Steve Goodkind, First of the Sanderistas, Set to Cycle Into the Sunset

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An era will end when Burlington Public Works director Steve Goodkind hangs up his hard hat next month. Mayor Miro Weinberger announced on Tuesday that Goodkind will retire on June 30 — 32 years after being hired by Bernie Sanders as the socialist mayor’s first appointee.

Soon to turn 62, Goodkind was a member of the original inner circle of Sanderistas that included John Franco, David Clavelle, George Thabault and Doreen Kraft. Only Kraft, who runs Burlington City Arts, is still working as a city official.

“A fortuitous series of events, mostly financial” led to Goodkind’s decision to step down now, he said in an interview in the driveway of his home in Burlington’s New North End. “It’s working out now probably as good as it’s ever going to work out.”

With the weather warming, Goodkind has the added incentive of being able to spend unlimited hours riding his custom-built motorcycle around Vermont and likely to Newfoundland, too, on a road trip he’s planning with his wife. He says he’s heading for “the Wild East” this summer after a 25-year series of cycle trips out West that have included stops at the annual rally that draws hundreds of thousands of bikers to Sturgis, South Dakota.

Goodkind has been a biker since getting his driver’s license at age 17. “I wanted to be a motorcycle mechanic long before I ever heard the term ‘public works,'” he reminisces. It’s an ambition put into practice by his son, Ethan Goodkind, who runs Moonlight Cycles in Winooski.

Retirement will also give Goodkind more time to devote to his banjo picking.

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