Some Burlington Progressives and activists are incensed after Mayor Miro Weinberger denounced party-backed candidates last week as coming from a “reactionary fringe.” Weinberger made the remark at a Democratic caucus where he condemned opposition to city projects, including the downtown mall redevelopment.
Members of the Coalition for a Livable City, a group that has opposed the mall plan, may adopt the label and dub themselves the “reactionary fringe,” said John Franco. He’s a veteran of the mayoral administrations of Peter Clavelle and Bernie Sanders, and an attorney who is representing the coalition.
“Trash talk doesn’t usually end well,” Franco said. The remarks will come back to haunt the mayor, he predicted.
Independent city council candidate Genese Grill, who is also a member of the CLC, characterized Weinberger’s comments as inaccurate and misdirected.
“In calling everyone who was against his rezoning of the downtown core a ‘reactionary fringe,’ Mayor Weinberger has insulted almost half of the people in this city,” Grill wrote in an email to Seven Days. In response, Grill is inviting others to join her in protest at next week’s city council meeting.
At the Burlington Democratic caucus, Weinberger directed the pointed remarks at candidates nominated by the Progressive Party who, he said, were “opposing much of what we are trying to achieve.” Their positions, he said, have been “shown to be anti-environment, anti-senior, anti-business, and even anti-equity.”
Only one Progressive candidate, Charles Simpson in the South District, is challenging a council incumbent. Party chair Charles Winkleman is running for a seat in Burlington’s East District against Democratic candidate Richard Deane.
Weinberger last Thursday asked fellow Democrats to nominate Progressive council member Jane Knodell, the council’s president, to retain her Central District seat in her race against Grill. Attendees obliged, but not without some dissent.
The following morning, Weinberger resolutely stood behind his remarks. “What these candidates represent is not just principled disagreement about [the Burlington Town Center],” he said in an interview on Friday. “There is a small group that is opposing a wide range of the city’s efforts that has been the city’s priorities for a long time.”
Meanwhile, a storm of comments — on both sides of the issue — have erupted on social media and on a story on sevendaysvt.com.
“I am a member of the ‘radical fringe’ which opposes the Mayor’s monstrosity on the marketplace and am helping the opponents in their legal and regulatory challenges,” Franco said in a sevendaysvt.com comment. But, he added, he would nevertheless cast his vote for Knodell come March.
Some mall critics say the redevelopment debate was more robust as a result of the CLC activism.
“There is no doubt in my mind that many important conversations about the mall … would not have taken place without the respectful, thoughtful dialogue that I and other Progressives offered,” Winkleman wrote in an email to Seven Days. He voted against the mall-related ballot items in November, he added, but not without serious deliberation.
“Holding a different opinion doesn’t make someone reactionary — it makes them a part of a healthy democracy,” he said.
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Just because Wieiberger somehow managed to get non-profits like AARP, Conservation Law Firm, and the Champlain Housing Trust to endorse his out-sized zone-busting overlay zone (in opposition, I may add, to their members’s and staff’s opinions in many cases), does not mean that voters who didn’t support his project oppose the values espoused by these organizations!
The real question is why these organizations endorsed a project that creates a special zoning giving away leverage for more affordable and senior housing in exchange for height bonuses, includes a gigantic parking garage, does not require an obligation for LEED certification, is in opposition to community-driven Plan BTV,, plans to use 22 million dollars of tax payer money to subsidize a millionaire, and will have only 50 apartments that are called affordable, but will be $1000 a month for a one-bedroom! These organizations owe their members an explanation!
Many people who voted FOR the zoning change did so because they were lied to about the benefits and the process (any environmental changes can be made without a 14 story playground for the rich; the few “affordable” units are not affordable, and 80 of the other units are for students, the process was rigged from the beginning, City Councilors voted against Max Tracy and Sharon Bushor’s attempt to raise the “affordable” housing percentage a mere 5% because they feared breaking the pre-development agreement!).
I also hope that Council President Knodell, given the Democratic nomination during the Mayor’s attack on his citizens, will stand up for the majority of her constituents in Wards 2 and 3 who voted against the zoning change. Please tell the mayor that the people who live in wards 2 and 3 are not anti-environmental, anti-senior, anti-labor, etc. Sincerely, Genese Grill
I see that Genese Grill is criticizing the mayor directly now, after someone caught her posting anti-Weinberg comments under a pseudonym on the first article….nice try, but this “opposition for the sake of opposition” still seems pointless. Let’s work for realistic, tangible, fair and achievable Progressive goals. That is my idea of a Liveable City.
