Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger today nominated a leading bike advocate and Progressive former city councilor to head the city’s Department of Public Works.
The choice of Chapin Spencer, director of the bicyclist and pedestrian advocacy group Local Motion, likely ranks as the boldest personnel move of the Democratic mayor’s 15-month tenure.
Spencer (pictured with daughter Zia) cofounded and has helmed a 14-year-old “inclusive-transportation” organization recognized as one of the most effective of its kind in the country. In his four years on the city council as a Ward 1 Prog (1998-2002) and in his work at Local Motion, Spencer has demonstrated the political instincts of a pragmatist as well as those of a partisan.
Weinberger emphasized those two aspects of Spencer’s career during a press conference Thursday afternoon at a Department of Public Works garage on Pine Street.
“In nearly two decades of service to this community, Chapin has shown himself to be both a visionary who can push the community forward and a pragmatist who can deliver on-the-ground progress,” Weinberger said. The department that Spencer has been chosen to lead is “responsible for our most basic municipal needs as well as our highest aspirations,” the mayor added.
Asked about the political significance of choosing a Progressive, Weinberger said the selection “gives substance to the idea that we want to be an administration that appeals to a broad political spectrum.”
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