Various visions for a more just and equitable Burlington dominated the pitches of Ward 3 City Council contenders at Thursday evening’s Progressive nominating caucus.
The caucus will determine which candidate Progressive voters will grant their party’s endorsement in a special election scheduled for Aug. 17. The election is being held following Brian Pine’s exit from the City Council in April to take a job as director of Burlington’s Community Economic Development Office.
The caucus was held in person, in the parking lot of the Sustainability Academy, and virtually. Caucus-goers could cast votes in person or online after following along via a Facebook live stream.
Voting will continue until 7 p.m. Saturday, at which point the results are expected to be announced. About 170 people registered to cast ballots in the race, which is being held using ranked-choice voting. That allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Through the tallying process, lower performing candidates are eliminated until one person receives 50% or more of the votes.
The candidates are Ryan Addario, Julie Macuga, Joe Magee, Owen Milne and Chris Haessly. July Sanders, who participated in the Progressive candidate forum, withdrew from the race, and Haessly nominated himself from the floor during the caucus.
Addario, who previously said he would seek both the Democratic and Progressive nominations, is now vying only for the Progressive endorsement. He is the development and marketing coordinator for the Lyric Theatre Company.
Addario said that while he’s fallen in love with Burlington since arriving in the city eight years ago, he recognizes that not everyone can equitably enjoy its features. He pointed to areas of improvement, such as Burlington’s condemned high school, which shut down this fall after cancer-causing chemicals were found in the structure, and polluted Lake Champlain.
“Most of our neighbors right on my block cannot enjoy Burlington in the way that I do,” Addario said. “Too many of our neighbors are without homes. Too many of them are barely holding on.”
Macuga is a local activist known for her environmental advocacy. She was most recently working for environmental group 350VT and tuned into last week’s Progressive candidate forum from Minnesota, where she was protesting a tar sands pipeline.
Macuga said she is “deeply committed to justice and community care.” She said she wants to move her advocacy work — including protesting the basing of F-35 jets at Burlington International Airport and supporting last summer’s Battery Park racial justice movement — into the public policy sphere, where she said she wants to continue defunding and reallocating money from Burlington’s police department.
“While I continue to take on big picture issues, I see opportunities to work toward large-scale system changes in the minutiae of City Council work,” Macuga said.
Magee has worked on campaigns at both the national and local levels. He organized for Sen. Bernie Sanders’, I-Vt., presidential runs and served as the deputy campaign manager for Carina Dirscoll in her 2018 run for mayor of Burlington. He most recently worked as an associate with the Necrason Group, a lobbying firm, and was nominated for Thursday night’s caucus by Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, P/D-Burlington.
Magee said his vision for change in Burlington centers on justice of all forms, and sees environmental justice, economic justice and social justice as interconnected.
“I’m running for City Council to be a voice for working families in City Hall,” Magee said. “For too long the city has responded to the concerns of the wealthy and well-connected while working families have shouldered a burden that has grown heavier year after year.”
Milne has effectively secured the Democratic nomination for the Ward 3 council race because he was the only one who filed for the nomination by the party’s deadline. The Democratic nominating caucus is scheduled to take place Friday. Milne, who is the executive director of the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center, is also contending for the Progressive endorsement but has previously told VTDigger he plans to run as an independent.
Milne’s vision for the Ward 3 council seat centers on his commitment to service. He said community service has shaped his life. He’s served on many boards, such as the state Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities — Milne has paraplegia — the United Way of Northwest Vermont and the Vermont State Employees Credit Union.
“I believe in service leadership,” Milne said. “I will be bringing that idea of servant leadership to all the people in our community.”
Haessly is a former school board member and a health care IT consultant. He said he jumped into the race to address the city’s affordable housing crisis.
He said he would support rent stabilization policies and thinks the city government should reclaim ownership of the privately owned CityPlace development project, which has been sitting as an empty dirt pit downtown for years due to financing delays. He said he also supports police reform.
“I’m not sure that it’s enough to defund the police. I think we need to demilitarize the police,” Haessly said.
Questions collected from roughly 50 in-person audience members were also posed to the candidates. One resident asked if it was a problem with the candidates that politicians and experts always focus on growing the economy.
Milne said he doesn’t support “growth for growth’s sake.” He said he supports growing certain sectors, specifically sustainability sectors. Haessly said regulation is inhibiting growth in Burlington, specifically for those who are low-income who are looking to start businesses.
Macuga was clear: “Absolutely yes, there is a problem.” Macuga, who described herself as “fairly anti-capitalist,” said unchecked growth isn’t sustainable for a world with finite resources and that she would support salary caps.
Addario said there’s not enough discussion about how economic growth is leaving out certain groups of people.
Magee, who said he considers himself a socialist, said experts are not focusing enough on how to grow wages and health care benefits. He said he views a $15 minimum wage as the floor but pointed out that if it were to keep with inflation, the rate would be $25 an hour today.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify Magee’s views on the minimum wage.