You are right on the money with your questions, Genese. Thank you. Everyone should know the real reasons why CLF, VNRC, and Local Motion endorsed this project: intense lobbying by Noelle MacKay, who lobbied her friends in these organizations. For these organizations to publicly endorse this project without polling their own members, is totally bizarre.
Miro hired Noelle MacKay as CEDO Director, and Chapin Spencer, as Public Works Director, specifically for their “connections” to these groups, and virtually no other reason. While these individuals are respectable and well-liked, there were many highly-qualified individuals with more experience at the time.
This Sinex project will further gentrify the City. Doesn’t everyone recognize that Burlington is becoming a City of just “rich and poor”, with a smattering of students? Miro’s policies are actually CREATING suburban sprawl, because he is pushing middle-income earners and young families out of the City. This is over-developing our rural areas, increasing traffic, drastically increasing our carbon footprint, and requiring long commutes. Hasn’t everyone noticed how traffic has increased substantially just in the last 3-4 years? And we still have no viable mass transit other than buses, which operate only on the major routes, and must sit in the same gridlock as other drivers, saving no one any time.
As any developer, Miro’s mantra is always just build more units, and the price of rents will somehow MIRACULOUSLY come down. But housing doesn’t work that way, as more is in effect that simply supply-and-demand. In Economic terms, housing demand is “inelastic”. That’s why major urban areas often have to implement some sort of rent-control or a similar program. Rents only come down when a City has a major exodus of people and an economic collapse…think Detroit.
I see she’s at it again, posting accusatory and divisive comments on her own articles! Please, Genese, give it a rest and try not to act so desperate! Also, please give people a chance to think for themselves instead of relentlessly inserting your voice into every single discussion remotely involving you! Thanks. Sincerely, Potential Constituent.
This is from Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, VPP Chair.
Last Sunday, Mayor Weinberger addressed the Burlington Democratic Caucus and took direct aim at the VPP. He toggled between praising current Progressive Councilors and labeling local Progressives as reactionary and fringe. The Mayor also declared Progressives as anti-environment and anti-worker. He went on to claim credit for recent pro-environment and pro-worker efforts in the city, yet neglected to note that virtually all these efforts were started by Progressives. Progressives initiated Burlingtons move towards 100% renewable energy by positioning BED to purchase the Winooski hydro plant and by creating the McNeil plant. Progressives pushed recent pro-worker efforts such as supporting the Howard Center workers and maintaining livable wage standards at the airport. Weinberger opposed both measures. Clearly, the Mayors effort to give Democrats credit for Burlingtons successes ignores 30 years of Progressive leadership.
Attacking the Progressive Party and labeling the Party as fringe based on city council endorsements represents the Mayors poor knowledge of who our council candidates are and why they are running. Progressive endorsed candidates include: City Council President Jane Knodell, a champion of the recent development projects and many neighborhood revitalization projects, Charles Winkleman, an early educator and dedicated activist looking to address affordability issues for young people in Burlington, and Charles Simpson, an academic and champion of public transportation and strengthening neighborhood communities.
There are various opinions on the development project within the Progressive Party. While Winkleman and Simpson disagreed with aspects of the mall project, they should not be labeled reactionary by our Mayor. These candidates are running on more than one issue. Disagreement and discourse is healthy in a democracy and elected leaders should expect to be challenged. It comes with the territory. Its the job of leaders to go high in these moments. The Mayor went low.
Everyone should also know that bypassing the restriction of only allowing one “Like/Dislike” per person on these comments is easy. Anyone can do it. You will actually find that the plethora of “Dislikes” that appear suddenly is just one or two people.
Genese, I am sorry to see that you have become a target by the trolls, just by writing very informative postings. You and your organization have raised some very, very important issues during the last year.
These trolls and political operatives now have a giant “bulls-eye” on you. They criticize and attack you relentlessly, while usually adding nothing informative to the debate. Nor are they able to defend the actions of the Mayor or the Sinex proposal in any real way…they just spew rhetoric with no details.
