Queen City voters will not get a chance to weigh in on the future of City Hall Park.
The Burlington City Council declined on Monday night to put a question on the Town Meeting Day ballot that would have asked whether voters wanted to cancel the $4 million project to renovate the downtown green space.
The 6-6 vote was a defeat for the citizen group Keep the Park Green, which has fought the park plans for nearly three years. Under council rules, a tie vote means the measure fails.
The vote means the future of the park is decided. Construction on the current plan, which includes a splash park, wider pathways and more seating, is slated to begin in the spring.
Mayor Miro Weinberger, who supported the current park renovation plan, argued that too much time and money had been invested to go back to the drawing board. The proposal, he said, was a result of “a multiyear effort by a multidisciplinary, multiagency team.” The mayor urged the council to “make a decision on this park once and for all.”
Some councilors argued that the question wording was one-sided and reflected the views of Keep the Park Green.“We are not obligated to put any question on the ballot,” City Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) said. He had previously pleaded with the group to amend the language, to no avail.
Ultimately, Wright and five Democratic councilors — Dave Hartnett, Richard Deane, Karen Paul, Joan Shannon, and Chip Mason — voted against putting the question to voters. Progressives Brian Pine, Jane Knodell and Max Tracy voted in favor of the proposal, as did independents Adam Roof and Sharon Bushor, and Democrat/Progressive Ali Dieng.
The decision followed nearly two hours of public forum. Residents filled Contois Auditorium in a standing-room-only meeting, and more than 50 people spoke forcefully on both sides of the issue.
Multiple speakers emphasized that the number of residents who signed a petition circulated by Keep the Park Green proved the widespread discontent over the existing plan. The group collected more than 3,300 signatures, significantly more than the 5 percent of registered voters required to get the question to the council.
Not allowing voters to weigh in, Andrew Simon told the city representatives, would be “a shame, an affront to democracy and a mistake.”
Wayne Senville compared the signatures to the blinking red lights that flash as a train approaches. The petition, like the lights, “is asking you to stop and to listen,” he said.
Those in favor of the current plan argued that the people of Burlington have already had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard. That was the argument made by Milton Rosa-Ortiz, who contended that those opposed to the plan were losing sight of the benefits of the existing proposal. “I worry long-term wisdom is being trumped by short-term passions,” he said.
The ballot question was nonbinding. Even if it had gone on the ballot and passed, the council would not have been forced to act on it.
The proposed language read:
“Shall we, the citizens of Burlington, advise the Mayor and City Council to:
A. cancel the current plan for City Hall Park that was approved by the City Council on 6-25-18; and
B. instead, repair, maintain, and improve the Park by preserving more existing trees and shaded areas, repairing grass and existing walkways, increasing lighting and benches, and retaining the historic character of the Park?”
The council on Monday also voted to allow residents to decide two charter changes. Burlingtonians will vote on whether to create a new city department, the Department of Permitting and Inspections. That charter change also gives the mayor the power to appoint the director of the Planning and Zoning Department.
The council also reaffirmed its decision to put the Downtown Improvement District on the ballot. Currently, a group of businesses that make up the Church Street Marketplace pay a fee to receive additional services such as local promotion, snow removal and public events. The new plan would expand that district to include all of downtown.
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Someone needs to tell the numb council president – when you are inundated with a line of public speakers, call two names and splain that the person on deck MUST take the second chair as the leadoff speaker begins.
It would have saved an hour or more of the painful silence that was eclipsed in searing only by the grating voices begging councilors to spend even more tax money than the $5 million now budgeted for putting in a concrete “splash” fountain.
The council chief has absolutely no clue.
He can also save a lot of time next time by deleting his introductory speech to each speaker, you know, the way he likes to curry favor with each one in anticipation of his next election.
While the city’s disengaged park dwellers argue over a concrete $5 million taxpayer-financed “splash” fountain, the council is laughing all the way to its next re-election inaugural gala.
As long as councilors can get people lost in a nonsensical debate over concrete vs. trees, they are winning.
And meanwhile, they keep spending.
Property taxes are once again headed off the charts – while the uninitiated tree huggers scrap over a once-gorgeous city park that’s been ruined by homeless-by-choice squatters whose tarps and blankets have ruined the root system of the trees and grass.
