they are open to talking about it,” he concluded. “We’ll see.”
The new mayor was more enthusiastic after preliminary meetings on housing held with Champlain College officials. As a result he sees the chance that 100 percent of its students could someday be in student housing. An encouraging step in that direction, he said, is “the purchase of a couple of sites for student housing at the Eagles Club and the former Ethan Allen Club” by the college.
Describing himself as “generally supportive” of the idea, Weinberger offered the possibility of “some city support for that to go through.”
Next: Waterfront development dynamics, F-35s, racism and Superintendent Collins, plus a revealing quiz.
http://youtu.be/Y9_axrHsroY
Part One – Promises vs. Realities: Lessons of the City Attorney dispute; making a decision on the Moran plant; assessing morale and possible savings; a busy agenda and delaying the Pension Fund summit. (9:28)
http://youtu.be/7jLJe1Fhkvo
Part Two – Focus on Housing: Factors driving housing costs; reaching a consensus through Plan BTV; concerns about proposed occupancy limits; extending the current deal with UVM, and a Champlain’s move toward housing all its students. (7:40)
FEATURED VIDEO
http://youtu.be/wxdmoxtWflY
Miro answers the Actor’s Studio questions
In this clip from the Maverick Media/VTDigger interview with Miro Weinberger, Burlington’s newest mayor reveals his least favorite word, his favorite sound, the other job he’d love to do, and what he’d like to hear God say. (2:44)