Excuse me, “VT Policy Analyst,” but if you are referring to my comment, I am not a “troll” or a “political operative,” just a citizen of Burlington who is really put off by the hypocrisy I’m seeing, where it’s ok to accuse your opponents of “lying” etc.(see below) but any criticism of you is cause for concern. On top of that, I just thought the whole idea of a candidate involving him/herself in the comments on their own articles is not cool, especially when people don’t know it’s him/her. People should be given space to think for themselves on these issues. If that offends anyone or makes my comments unwelcome, then I apologize.
The “Coalition” for a “Livable City” and their candidates for City Council are part of the alt-left. Just like the alt-right they reject anything which does not fit into their narrative as part of a conspiracy. It never occurred to them that when well known and trusted advocacy groups stood up to support the mall redevelopment project they might be doing so purely because they actually believed in the project. No, to the it was all part of a scheme by the mayor to somehow profit off a project he has no financial stake it. Even when their internet comments get disliked they believe its part of a scheme against them, not that people just disagree with their reactionary and insane beliefs.
Guess what, when the Conservation Law Foundation and the Vermont Natural Resources Council supported this project it is because they genuinely believed based on what they, the experts, know about environmental effects of development, that this project was a project which would benefit the environment. When COTS endorsed the project it was because they, the experts, believed it would benefit the homeless by lowering the price of housing city wide. When AARP endorsed the project it was because they believed it would benefit seniors, and Local Motion endorsed it because they believed it would benefit bikers.
We should be weary when it comes to people who believe everything in this town is a conspiracy. Our Mayor, Jane Knodell, and Joan Shannon supported the project because they genuinely believed it would benefit their constituents. The CLC spent months yelling at them, insinuated they were doing this for some sort of personal profit, and lying to the people of Burlington about the basic facts of the project. They are fringe and we should not normalize them.
“Genese, I am sorry to see that you have become a target by the trolls,”
Anyone who comments here in a way that the anonymous, so-called “VTPolicyAnalyst” doesn’t like, is a “troll.” Anyone who doesn’t like Ms. Grill’s modus operandi of sucking all of the air out of the room, and of engaging in personal attacks on her ideological adversaries, is a “troll.”
In politics, half a loaf is better than no loaf. This is Weinberger’s justification for destruction of PLANBVT and community-enacted zoning. He is a developer so to him, like the carpenter with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail, Weinberger sees every problem as a lack of development that can be solved with more, more, more.
I am partly sympathetic in that the Tall Mall could already have been built by now, a few stories lower in compliance with zoning, had City Council and the nonprofits not objected 2 years ago and insisted on various changes when Sinex made his first application. This might have been the silver bullet that would have provided more housing, brought the Fletcher Allen Hospital back office jobs downtown & also complied with zoning with zero height violations. Nor any tax subsidies. There was a trade-off to be made and many of us were just fine with the original application, regardless of connected streets or a few extra subsidized “affordable” units (guess who is paying for the subsidies – it is not Don Sinex but the taxpayers subsidizing him and the market-rate payers who now have to pay more). When City Council & the nonprofits wanted to futz with it, Weinberger and his cronies decided half a loaf is still better than no loaf, even if it involves $20+million of fiscally irresponsible tax subsidies. Unfortunately, the voters want to pay these higher taxes or else fell for possibly false marketing from Weinberger & co (whoever heard of a SuperPac for ballot initiatives in Vermont until Weinberger).
As for CLF, AARP, and Champlain Housing Trust, their Tall Mall endorsements may have carried weight for those not paying attention but to so many others these organizations lost credibility long ago. They all showed their true colors in their deafening silence regarding the F-35 fighter jet basing. CLF also betrayed its roots by supporting the anti-environment destruction of Act 250 and local zoning via total exemptions for industrial energy.
Champlain Housing Trust supposedly cares about affordable housing but in reality they only care about building new housing that allows developers to profit and that CHT gets to manage, the better to justify expanding their bureaucracy. CHT cares not a whit for pre-existing affordable housing that is privately owned nor existing residents (i.e., huge swaths of South Burlington, Winooski and Williston under attack from the expanded noise zone of the F-35 fighter jet). Affordable houses with a garage and yard for the middle and working class. True homeownership for the middle and working class who do not qualify for subsidies is not part of the CHT agenda.
House after house is still being demolished in South Burlington, in spite of vows from Mayor Weinberger that the City of Burlington would stop applying for FAA funds to destroy neighborhoods. Not a word from CHT. More lies and violations of promises from the Democrats, just like the lies from Democrat-Progressive Jane Knodell.