Hardly surprising this was all an inside City Hall deal. Nepotism from the Arts Council and a cozy coterie of councilors to push through the Mayor’s next spending spree with the taxpayer’s money. Democracy is dead in Burlington. We have to vote out this can’t find enough projects to do with other people’s money mayor.
I’m no huge fan of the Burlington City Council as a whole recently, but the idea that there’s an inaugural gala for city councilors is pretty funny. I don’t think anybody would anybody describe those pictures of half-empty rooms at Nectar’s as a “gala”
So what about that big hole in the ground where the mall used to be? Can we have another one of those, Miro?
“Mayor Miro Weinberger, who supported the current park renovation plan, argued that too much time and money had been invested to go back to the drawing board.”
Moranflipflopsayswhat?
“Hardly surprising this was all an inside City Hall deal.”
No, it was a 7-year public process with a gazillion public meetings.
“Nepotism . . .”
Ya mean like Carinna running for mayor and being supported by daddy’s foundation?
” . . . Mayor’s spending spree with the taxpayer’s money. We have to vote out this can’t find enough projects to do with other people’s money mayor.”
Funny how Progs are against public spending when anybody is doing it but them.
Fix the sad park.
Miro’s ego driven building blitzkrieg continues on, thanks to the Oligarchs’ obedient servants on City Council aka the Chamber of Commerce’s personal butlers and maids.
So just clear-cut the park and get it over with. The new “design” is sterile and ugly. A “Splash park”? This will wind up like the fountain that used to be at the head of Church Street: a dog wash and open air bath for the homeless folks.
The registered voters should have a say in this. How much will the taxes be increased?
“The registered voters should have a say in this. How much will the taxes be increased?”
You’re kidding, right? Perhaps you just landed on Planet Burlington yesterday? The “registered voters” — and even all of the unregistered ones — all had a say, or could have had a say, during all of the many, may public meetings on the redesign of the park over the last 7 years.
I am absolutely DISGUSTED by our power and money hungry mayor who will stop at nothing to turn Burlington into a cookie cutter make-you-want-to-vomit-its-so-boring garbage town. And SHAME ON YOU to the city councilors who refuse to put it to a vote. What are you afraid of? If your plan is so great, surely more than 50% of registered voters will vote in favor of it! If not, THEN THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG HERE. If the majority doesn’t want it done, WHY DO IT WITH OUR MONEY? STOP RUINING BURLINGTON WITH OUR MONEY! I am so angry with this horrible local government. THROW THEM OUT
And why the hell would anyone want a splash pad in city hall park?!?!? There’s not even anywhere to change yours kids after they have gotten soaked in it. What am I supposed to do, change them right there in the middle of the park while the people who like to hang out all day in that park watch my naked children? No thanks. Why wouldn’t you put this at a place that already has things for children and facilities to support it, like Oakledge or Leddy or LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE IN TOWN? What on earth has happened to common sense in this town? For god’s sake, STOP THIS MADNESS
What a boondoggle. And what are Miro and his cronies worried about? The election is five weeks away, it’s not like this is a delay. In five weeks the ground will still be frozen and snow covered. Can’t wait for the bulldozers to wake me at 6am to give me a front row seat at the destruction of a nationally recognized historical park. Trump is obviously not the only one with no perspective. And don’t get me started about the nepotism. Corruption is alive and well in Miro’s administration.
The ballot item about the Downtown Improvement District is the next step in the mayor’s quest to transfer public property to the private sector. His Brexit like proposal would wrestle governance of the district from the supposed tyranny of citizen control. Realizing that this might be a tough sell, the administration is resorting to their tried and true strategy. They “sub-prime” it by combining it with the more palatable idea of expanding the district. We have seen this done with Burlington Telecom, Burlington Town Center, the Southern Connector, the waterfront, the F-35’s, City Hall Park and more. The voters deserve better than this constant manipulation. The district can be expanded without the governance changes. The voters should reject this ill conceived ballot item.
Uhh, ‘scuse me Mr. Goodkind. “The Southern Connector”? Unless my memory and a bunch of documents I’ve kept over the years while I’ve been a party to the road’s various starts and stops fail me, you were the head of Public Works for decades while the Southern Connector was being integrated into the city’s development plans. I never heard you damn the project to the public then. Now you’re dumping responsibility for it, (with it’s hefty price tag) in the Mayor’s lap? The Mayor inherited that project, and Moran, and a neglected Memorial Auditorium from the previous administrations. You can throw City Hall Park into the category, too. Maybe we ought to be giving the guy some credit for picking up the slack, instead of blaming him for other people’s failed commitments.
