- Courtesy
- Councilors Joe Magee and Zoraya Hightower
The two longest-serving Progressives on the Burlington City Council said on Wednesday that they aren't running for reelection in March.
Councilors
Zoraya Hightower (P-Ward 1) and Joe Magee (P-Ward 3) won't be on the ballot on Town Meeting Day, when eight of 12 council seats are up for election.
Other seats are expected to be open, too. Councilor Ali Dieng (I-Ward 7) told
Seven Days last month that he is unlikely to seek another term. And Council President Karen Paul (D-Ward 6) is
running for mayor, leaving her seat open.
The four other incumbents said on Wednesday that they
are running: Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2), Sarah Carpenter (D-Ward 4), Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5) and Hannah King (D-Ward 8).
The changing lineup comes as Burlington prepares to elect its first new mayor in 12 years.
City Councilor Joan Shannon (D-South District) will challenge Paul for the Democratic nomination at a caucus next month. Vermont Rep.
Emma Mulvaney-Stanak (P/D-Burlington) is the lone declared Progressive candidate seeking to replace Mayor Miro Weinberger.
In an interview on Wednesday, Hightower said she's stepping down because she thinks she can be a better advocate if she's not on the council. She also expressed frustration with party politics, saying she's leaving "a little more jaded" than when she was first elected, in March 2020.
"I have really been lucky to serve the city for four years and to be in a position to make really tough decisions, but also, it’s been a tough four years," she said.
Hightower is the council's longest-serving Progressive and the last member of the party who voted in June 2020 to reduce police staffing through attrition — a vote that sparked backlash and made
national news. Hightower, who introduced the resolution, defended the vote on Wednesday, saying it forced the city to consider alternatives to traditional policing, such as embedding social workers in the police department. But she also lamented how long it's taken to start some of those programs.
Hightower, who is one of three Black councilors, said she wants to continue advocating for some of the social justice issues that were cornerstones of her campaigns, including a charter change to ban no-cause evictions. Burlington voters approved such a measure in 2021 and sent it to the legislature, but Gov. Phil Scott
vetoed it.
Another of Hightower's efforts was more successful: ranked-choice voting. In 2021, she led a campaign to reinstate the system for council elections; in March, it will be used in a mayoral election for the first time since 2009.
While Hightower didn't rule out a future political bid, she confirmed she is not running for mayor. Neither is Magee, he said.
Magee joined the council in 2021 after a special election in Ward 3, which includes parts of the Old North End. But the rising cost of living there is one reason Magee decided to step down, he said, noting that he didn't want to commit to another term and then have to leave if his rent became too costly.
Like Hightower, Magee described feeling disenchanted with Burlington politics and said councilors are too often pushed into rubber-stamping proposals from the administration instead of debating them.
"I didn't run initially to get into partisan political fights," he said. "There are a lot of aspects of the job that I enjoy, but I think the cons sort of outweigh the pros at this point for me."
During his tenure, Magee has been one of the most outspoken proponents for Burlingtonians on the margins. He
advocated fiercely against the closure of the former Sears Lane homeless encampment and has pushed for adopting harm reduction programs, such as opening an overdose prevention center. Magee also introduced a resolution asking the city to consider a fairer property tax system after a citywide reappraisal raised taxes for most homeowners.
Dieng was first elected in 2017 as the second-ever new American to serve on the council. He's a true independent with no loyalty to either party, siding with both Democrats and Progressives in debates.
In 2021, he ran an unsuccessful bid for mayor against Weinberger and then-council president Max Tracy, a Progressive. And while he's popular in the New North End, Dieng barely held onto his seat in last year's council election, winning by just two votes in a contest that his opponent
challenged in court. He didn't immediately return an interview request on Wednesday.
Two candidates are running for the Ward 7 seat Dieng is expected to vacate. Parks Commission member Lee Morrigan will seek endorsements from both Progressives and Democrats. Evan Litwin, who serves on the city's Housing Board of Review, is seeking the Democratic nomination.
Carter Neubieser, who cochairs the Burlington Progressive Party with Hightower, announced on Wednesday that he'll seek the Prog nomination for her Ward 1 seat. Neubieser previously ran for council as a University of Vermont student
in 2018 but lost to Adam Roof, who now chairs the Burlington Democratic Party.
No one has publicly announced a bid to replace Paul or Magee.