The Vermont Senate Ethics Committee has rejected a complaint alleging that Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D/P-Chittenden-Southeast) has a conflict of interest stemming from her marriage to the scion of a prominent real estate family.
The five-member committee found there was no conflict between Ram Hinsdale’s work on legislation to promote housing and her husband Jacob Hinsdale’s role as the property manager for his family’s company, Hinsdale Properties.
The Burlington-based firm founded by Clark Hinsdale Jr. in the 1950s has grown to be one of the largest apartment rental firms in the state, owning and renting more than 180 residential units and commercial properties, mostly in Burlington and Charlotte.
“It’s completely baseless,” Ram Hinsdale said of the complaint on Thursday.
South Burlington resident John Bossange filed the complaint with the State Ethics Commission in February alleging the senator had a conflict. The complaint was forwarded to the Senate Ethics Committee. The House of Representatives has a similar panel for complaints against its members. Both bodies operate in such secrecy that they do not even confirm the existence of most complaints, nor how they are resolved.
Bossange shared with
Seven Days his complaint and the April 11 letter explaining the committee’s decision. Bossange said he was “very disappointed” because the committee dismissed it after a “preliminary review” and did not conduct a full investigation.
“I really believe there is at least an appearance of a conflict of interest if not a direct conflict of interest for her,” Bossange said on Thursday.
In his complaint, Bossange argued that Ram Hinsdale, the chair of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee, crafted a 2023 bill that would financially benefit her husband’s company.
The bill was Act 47, also known as the Vermont HOME Act. It required municipal zoning changes to allow for more dense housing, including duplexes in areas zoned for single-family residences and up to four units in areas with water and sewer service.
The changes took aim at exclusionary zoning practices many consider partly responsible for the state’s housing crisis. It passed both chambers of the General Assembly by wide margins and was signed into law by Gov. Phil Scott in June 2023.
Bossange, a critic of the bill who says he is concerned about the environmental impacts of suburban sprawl, argued that Ram Hinsdale should not have worked on the legislation because it would make it easier for Hinsdale Properties to divide single-family homes into apartments.
“The fact that one or more of the Senator’s family could benefit from legislation the Senator drafted and advocated for is a clear conflict of interest because the Hinsdale family can now break up single-family homes and divide the homes into multiple rental units,” Bossange wrote.
He pointed to a project in Charlotte where Jacob Hinsdale in 2022 asked the town to be allowed to turn a seven-bedroom home on 70 acres next to a horse ranch on Prindle Road into four apartments. The property is owned by his mother, Irene Hinsdale.
The Design Review Board approved the request in December of 2022, before Act 47 passed. The project nevertheless illustrates that Ram Hinsdale’s husband is in the business of dividing homes into apartments, something the bill would make easier, Bossange argued.
The ethics committee disagreed. In his letter dismissing the complaint, committee chair Sen. Brian Campion (D-Bennington) said the committee "did not find probable cause that an ethical violation occurred.” Senate rules prevent a senator from voting on issues “in which he or she is directly interested.” Absent that, legislators are required to vote, according to guidance Campion included in his letter.
Courtesy
Kesha Ram Hinsdale
Bossange acknowledged that he didn’t know whether Hinsdale Properties owned any single-family properties that the law would make easier to turn into apartments or if it had plans to do so. The company lists on its website a five-bedroom, single-family home on South Willard Street in Burlington for rent for $4,500 per month. The vast majority of its listings, however, are for existing apartments.
In an email exchange with Bossange prior to the complaint, Ram Hinsdale said “someone would have to be both mean spirited and quite poorly read to conclude a major conflict in my work.”
She claimed that “most legislators have a conflict of interest” because of the nature of a citizen legislature. Vermont has a part-time legislature that meets from January to May and most lawmakers earn salaries of less than $15,000. While many are retired, most have other jobs.
“What you do for work, who you are married to, what kind of pension you receive, etc. would preclude everyone who serves,” she wrote.
Ram Hinsdale claimed that if anything, her work on housing “is neutral or negatively impacts my husband’s family’s business.” The construction of more housing units tends to decrease rent pressure, she noted.
“All of my work is geared toward increasing vacancy and reducing rent increases,” she noted. She also claimed that “most of these attacks are sexist” because they bring up her husband’s family.
“People should judge me by my record and how I earn a living, and instead they go directly to my husband. I find that unfortunate,” she wrote. In addition to her Senate salary, Ram Hinsdale lists only one other source of income over $10,000 on her Senate financial disclosure form. That is a guesthouse on North Prospect Street in Burlington. Ram Hinsdale used to live in the home, which she now rents on Airbnb.
She and her husband and daughter, Mira, have since moved to a $1 million home near Shelburne Bay.
The irony, Ram Hinsdale noted, is that the bill Bossange objects to was exactly the kind of anti-sprawl measure he claims to support, namely by allowing fourplexes in already developed areas.
"When we create density in walkable areas that already have municipal water and sewer, we protect green spaces and we shorten people’s commutes,” she said.