Progressive Joe Magee won the Ward 3 special election for City Council Tuesday.
Magee received 475 votes. Independent Owen Milne was the second top vote getter with 397 votes. Republican Christopher-Aaron Felker finished third with 136 votes.
The special election was prompted by the exit of Progressive Councilor Brian Pine in May, who left his seat after taking the head job at the city’s Community Economic Development Office.
Magee’s win represents a continuation of the ward’s political reputation — since the 1980s, a Progressive has represented the district on the City Council. They will join a coalition of six Progressives on the 12-member body.
They told VTDigger Tuesday evening that they’re “really grateful to the voters” following the results.
“Even with cases rising right now, we were able to run a strong campaign,” Magee said. “And really share our message of advocating for working folks in Ward 3, advocating for raising the minimum wage here in Burlington, fighting for more affordable housing and working to advance racial equity.”
Magee is a political newcomer — this is the first campaign they’ve run and won. They previously worked on campaigns for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Carina Driscoll in her 2018 run for mayor in Burlington.
They said they think their campaign’s winning strategy was reaching out and meeting residents as much as possible. Magee said their first two priorities on the council are to work toward allocating the city’s Covid-19 federal funds to marginalized communities and to possibly raise the liveable wage ordinance.
Milne said for his first campaign, he thought there was a “strong showing” of support. He recognized that the ward has been dominated by Progressive politics for almost four decades. Even still, he thinks his message of prioritizing servant leadership resonated with voters.
“People felt as though their representation in City Hall, irrespective of whether it was Democrat or Progressive, was not taking the time to make the phone calls, reach out and talk to them outside of their campaign,” Milne said he found when connecting with voters.
“The combination of both Felker’s numbers with mine should be alarming to the Progressive Party, for sure,” he added.
Felker faced criticism at the beginning of his campaign when his transphobic tweets from a now-deleted Twitter account surfaced. Milne and Magee had called on him to drop out of the race but Felker persisted, becoming a staunch supporter of the Burlington Police Department and calling for more funding.
When asked by VTDigger Tuesday afternoon if Felker still stands by the tweets and if he thinks they would impact the outcome of the vote, he said he had no comment.
Following the results Bradford Broyles, Felker’s campaign manager, told VTDigger in an email, “We congratulate Joe on his victory tonight.”
In the last Ward 3 council race, which took place in 2018, Pine secured 53.54% of the vote with 756 ballots. In 2018, a total of 1,412 people voted. On Tuesday’s election, a total of 1,011 people voted.
As of Monday afternoon, Assistant City Clerk Amy Bovee told VTDigger that 753 votes had been cast through absentee ballots, which were sent to every registered Ward 3 voter this election as the Covid-19 pandemic persists.
The majority of ballots were cast prior to election day through absentee voting. The Ward 3 polling place at the Sustainability Academy only saw about 60 walk-in voters halfway through the day.
“This is the most quiet one and I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” said Ward 3 Clerk Charlie Giannoni.
Several factors contributed, Giannoni suspected: the rain, the pandemic, the timing — in August, many families take vacations, he said — and the fact that this was a special election. There were no other seats in the city up for reelection or ballot questions, which would otherwise drive people to the polls.
Still, some voters trickled in and out of the Sustainability Academy gymnasium on the gloomy Tuesday to cast their ballots.
Eric Dion told VTDigger that he voted for Felker because of his firm position on bolstering the police department and adding more staffing. Last summer, the council voted to cut the department’s staffing by 30% through attrition to invest in social services and racial justice initiatives.
Dion owns a local locksmith company and says the city’s recent uptick in crime isn’t good for business.
“He supports police,” Dion said. “We need police as a basic necessity to just operate a business.”
Ward 3 resident Michael Daley said he voted for Magee because he supports the philosophy of the Progressive Party and its commitment to keeping Burlington affordable. He said he’s not a fan of Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger and he wants Progressive representation on the council to “check” the mayor’s power.
“I don’t necessarily agree with their execution of the police … issues right now,” Daley said. “But I think their hearts are in the right place. I think they’re going in the right direction.”
George Russell told VTDigger that he supported Milne in the race. He said Milne’s experience and message of “servant leadership” impresses him and has proven that he knows how to build community through the organizations he’s worked for.
His status as an independent candidate also compelled Russell.
“We need to have a good balance between Democrats and Progressives,” he said. “Vermonters … we tend to look at people more than party.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include reaction from the three candidates for City Council.
