[B]URLINGTON — Work by the City Council and Weinberger administration will hit a crescendo in September as officials seek to place major initiatives requiring voter approval on the November ballot.
Ballot questions must be finalized by the first week of October in order for the city to print them on the ballots for the Nov. 8 election. The last scheduled City Council meeting is Sept. 26, and Mayor Miro Weinberger said he does not anticipate the need for a special meeting in early October.
The referendums are expected to ask city voters whether Burlington should issue two separate bonds of more than $20 million each. One would help finance an ambitious 10-year capital plan, and the other would pay for new roadways through downtown as part of the Town Center redevelopment.
At the same time, the council will also vote on a plethora of amendments to a controversial zoning change that would allow the additional height needed for the proposed Town Center redevelopment project.
Those amendments are expected to be taken up at the Sept. 12 meeting. Once the ordinance language is finalized, the city will need to give the public 15 days’ notice before a public hearing, where the language could again be revised or given final approval.
Burlington’s agreement with Don Sinex, the project’s developer and current mall owner, says he can walk away from the deal if the new zoning isn’t in place by mid-September, but Sinex has said a delay of a few weeks or a month won’t scuttle the deal.
Also crucial to the Town Center project is the $22 million tax increment finance bond, which the Board of Finance is expected to take up at a Sept. 19 meeting. If approved by the board, that would pave the way for a full council vote at the Sept. 26 meeting.
In addition, Weinberger also hopes to secure council support for his proposed 10-year capital plan, which will rely on a $27 million bond. Weinberger says that maintaining and improving city infrastructure is a core responsibility of municipal government, and the 10-year capital plan ensures Burlington will do just that.
In a white paper outlining the plan, Weinberger says the city will need to come up with a total of $72 million in new revenue over the next decade to pay for the plan.
The white paper places the total amount of the bond at $25 million, but Weinberger said the plan continues to evolve and it is currently closer to $27 million. The bond amount could continue to change as it’s reviewed and possibly amended by the City Council.
The bond would be structured so that the added cost to the average residential taxpayer would not exceed $7 per month over the next five years, and would be limited to approximately $10 per month in the peak cost years of 2025 and beyond, according to the white paper published earlier this month.
The plan, if fully implemented, would pay for repaving 16 percent of city sidewalks and 23 percent of roadways, those in the worst condition. It would replace all six of Burlington’s fire engines, upgrade IT infrastructure, pay for repairs and improvements at city buildings, continue work on the waterfront bike path and pay for a renovation of City Hall Park.
City Councilor Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4, said at a recent board of finance meeting that he would prefer to have the bonding for the capital plan on the March Town Meeting Day ballot when people are focused on municipal affairs.
Unless there’s compelling reason to do so, Wright said he didn’t think the bond vote should vie for people’s attention alongside a divisive presidential contest, an open governor’s seat and the TIF bond vote.
Weinberger said it’s important to have the bonding in place for the 2017 construction season, as portions of the work anticipated to take place next year rely on that money. Putting off a vote until March would slow work to implement the plan, he said.
(Correction: An earlier version of this article gave the wrong date for the November election.)