I want to take a minute to clarify one part of the article, where Council President Kurt Wright and some other Councilor claimed the petition was biased, and one-sided.
Wright told Keep the Park Green he would change his vote & support putting the Resolution on the ballot only if the language in the petition was changed to make it less “biased.” Keep the Park Green felt the wording in the petition was perfectly sound in giving the City Council “advice” on what to do next; last Fall we had reviewed our wording with City Attorney Blackwood, and incorporated suggestions she made (though she did also warn us that she believed the City Council had the unlimited power to reject the petition for whatever reason it wanted).
We believe the wording in the Petition — which over 3,300 registered Burlington voters signed their names to — was succinct & would have given some plain advice to the Council. What’s more, we felt we had to respect what these voters had signed their names to, and not attempt to modify the wording.
You can judge for yourself if you think the wording was “biased,” as Councilor Wright claimed. Here it is:
“(A) cancel the current plan for City Hall Park that was approved by the City Council on 6-25-18; and (B) instead, repair, maintain, and improve the Park by preserving more existing trees and shaded areas, repairing grass and existing walkways, increasing lighting and benches, and retaining the historic character of the Park?
Oh, yeah, its totally biased.
I thought it was supposed to be an unbiased referendum on whether the voters wanted the council to go forward with the existing redesign plan, or not? It*s not that.
It implicitly denigrates the years of work of educated, qualified public space design professionals who worked with tons and tons of public input. It says, our last minute, interventionist, fundamentally conservative, and vague vision is better. It says, you arent *improving* the park unless you do what we say. It says, you cant retain the historic character of the park unless you do what we say.
Seems biased to me.
When it takes seven years of public input and people still want to hold up the park process with a last minute delay its easy to understand the far left in Burlington. They simply can’t be pleased and are obstructionists through and through. The council and mayor are justified in steamrolling this wasteful shenanigan. Whether it’s the South End Connector, Burlington City Place, City Hall Park, or Burlington Telecom, the vocal minority simply can’t respect city-wide or city council votes of the majority of Burlingtonians or their elected representatives. They cry foul and mistake not getting their way with a rigged process. Here’s an idea, how about you elect enough council representatives or a mayor that share your viewpoint or at the very least be honest and recognize that the tactics you fall back on are anti-populist. Until then come up with some better ideas that sway the council and try not to legislate by ballot or lawsuit, it reeks of back seat driving.
This is great. All the people who hated the idea of putting it to a vote, after 3300 signatures were presented to the City Clerk, are here! They are here to say that the people behind this initiative are just an annoyance. Guys, remember those thousands of people who signed? They all thought it should go to a vote. So far on this page there are only a few dozen of you. You guys are in the minority. We should have the issue on the ballot, if you think you are Not the minority.
Thea Lewis need only look at the public information that was prepared by the city for the 10 year capital plan that we voted on several years ago, to see my point about the Southern Connector. The Connector is the single largest capital project in the plan, at about $30 million. It is not mentioned anywhere that I can find in the lengthy written explanations of the plan, although just about everything else is. The only place it can be found is one line of the massive spreadsheets that contain all the capital projects. These spreadsheets were not part of the city’s information materials and had to be obtained separately.. I have yet to encounter a single person (there may be some somewhere) who knew that the capital plan contained an appropriation for the Connector until I told them it did. It went unmentioned, hidden among the many other smaller, but more popular projects. They sub-primed it.
Sad to see Burlington going down hill. It’s a far cry from the Burlington I grew up in. It dates back to the fool who wants to be President, good old Bernie.
I should be honest here and say it pre-dates Bernie; when the city decided to destroy a whole neighborhood of hard working people that was the start. Bernie just gave it more speed once he became Mayor.
Now Burlington is a dirty little city that cares not for her citizens and does not even listen to them anymore.
This is a response to ” imagrownassmanbtv “:
In your comment, you said, “the vocal minority simply can’t respect city-wide or city council votes of the majority of Burlingtonians or their elected representatives. They cry foul and mistake not getting their way with a rigged process. “
However, 3300 people are NOT a vocal minority. The several dozen people on this thread who are cheering each other on in their dislike of Keep The Park Green are the minority. You are an anonymous person who only Thinks they are the majority. The vote would show who exactly IS the minority. You can have dozens of “likes” or “dislikes” on this page, and still – you will not get 3300 of them. Let the majority speak. The majority of residents in Burlington would like to save more trees. Sorry.
