SOUTH BURLINGTON — With two contested City Council seats on the Town Meeting Day ballot, Tuesday’s election has the potential to shift the balance of power on the five-person council.
City Council Chair Pat Nowak and councilors Tom Chittenden and Chris Shaw are viewed as pro-business, whereas councilors Meaghan Emery and Helen Riehle are seen as championing residents’ interests.
With a 3-2 majority, Nowak and the pro-business councilors are in control. However, Emery and Shaw face challenges from candidates on the opposing side of that divide, which means the election could tip the scales.
Tim Barritt is challenging Shaw for a three-year seat. Emery is being challenged for her two-year seat by George Donovan.
Mike Cimino, 64, a lifelong South Burlington resident who has run for City Council himself, said the ideological divide in city politics does exist, even if it’s not absolute.
Those political fault lines were on full display during recent candidate debates hosted by Channel 17.
Barritt introduced himself as a candidate who would be “less business interested and more resident interested.”
Barritt, who chairs the Development Review Board, and Shaw, who spent more than a decade serving on boards and commissions before being elected to the council in 2012, sparred over whether the Rick Marcotte Central School should be sold and developed as part of the planned City Center redevelopment.
Shaw said a joint city and schools master planning task force recommended the school be repurposed, and that it would ultimately be the school board that decides what to do with the property.
Barritt accused Shaw and other “business-backed city councilors” of exerting control over the school board and task force from behind the scenes to dictate their desired outcome.
Emery, who has served on the council six of the last eight years, is squaring off against Donovan, a longtime South Burlington resident who works for the Army National Guard.
Donovan said he decided to run after watching a Jan. 4 City Council meeting where tensions between Emery and residents who are frustrated with the Burlington International Airport and its director of aviation came to a head.
“What I’ve seen happening, it wasn’t professional,” Donovan said during the debate.
In an interview Thursday, Donovan said Emery’s confrontational relationship with the airport and Air National Guard has created a climate of fear and mistrust among residents. South Burlington needs someone who will work constructively with the airport, he said.
“We need for the City Council to have a professional and warm relationship with these business partners in our community. I know that I could do that,” he said.
Donovan said he supports basing F-35 fighter jets at the airport. Allowing the Air Guard to wither by basing the jets elsewhere would hurt the entire region, he said. The idea that the fighter jets could make homes in his neighborhood near the airport uninhabitable is misleading, he said.
“You can look out my bay window and see the jets take off. When we first moved in 28 years ago, it was something to become accustomed to, but now we hardly notice it,” Donovan said. He said he believes most of his neighbors would agree.
Emery said during the debate that she makes no apology for her advocacy on behalf of residents affected by airport noise. It’s taken grit and determination to overcome resistance to community involvement in noise mitigation efforts, Emery said. That work has led to discussions with the Planning Commission about creating a noise abatement committee.
The airport’s director of aviation, Gene Richards, has been involved in that process, Emery said, adding that she’s been able to work effectively with airport officials during her time on the council.
Emery said in an interview that if she and Barritt are elected it will shift the balance of power on the council in a way that will elevate residents’ voices in conversations about new development in South Burlington.
“I think that Tim shares my goal in bringing citizen concerns to the council,” she said.