CLF talks big about global warming but has no problem with the F-35 fighter jet, in spite of emissions so significant they threaten to further aggravate existing Clean Air Act violations in the F-35’s Utah basing. This is Burlington, Vermont today. How the Mayor and these nonprofits claim some mantle from the Bernie Sanders era based on these values is beyond me.
Good post, Chris. Folks should look at the annual reports and balance sheet of many of these so-called non-profits. These organizations once had noble missions, but over time they lose their focus and become self-perpetuating bureaucracies. This often happens.
Last I checked, VLT had 50 employees, and several earning more than $100,000 annually. This is not the way to use our land-conservation dollars. Similarly, CHT has even more, and I think most people would be shocked at the salaries of the Director and its employees. Eye-popping. CHT has totally lost its half that was the Burlington Community Land Trust at one time, and spoke for both preservation of important parcels of land, and smaller single-family homes and duplexes for families…both something in dire need.
CLF and VNRC have become a revolving door of individuals between the two groups. Just look at their employee bios and see how many people have worked at both organizations at one time or another.
If one is a paying member of these non-profits, the public has a right to know that their $$$ are often going to salaries, often exorbitant ones, rather than to supporting their original missions. And these groups are now dependent on dollars from the development community to keep their burgeoning bureaucracies going.
In listening to the mayor’s speech at the Democratic party caucus, I’m troubled by his over simplication of dissenting voices and his name calling. In black and white thinking it may be easier to simply label those who oppose specific issues by saying that they are essentially “anti-everything”. But in doing so the opportunity is lost to learn what nearly half the voters expressed in November. I ask the Mayor and our elected representatives for some honest curiosity about other viewpoints rather than broad brush negative labels. It will make for a much more interesting and productive dialogue.
Don’t forget. Miro got in line RIGHT AWAY to support Hilary. That should tell you all you need to know about who he thinks is “reactionary fringe”!
Well well well. I see there is a mobilized force, drowning this thread of comments in insults to Genese and the CLC. Even a bystander can see a theme here. Trying to discredit the opposition is a long political tradition. “The CLC spent months yelling at them”? Think about it – this line is fatuous. I’ve followed many of these stories in Seven Days, and never before have I seen two, three and four dozen folks determined to destroy someone’s credibility. Can you truly picture someone yelling for months? All I have witnessed is their speaking up at Public Meetings and circulating flyers. Some have carried signs – but the Mayor is the fellow who spent a bunch of money (thousands of dollars) on printed materials to convince voters – and he still just barely got a majority vote. The voters of the Wards where the properties are located were against the project, though their Council members asked them to vote for it. This has created what some feel is a need for new representation. Could we have a more civil discussion please? The CLC has not been a tenth as rude as its opponents.
I just wanted to share my full comment, which can be found below. Thank you.
https://www.facebook.com/WinklemanforBTV/p…
“The CLC has not been a tenth as rude as its opponents.”
This is simply an objectively false statement. Having closely observed the public and online debate from the beginning, the “anti” side’s strategy has been to try to carpetbomb the online debate, call names, and make all kinds of wild and unsubstantiated — and, frankly, absurd — accusations of public corruption against those who think the project is a good idea. See the repeated inflammatory, shrill, and accusatory posts by Petrarca, Philo, VTPolicyAnalyst, Grill, etc. Mostly, the project supporters have sat back and not reacted in kind. A simple count of the negative and accusatory adjectives used by the anti’s vs. the pro’s in the online postings will negate your claims as to who’s more “rude.”
Your call for “civil debate” is one-sided. It is positional blindness. You see “us” as rude but apparently you can’t even see your side’s incredible rudeness because your side is morally “right.” Well, guess what? We who support this project do so because we genuinely believe it is in the best interest of the city. Stop demonizing us and then accusing us of being rude merely because we don’t like your personal attacks!
Have a nice day.
[This is a response to the knowyourassumptions comment last evening.] Mr. KYA says that the CLC being less rude is an objectively false statement. He says weve been trying to carpetbomb the online debate, call names (etc.). He goes on to call the CLC inflammatory, shrill, and accusatory. His defensiveness is an attack. Why would civil debate appear to be positional blindness? Must we see things one way? Lets debate the logic, and not the tone. If I find his calling CLC shrill and accusatory to be sort of shrill and accusatory, does it matter? Should the City expect no discussion, or difference of opinion? After all, the City and the CLC apparently have different sensibilities. The CLC is not anti it proposes that progress is often better served with more public input, and with less emphasis on growing the city beyond its character and charm. Progress does not always mean building something especially if it is unclear what the result will be. I hope we can have a civil discussion about this.
