Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaborative Town Meeting Day project with Kevin Kelley’s journalism class at St. Michael’s College. Alyssa and Alex, who both contributed to this report, are students in the class.
Wright: Getting Burlington Telecom back on track his first order of business; also, creation of a recall provision for city officials
Russell Ellis and Kurt Wright have locked horns over the Ward 4 Burlington City Council seat off and on for five years.
On Tuesday, the 82-year-old Ellis, who was the Democratic incumbent, lost to Wright, his younger Republican challenger, 717-1,087, in the most hotly contested City Council race in the city. Turnout was 46 percent — higher in Ward 4 than anywhere else in Burlington. In all, 1,809 residents cast ballots out of a total of 3,874 voters. The average turnout in the city’s seven wards was just over 22 percent, according to The Burlington Free Press.
Ellis, who had a knee replacement last year, spent the weekend spryly working the stump in his New North End neighborhood, reminding his neighbors and friends to vote.
On Wednesday morning, Ellis was philosophical about the results. “I was in city politics for 10 years, and I won as many contests as I lost. I understand the whole dynamic well, and I’m trying to make some sense out of it myself. He likes to get elected and so do I. We are two people out of the same pattern.”
Wright, 54, who ran for mayor last year and serves as one of the district’s three representatives to the state Legislature, said over the weekend that he wasn’t confident he would win the race on Tuesday. “Until you know, you don’t know,” he quipped.
On Election Day, Wright paced back and forth in front of the polling station – St. Mark’s Youth Center – talking on his cell phone, rallying supporters. At around 6:30 p.m., shortly before the polls closed, he remarked, “I easily could have forgotten to vote!,” and dashed into the center to cast his ballot.
Wright had reason to feel insecure — he was afraid that his last-minute decision to run was risky politically; also that his vote in the House last year to support gay marriage would hurt his chances. As it turned out, however, concerns about the Burlington Telecom financial scandal that has been plaguing city hall loomed larger for most voters. His gut sense that “constituents don’t feel that he (Ellis) is in line with the community” turned out to be true.
Ellis: Anxiety about Burlington Telecom led to his defeat
Ellis says his seat on the City Council was a casualty of the anti-Progressive climate in the city in the wake of the utility’s financial difficulties, and that Wright’s success in fingering him as sympathetic to the Kiss administration painted him in a corner politically.
Ward 4 voters, Ellis said, were concerned that their taxes would go up as a result of the nonprofit telecommunication company’s difficulties.
Voters didn’t support his fourth bid for city council, Ellis says, because Wright had successfully pegged him as sympathetic to Progressives at a time when that party, which has been a dominant force in city politics for 30 years, is under a cloud because of Mayor Bob Kiss’ handling of the nonprofit utility’s finances. The Kiss administration used $17 million from what is known as the “cash pool,” essentially excess cash in the city’s checking account, to prop up Burlington Telecom in 2008 and 2009. Recently, the Vermont Public Service Board stated that municipal funds could not be used to pay for debt incurred by the utility. In February, Burlington Telecom was not able to make its monthly $386,000 debt service payment. The utility, which provides Internet access, phone and television services to 4,600 Burlington residents, has borrowed $33.5 million for its operations in addition to the $17 million it received from the city, which was not approved by voters. The Orleans County State’s Attorney, Keith Flynn, is investigating the financial management of the utility at the behest of the PSB to determine whether city officials misled regulators about the utility’s financial condition.
Ward 4 voters, Ellis said, were concerned that their taxes would go up as a result of the nonprofit telecommunication company’s difficulties.
“The anxiety that the way Burlington Telecom was financed would ultimately fall on the public, on the taxpayers, was something that really fueled the concern people had with city government,” Ellis said. “And some of what happened here is probably a response to that anxiety.”
In the wake of revelations about the financial dealings, the City Council passed a resolution Ellis didn’t support: the removal of the chief administration officer, Jonathan Leopold. Ellis says that the council needed a scapegoat.
“That was seen by some people as approval,” Ellis said. “Which it was not on my part; I wasn’t approving what happened — I was responding to the fact that the issue was not personalities as such. The issue had to do with large economic problems in our economy, which did impinge on what happened here in Burlington, so I paid a penalty to some extent for not going along with the popular perception of anger about that issue.”
He also voted in support of a resolution intended to explore more financing options for Burlington Telecom. This, he says, was misinterpreted as an endorsement of allowing the utility to incur more debt.
The two votes, he says, were exploited by the Wright campaign and led to his defeat. Ellis said as a Democrat in a district that trends conservative, he was a vulnerable candidate to begin with.
Ellis also supported Instant Runoff Voting, because it “provides the city voters with the ability to express their choices, but some citizens don’t trust it because it’s pretty difficult to understand.” In the election, it became a wedge issue because it was seen as beneficial to the Kiss administration and the Progressives in general.
“I think people misunderstand IRV and blamed it for Bob Kiss getting elected,” Ellis said.
Wright, who lost the 2009 Burlington mayor’s race to Kiss in the final round of IRV tabulation, has been a vocal opponent of IRV. He says the system stifles good debate and decreases voter turnout in Burlington; he called it a “fatally flawed voting system.”
He does not, however, blame his defeat last year on IRV. “I got within a hair of getting elected with IRV; I can look back at that race and say if I had been able to driven up the turnout a little bit more in my area, I could have won,” Wright said. He lost in the third IRV count by three percentage points. “Had I won, I still would have supported the grassroots effort to repeal IRV,” he said.
Wright attributes the repeal of IRV to voters’ deep dissatisfaction with the Kiss administration’s handling of Burlington Telecom.
Wright: Getting Burlington Telecom back on track his first order of business; also, creation of a recall provision for city officials.
Wright says the council needs to find an investor in Burlington Telecom right away, so that the city can be repaid and the utility can continue to provide operate the competition with Comcast. He said the city ought to consider any investor proposal and mentioned a group of investors organized by Andy Montroll and Google, which have both expressed interest in Burlington Telecom.
When asked if he would support a recall of Mayor Kiss’ election if such a charter provision existed, Wright said, “I think you’d be getting close.”
“We’re in a difficult position and we need to act decisively to implement the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee’s recommendations,” Wright said. “I think that means the city pulling back from Burlington Telecom and really working hard to get another investor in there.
“If the city wanted to go in a different direction than that … they should go to voters for approval for anything that would be riskier to taxpayers at this point,” Wright said.
The city needs to get the situation under control so that it can move on to other issues, he said, such as economic development and the city’s permit process “to make it more user friendly” for homeowners. He suggested the council look at South Burlington’s permit system. Wright pointed to the Urban Reserve as a possible site for waterfront development.
“We ought to do something with it, clean it up, or at least make it nicer,” Wright said.
Wright will also advocate for creating a recall provision for the city charter. “We learned that if a mayor or members of an administration were convicted of looting the city … they don’t have to resign,” Wright said. “There’s no removal process of any kind.” He said he wouldn’t want a recall employed on a “wily-nily” basis. The trigger for the provision would have to be “carefully set.”
When asked if he would support a recall of Mayor Kiss’ election if such a charter provision existed, Wright said, “I think you’d be getting close.”
“The reality is, making public calls for resignation — I’m not sure that’s helpful in moving the city forward, because I don’t see the mayor doing anything,” Wright said. “Let’s see if we can move forward and fix some of the problems.”
Correction: Wright says he has never lost to Ellis as previously stated. In addition, Wright says that he was referring to the Urban Reserve, not the Urban Reserve Off Leash Park. We apologize for the errors.
