Editor’s note: This commentary is by Michael Long, who served more than a decade on the Burlington Development Review Board and has lived in Burlington since 1975. He now teaches English and was a high school teacher in Colchester from 1975 until 2015.
[U]nder the Burlington city charter, which is something like a municipal level constitution, certain city employees in critical leadership positions are required to live in Burlington. When such a position is accepted by a non-resident, the charter provides the substantial period of one full year to become a Burlington resident. In the event that a year is not enough, the charter generously provides for a limited extension of the year-long period at the discretion of the City Council. The language describing the circumstances and the scope of such an extension reads as follows:
“In case of personal hardship found and declared to exist by the City Council with Mayor presiding, the time limit for an individual to become a legal voter of the City may be extended for a set period of time beyond one year.”
The charter is very clear that an extension in the case of hardship must be only for a “set period of time.” And although it does not specify a maximum extension, in explicitly describing a potential extension as “beyond one year,” it bluntly suggests that an extension, if granted, would be something less than a full second year.
Clearly the charter does not contemplate never ever coming into compliance with this charter provision as even a remote possibility.
Given that a full year is the period freely granted to comply, a limited extension beyond one year cannot be reasonably construed to last multiple years. Additional months is what the language intends to allow for.
The City Council has the authority to enact ordinances. The council does not have carte blanche to violate charter provisions. On the contrary, it has the obligation to adhere to every city charter provision. Any open-ended, indefinite extension, any exemption from ever coming into compliance with the charter-mandated residency requirement is in indisputable violation of the Burlington city charter.
In their recent vote regarding the superintendent of schools and in other instances related to the charter’s residency requirement, the City Council has behaved as if they are above the law, as if their personal sense of what’s right or reasonable — or even their personal whims and preferences — magically render inconvenient city charter provisions optional.
This is not the case. In fact, the authority under which councilors serve flows directly from the Vermont Constitution through state statutes to the city charter. The Burlington City Council can not unilaterally alter or ignore the city charter any more than they can unilaterally amend or disregard the Vermont Constitution. If this sort of illicit governance stands, then the council and the people of Burlington have chosen to abandon the rule of law and pledge allegiance instead to whatever the City Council of the moment determines to be permissible at the moment. The city charter becomes then not a central document outlining the parameters of a municipal democracy, but a dusty, weightless folder in the archives, largely irrelevant and forgotten.
That strikes me as a reckless and dangerous course, not a prudent or even a legal one. The residency requirement is a substantive matter to some and a minor detail to others, but as long as it is a charter provision, it is the law, not a take-it-or-leave-it item. Burlington city charter provisions are not a la carte.
