After months of speculation, Burlington City Council President Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5) on Friday officially announced his intent to pursue the Queen City’s top office.
Traverse, a Democrat, declared his intent on the the Morning Drive radio show ahead of a planned morning press conference at Battery Park. The talk show is hosted by Kurt Wright, the last Republican to serve on Burlington’s city council and represent the city in the Statehouse.
“I love this city,” Traverse told Wright after making it official. “I’m worried that [my children are] not going to love Burlington in the same way that you and I do. We should be and can still be a fun and thriving, resilient city.”
Traverse said he didn’t want to his campaign to be about Burlington’s problems and instead hoped to focus on the “positive things.” On Friday, he discussed the need to support the downtown business community, provide resources for the city’s homeless population and step up enforcement of drug laws.
It’s clear that Traverse hopes to make the mayoral election on Town Meeting Day in March a referendum on public safety. He told Wright his first priority is to support recruitment efforts to rebuild the city’s police department. He also criticized Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak for cutting funding for recovery programs and downtown events amid the city’s recent budget shortfalls.
“We want to have a fun, thriving, resilient city that folks want to be at, both residents and folks from surrounding communities, but there’s some hurdles that we need to get over if we’re going to get there, and those are our public safety challenges that are before us,” Traverse said in the interview.
A labor lawyer at the University of Vermont Health Network, Traverse was first elected to represent his South End ward in 2022 and has been reelected twice since. He became city council president in 2024, the same night Mulvaney-Stanak was sworn in as mayor. He has been a staunch critic of her administration, particularly in debates around policing, public safety and how the mayor has handled budget deficits.
Most recently, Traverse was one of the primary authors of the “Burlington Forward” resolution.
Traverse has cited recent business closures, including the 38-year-old Vermont Pub & Brewery, in his calls for urgent action to protect the downtown business community with an increased public safety presence and greater persecution of public drug use. He also wants to keep new needle exchanges and a planned overdose prevention center from opening downtown.
Mulvaney-Stanak and city council Progressives have derided the resolution as “Burlington Backwards.” They say it undermines the mayor’s ongoing public safety response and didn’t solicit enough input from her administration or the police or fire department.
A coalition of health care union workers, along with the city’s unionized workers, currently oppose the resolution as well.
Further feedback from councilors and the public pushed Dems to make some changes to the resolution. Traverse agreed to form an ad hoc committee with the mayor and other councilors to negotiate a compromise.
“I am tired of, week in and week out, hearing from businesses that are vacating our downtown, or hearing from folks that are moving their operations to South Burlington or Williston, hearing from community members who are no longer bringing their families and their kids downtown or to our parks or to our waterfront,” Traverse said at an October 26 city council meeting.
Traverse waited until after the general election to make his candidacy official, though it was long rumored.
In an interview, Councilor Allie Schachter (D-East District), who coauthored the Burlington Forward resolution with Traverse, said she was “thrilled” he was stepping up for what she wants to be an “issues-based” campaign.
“I’m hopeful that his candidacy will make for a really important opportunity for residents to have a meaningful choice about the future of the city,” she said.
Mulvaney-Stanak has yet to announce whether she will seek reelection.
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