3300 is a majority?
In 2018 the population of Burlington was over 42,000
That is only around 8% of the population of Burlington.
To concernedVter:
Sorry, I didn’t say 3300 is a majority of the citizens of Burlington. You are right, it is 8%! That is more than enough (5%) to get an item on the ballot. The BALLOT Item was to vote, so that we could SEE who is the majority – people who want the design to remain as it is, or people who wish to modify the design and still repair the Park. What I said was that 3300 was NOT a Vocal Minority, it was quite a bunch of people – enough to put the item on the ballot. [It was not put on the ballot because the Council had a problem with the wording, or just didn’t want to be un-supportive of the planners who have spent years on the project. The Council was split, 50-50, on whether to put it on the ballot (which by law doesn’t proceed – a majority of Council members must approve).] What I was saying is that the folks who are on this thread (dozens) protesting against KPTG and the ballot item are actually the minority compared to the 3300 who signed the petitions. There you go.
Well Charlie, as a grown ass man I may say some grown ass man things from time to time. Its okay if Im anonymous as long as my words make sense. Lets unpack what I said and how it matches up to recent progressive-backed initiatives. Burlington City-Place has been held up by lawsuits and delaying tactics after having been approved by city-wide and council majority votes. Its taken almost 4 years to build. Burlington Telecom progressives to this day continue to deny the reality that its been sold by majority decision and are trying for one more hail Mary obstruction with the regulatory board that is finalizing the decision. Again a multi-year process. The South End connector which offhandedly has been noted in this forum was sat on for decades by Steve Goodkind has finally cleared its last lawsuits and 40 plus years of stagnation. Its now being threatened with, you guessed it another lawsuit by the same collection of people who reflexively oppose everything the mayor proposes. What I sense has happened since Miro came into the mayorship is that people want more common sense process, expectations and growth that isnt held up by endless process. Someone correct me if Im wrong but I dont recall the Democrats nickel and diming every initiative put up by the progressives with lawsuits and ballot measures for the 30 years they ran the show. By natural growth rates Burlington should have 4 to 5 thousand more people in the same city but it basically stagnated for 30 years as there was no significant population or housing growth during Progressive rule, Its time to grow and change as a city again.
In a democracy everyone cant be satisfied, its that simple. some peoples views will not win the day and the majority will and should have the final say if its following the rules set in place. Otherwise it becomes a tyranny of the minority which is what the left is attempting to achieve in Burlington by trying to make an end run around the democratic process with lawsuits and ballot initiatives. It wants to give itself fiat veto power over decisions made through voter and council approved process. Thats bad governance and bad for business. It projects out to our representatives, hard-working city staff and potential investors in the city that nothing you work on or pass legislatively is guaranteed even if its by the majority and that at any time, any investment you make could be forfeit if it can be blocked through determined extra-legal means. You cant manage a city of Burlingtons size like that, it just wont work, its inefficient, unpredictable and dangerous to democracy. Lastly yes, 3,000 plus votes is a good amount of folks but likely still represent a minority of the general Burlington population. Progressives often mistake their ability to pack Contois Auditorium, raise petitions or hold public rallies with broad city-wide support. Finally lets not worry as much about city hall park trees as many trees are being planted in Burlington today. There are multiple ongoing tree planting efforts in Burlington. For example 120 alone in 2016 by Branch Out Burlington and 500 by Burlington/UVM in 2016. Most of City Hall Parks trees will be replaced and yes they will eventually grow hopefully like our city.
Well, “grownassman”, I too am grown. (I must say though that I admire your ability to generate a second 270-word comment only two minutes later!) I do refute your arguments, as do many others. It’s easy to seem like the majority opinion Here In The Comment Section but out in the real world. we have a city that would NOT have five thousand more happy citizens if the darn activists would just get out of the way. This city is FULL of those darn activists. If you want Expedient Progress and Lots of Building Projects, you may be looking in the wrong city, or the wrong State. And no matter HOW MANY dislikes this comment gets, it will Never get 3300 dislikes. See you Monday at City Hall.
https://vtdigger.org/2019/03/18/judge-rule…