BURLINGTON — As Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger reflected on the results of Burlington’s Town Meeting Day election Tuesday night, the fourth-term mayor did not fault voters for blocking his proposed municipal tax rate increase — or for ushering in another year in which a rival party controls the City Council.
To be clear, the mayor wanted all the Democratic items and candidates to win, he told reporters. But in looking at the results, Weinberger said he would try to heed the message that his constituents sent at the ballot box.
“We’re gonna really lean into the wisdom of Burlington voters,” Weinberger said. “We’re going to go back to the drawing board and roll up our sleeves.”
Weinberger’s response provokes a question: What did Burlington voters prescribe for their city government?
The election’s results show that voters didn’t mind footing the bill for infrastructure improvements around the city. Yet 52% of voters rejected the tax rate increase, suggesting that residents think the city should adopt a more conservative spending approach.
On the City Council side, meanwhile, voters declined to vote out Progressives for their efforts to reform policing, despite the contention by some residents that their policies have cut into the city’s level of public safety.
Though just over half of voters opposed the tax rate increase, more than two-thirds of them backed a $23.8 million capital bond to repair the city’s infrastructure and buy emergency response equipment — steps that will raise property tax rates for the next decade.
“I think that shows that people really value streets, sidewalks, public safety infrastructure, our parks,” Weinberger said.
To pay off the bond in the next 10 years, officials estimate that the owners of a home valued at $379,100 — the city’s median — will pay $35.77 more in property taxes in the fiscal year that starts July 1 and a peak figure of $88.73 in fiscal year 2025.
Had voters approved the municipal tax rate increase, their property tax rates actually would have gone down, according to estimates by city officials. Yet the lingering impact of the city’s property reassessment last year has substantially increased the tax liability of some homeowners, meaning they would still pay more even at the same rate.
That’s especially true in the South End, a traditionally Democratic section of the city where home values soared in the 15 years between city assessments. The neighborhood — represented as Ward 5 — voted against the tax rate increase Tuesday.
In other wards that are mainly single-family homes, voters also turned out to reject the increase. Wards 4 and 7 — which together comprise the New North End — opposed the question most resoundingly, with the highest turnout among the city’s eight precincts.
In comments to reporters Tuesday night, Weinberger said he interpreted rejection of the tax rate increase as a sign that the city should tighten its belt.
“I respect that, and we’re going to work hard at that,” the mayor said.
Some of the mayor’s analysis was shared on the Progressive side. Councilor-elect Gene Bergman, who won the Ward 2 seat Tuesday, said the capital bond win demonstrated a “positive feeling about infrastructure” among voters, while the failure of the tax rate increase was a symptom of the reappraisal.
If city leaders want to address voters’ concerns about the reappraisal, Bergman told VTDigger, they should stand behind a resolution introduced by Councilor Joe Magee, P-Ward 3 that councilors passed unanimously in November. (Magee comfortably won reelection Tuesday.)
The resolution established a committee to examine how the city can improve its reappraisal process, with a particular focus on mitigating the impacts the process had on lower-income residents.
Still, not all of the municipal tax rate increase’s failure stemmed from worries about the reassessment, Bergman said. He credited part of the “no” vote to a lack of communication from Weinberger’s office and said that some voters in his ward rejected it because they did not trust the mayor as an executive.
“It takes a lot to sell a tax increase, especially after this reappraisal,” Bergman said. “The mayor needed to do a much bigger and better job.”
In a statement, Weinberger chief-of-staff Jordan Redell criticized Bergman’s remarks.
“Hopefully in the days ahead, Councilor-elect Bergman will focus on delivering voters the outcomes they want and collaborative problem-solving with the Administration instead of blaming the Mayor for everything he can think of,” Redell said.
“For a decade, voters have trusted Mayor Weinberger to manage the City’s precious taxpayer resources and they showed that again last night,” she said.
Bergman was one of four Progressives who held the party’s plurality on the council, and the only one who did not face a challenger.
Bergman called the perseverance of his party encouraging, noting the reelection of Councilor Zoraya Hightower in Ward 1. For many, Hightower served as the face of Progressive efforts on police reform, and Bergman saw her victory as an affirmation of those efforts.
The race in Ward 7 — where policing was also a major theme — is headed for a recount, according to Aleczander Stith, the Democratic candidate. Unofficial results showed Stith losing by two votes to incumbent Ali Dieng, an independent who has voted with both Progressives and Democrats on policing issues.
But on a night that revolves around partisanship more than any other, Democrats and Progressives saw the election’s outcome as a message by voters to work together.
“I think it’s pretty clear the voters want us to find a way to address our public safety challenges head on,” Weinberger said, adding that he “likes to govern” by reaching across the aisle.
“It really speaks to the desire for us all to get along better,” Bergman said.