I would prefer to support a candidate who doesn’t engage in the type of campaigning and actions that we’ve seen thus far. I was especially disheartened to read that Ms. Grill attempted to spread information that hurt Bernie’s campaign last year, because his wife dismissed her from a teaching post, or some such thing. Not to mention this aggressive commenting business. We’ve had enough of this type of behavior on the national stage. I hope Burlington sticks with Jane Knodell on City Council, who has a proven track record of years of service to her community with integrity and fairness. I don’t see her, or the other more dignified candidates, stooping to the level of lashing out at her opponents in the comments section of the newspaper!
Are 40% of Burlington voters “reactionary fringe?” No more than are the people who support the Mayor’s development plans “facist lackeys of corporate greed”. It’s fun to call names but really what good does it do? We, who opposed the Sinex Mall are a sizable minority who have a different philosophy of development and transparency than the Mayor and many members of City Council, , and unfortunately, a growing (and classic) distrust of the relationship between consultants, city government, the established non-profit sector and developers. That’s why we are bringing the lawsuit and continuing the fight. While we do this we invite everyone to engage in civil dialogue about the future of our city and lets please TALK ISSUES, not take offense at questions, and try to be transparent and avoid labels and personal attacks. Myself I fully support some of the mayor’s initiatives, and strongly oppose others. If the lawsuit stops the Sinex development we welcome the chance to work with the City on a new plan. We will fight for the same input and co-development on the Southern Connector, City Hall Park, Mem Auditorium and the Moran Plant and we will continue the important conversation about how we can avoid gentrification and provide affordable housing in Burlington – which many of us believe is linked to increasing the minimum wage and taking a long hard look at current definitions of “low income” and “affordable.” Let us accept that there are different philosophies at play here, Democrat, Republican Old Progressive, New Progressive Socialist, Independent, Green and different opinions within each sector. And lets talk issues and what we believe are factsnot adopt the style and lack of substance of the current national dialogue. D. Schein
Weinberger has been an unmitigated disaster.
A few nuggets of his truly abysmal record:
1. He wants to finish the highway on the waterfront. All over this country, forward-looking cities are looking for ways to get rid of waterfront highways. Not Miro. He wants to actually build one!
2. He wants to rebuild a mall. I guess he didn’t get the message that everyone else has gotten: malls are late-20th century dinosaurs. They don’t work in this era.
3. He didn’t lift a finger to stop the largest parcel of undeveloped waterfront land in the city from being turned into a sea of condos.
4. The Burlington telephone give away. BT is a multiple jewel. Plenty of cities would love to have a city-owned telecom company and free themselves of the telecom monopolies. He didn’t have to give it away to fix it; but he did. Residents will pay.
His actions on the mall alone should be enough get rid of him. A special zoning variance for an out of state real estate millionaire. Miro the developer never met a development he didn’t like.
The worst of it? All of his bad actions will be impossible to reverse:
The undeveloped land on the waterfront. Gone. Never coming back.
The city owned telecom company? Gone. Welcome to corporate control of the internet, Burlington.
The 14 story behemoth? It will be there when you die.
Ditto on the highway on the waterfront.
Miro Weinbeger will go down as the worst mayor the city of Burlington has ever seen.
Thanks Dem establishment who put him there. Special thanks to entrenched, out of touch, dinosaur progressive who aren’t doing their jobs. You have enabled him. Your legacy is also now colored.
On the contrary, he’s been the best thing to happen to Burlington in years. Before him we had years and years and years of financial mismanagement, stagnation, and urban deterioration by his Prog predecessors — city not making its pension payments; no new housing in decades; slumlords rejoicing because there’s no housing competition for their hovels; rents going through the roof, for hovels; BT fiasco under Clavelle and Kiss; city stagnating because there’s no decent housing for workers; a pathetic, embarrassing half-empty “mall” in the heart of the city; ugly hulk of the Moran plant sitting on the waterfront for decades; etc., etc., etc. Cities that don’t move forward die. Burlington was dying.