Updated at 9:04 p.m.
The makeup of the Burlington City Council will remain the same, with Democrats holding seven of 12 seats, after both incumbents won the two contested races on Town Meeting Day.
Democrat Evan Litwin cruised with 75 percent of the vote in Ward 7 over Progressive challenger Bill Standen, while Progressive Marek Broderick fended off Democrat Ryan Nick in Ward 8 by taking about 60 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results.
“The work isn’t done to make Burlington a city that all of us can afford to live in and thrive in,” Broderick said in an interview on Town Meeting TV.
Both winners will begin their second two-year term when they are sworn in next month. The six other ward races were uncontested.
Newly elected to the council was Laura Sánchez-Parkinson, a Progressive in Ward 3. She’ll take over for Joe Kane, a Progressive who did not run for a second term.
Councilors reelected included Carter Neubieser (P-Ward 1), Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2), Sarah Carpenter (D-Ward 4), Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5), and Becca Brown McKnight (D-Ward 6).
Many of the candidates pointed to affordability, specifically housing, as one of the biggest issues facing the city.
Democrats gathered on Tuesday at Burlington City Arts Studios on Pine Street for an election night party, while Progressives met at the Wise Fool restaurant in the Old North End.
The energy level was high at the Prog party, which was filled to capacity. The crowd cheered when Broderick walked in.
“A victory like this and the success of candidates like myself does not happen without the support of an entire community,” he told the crowd, pointing to his parents, who had driven four and a half hours to stand at the polls with him.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak also addressed those assembled, noting that she was once the only Prog on the council. Retaining five seats is important, she said, adding that “my veto is protected!” Had Nick won, Democrats would have held eight seats, meaning they could overturn a mayoral veto.
“That is extremely important strategically when you work with divided government,” the mayor said.
At the Dem party, Litwin said he appreciated the support that got him elected to a second term.
“I would have loved to have seen a win in Ward 8 to shift the balance a little bit, but I work really well with Marek and I look forward to working with him more on the council,” Litwin told Seven Days.
What was an atypically quiet election season in Vermont’s largest city ultimately intensified in the waning days. In Ward 8, which encompasses the University of Vermont campus and nearby student housing, activists and mutual aid group Food Not Bombs amplified claims that Nick’s father, developer and commercial real estate broker Jeff Nick, had used maple syrup to harass homeless people downtown. A video obtained by the group shows a man, his face not visible, dump syrup on a spot where Food Not Bombs distributed free food.
Meanwhile, UVM’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter alleged that Nick’s father’s business leased a Williston building to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has come under increasing scrutiny because of the expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration.
Jeff Nick did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Outside of the Ward 8 polling location at the Fletcher Free Library on Tuesday morning, Ryan Nick called the syrup accusations about his dad “unsubstantiated.” But he acknowledged that his father had some association with the Williston building in question, and that it had been leased to the federal government since the Obama administration.
Broderick, meanwhile, said he and other Progs hadn’t coordinated with the activists, but he did say he declined to intervene when Democrats asked him to help put a stop to it.
Burlington Democrats released multiple statements ahead of Town Meeting Day decrying the “smears” being lodged against Nick.
“Now our candidate and his family are receiving threats and we are spending precious time correcting the record instead of talking about what matters: the city that we all share,” party leadership said in a statement on Monday.
Colin Flanders contributed reporting.
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