City council president Jack McCullough won Montpelier’s mayoral race Tuesday night with 53% of the vote, according to city clerk John Odum.
McCullough, a council member since 2017, garnered 1,126 votes, beating out local sustainability advocate Dan Jones, who received 708 votes, and ORCA Media producer Richard Sheir, who got 272 votes.
McCullough will replace former mayor Anne Watson, who was elected to the Legislature in 2022. McCullough has been serving as interim mayor since Watson began her term in the Vermont Senate in January.
Montpelier’s election was marked by challenges over the city’s infrastructure issues and housing shortage, and disagreement on how the city should manage its population of people experiencing homelessness.
McCullough advocated for continuing the city’s current plan for slowly replacing and renovating Montpelier’s pipes and roads, while Jones and Sheir campaigned to overhaul the system and questioned the city’s management of the problems so far.
Jones had also criticized the city’s decision last year to buy the former Elks Club golf course to develop it for housing or recreation. McCullough expressed faith in the project, telling VTDigger last month that he planned to continue the public process for creating a development plan.
Celebrating his victory on Tuesday night, McCullough told VTDigger the race had been “substantive” and “issues-driven.”
McCullough said that Jones’ support showed that voters have “questions about how things are going” that he plans to take seriously, but that his win ultimately demonstrates “the people of Montpelier have confidence in their city government.”
Other highlights from the election include:
- Montpelier residents voted to withdraw from and dissolve the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority District, a regional public safety commission created to coordinate services between Barre and Montpelier on policing, fire safety, ambulances and dispatch. Critics had claimed the authority had not lived up to its promise to become a hub of public safety, since multiple towns opted not to join and no services have been brought into its authority.
- Sal Alfano won the seat for City Council District 2, while Timothy Heney won in District 3. District 1’s Lauren Hierl and District 2’s Pelin Kohn won in uncontested races.
- Voters approved a 9% increase in the school district budget, to about $29 million, as well as an $11 million city budget. They also approved the city’s requests to amend previous bond votes to allow more flexibility in spending on the Dog River wastewater treatment plant and other projects.