For the first time since 2003, Joan Shannon is not running for a spot on the Burlington City Council. The stalwart Democrat’s departure means one of two new contenders will fill her South District seat after the Town Meeting Day election — and could potentially tip the balance of power.
The seat is one of four in contention next month. Burlington alternates elections between the four district seats — up this year — and the eight ward seats to be filled in March 2026. In the North and Central districts, respectively, incumbents Mark Barlow (I) and Melo Grant (P) are running unopposed.
The two contested seats, in the East and South districts, will determine which party dominates the council at a pivotal time. In the coming months, officials must craft a budget that could require significant cuts in order to close a multimillion-dollar revenue gap. The city is also embarking on a national search for a new police chief at a time when public safety — and the department — is under the microscope.
For Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, the race could be a chance to upset the Democratic majority on the council, whose members have criticized the pace at which she’s addressed challenges with police staffing and the worsening homelessness crisis. Should Progressives win both seats, it would mark the first time in city history that the party controlled both the council and mayor’s office simultaneously.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s return to office threatens to endanger Burlington’s progressive policies on climate change, immigration and addiction, including plans to open an overdose-prevention center.
All four candidates support the concept of a center but have varying degrees of concern about potential federal intervention. The candidates are also aligned with Mulvaney-Stanak’s pledge to maintain Burlington’s status as a “sanctuary city,” a designation that prohibits local police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The candidates are running on promises to tackle the city’s most pressing issues: public safety and affordability, including housing. All four support the sizable bonds on the ballot to fix the city’s water and wastewater treatment systems. And they all hope voters pass a charter change meant to ban guns in bars. Each has said they’ll work across the aisle to get things done for the Queen City.
South District
Ranjit “Buddy” Singh says he isn’t the type of politician who thinks he knows best. To address Burlington’s challenges, he believes councilors should collaborate and let the “best ideas rise to the top.”
“I don’t want to stand in the way of a good idea,” he said. “If it’s gonna bring this city forward, I’m not gonna get in the way.”
As the Democratic candidate in a reliably Dem district, he’s got a built-in advantage over Progressive opponent Jennifer Monroe Zakaras. She’s campaigning on the promise that she’d work with Dems, a message that could resonate in an increasingly fractured political climate.
“That’s what we need in this moment,” she said.
Born in upstate New York and raised on military bases, Zakaras, 39, moved to Burlington seven years ago and lives in the Hill Section with her husband and two young daughters. She works remotely for the University of California San Francisco, where she researches how people’s living conditions affect their physical and mental health — knowledge that she says prepares her to work on issues related to substance use and homelessness in Burlington.
Like other Progressives, Zakaras believes in attacking those issues both directly and at the root — by embedding social workers in the police department, for instance, instead of policing more aggressively.
But Zakaras does want to hire more cops. She acknowledged that the 2020 vote to shrink the department created an officer exodus. But she maintains that, four years on, the city should consider other reasons it’s struggling to hire and retain cops — the high cost of living and poor conditions at the police station, to name a couple. Singh, meantime, said the Democrats’ recent action to remove the controversial cap on the department roster will help recruitment. “And it didn’t cost us anything,” he added.
The candidates differ on efforts to open an overdose-prevention center in Burlington, where people could use illicit drugs under supervision.
Zakaras thinks the city should go full speed ahead.
“It would be premature to not do things that are good for our community because of what the [Trump] administration might do,” she said.
Singh said he supports the concept but worries that the administration could sue the city or the nonprofit chosen to operate the center. Given those risks, Singh said, he’s unsure whether the city should proceed.
“I want the city to be thoughtful in its decision making,” he said.
A loan officer with Spruce Mortgage, Singh, 53, lives near the South Burlington line with his wife and 10-year-old daughter. He said he would support policies to create more housing in Burlington, from low-barrier shelters to new homes, and advocate for state funds to pay for them. Zakaras’ platform calls for investing more in the city’s Housing Trust Fund, which helps finance affordable development projects.
Singh’s deep community connections may help his campaign. He leads the Parent-Teacher Organization at Champlain Elementary School and has served on the board for the Boys & Girls Club of Burlington for 15 years. He served an 18-year stint on the Church Street Marketplace Commission.
Singh said he’s relying more on these experiences than his party label to win the race. He’s also got some cash to use on his campaign: With $16,525 in his war chest, he’s raised more than twice as much as Zakaras.
“I gotta earn every vote,” he said. “I want people to trust me, because I’m playing a role in what their future looks like.”
Zakaras knows she’ll struggle to win in a Dem district. She’s had to explain to voters that she won’t rubber-stamp the mayor’s agenda, even though Mulvaney-Stanak is her campaign treasurer. Some people she’s met knocking on doors have told her they won’t vote for a Progressive.
But the same people have softened after listening to her pitch, Zakaras said, which gives her hope.
“This is about simply knowing how to work with other people, how to compromise, how to collaborate,” she said. “That’s just really fundamental to who I am as a candidate.”
East District
The East District seat has been vacant since November, when former Democratic councilor Tim Doherty resigned after being appointed a Vermont Superior Court judge. Two fresh faces are in the running in this district, which has ping-ponged between Democratic and Progressive councilors over the past several cycles.
Progressive Kathy Olwell is facing off with Democrat Allie Schachter — the former an experienced public servant and the latter a political newcomer. Neither candidate is running a purely partisan campaign. Instead, they’re promoting their willingness to reach across the aisle.
A retired social worker, Olwell, 76, and her husband live on North Prospect Street. Her grandchildren attend school at the Sustainability Academy in the Old North End — and are good friends with Schachter’s two kids.
Olwell spent 10 years on the Burlington School Board and can take credit for founding the city’s afterschool programs and the New North End Youth Center.
Olwell says she’s running because she likes Mulvaney-Stanak’s vision for the city. A believer in progressive tax policy, she supports the mayor’s working group that’s exploring a fairer tax structure. And she thinks the mayor’s approach to public safety achieves the right balance between traditional policing and alternative responses, such as having social workers respond to certain calls.
A self-described doer, Olwell said she’d put party affiliation aside to tackle tough issues. The council can’t accomplish anything, she said, “if we’re always playing tit for tat.”
Schachter is similarly dismayed by partisan bickering and pledged to avoid it if elected.
“I will find common ground with everybody I would have the chance to work with,” she said.
Schachter, 37, lives on North Williams Street. She worked for human services nonprofits out of state before she moved to Burlington in 2021. She is now the development director for the Flynn.
Working downtown, Schachter sees the city’s challenges firsthand and recognizes the pressure put on Mulvaney-Stanak to solve them. She’s concerned that progress isn’t being made quickly enough.
That includes the slow pace of hiring more police. Schachter said she’d push for programs to make cops feel welcome in Burlington, a feeling diminished by the 2020 vote. In her Massachusetts hometown, for example, the department gave children baseball cards featuring officers’ photos, a collectible that built community trust.
On housing, Schachter says the city should promote homeshare arrangements and charge higher fees to owners of vacant buildings to encourage them to redevelop their properties or sell them. Olwell says developers should be required to build more affordable units and wants to hire more code enforcement officers to crack down on absentee landlords and owners of vacant buildings.
Schachter, meantime, has been criticized for taking campaign donations from developers, including the Pomerleau family and Dave Farrington, a partner in the CityPlace Burlington project. For her part, Schachter says her donors aren’t “notoriously irresponsible landlords” and that their contributions won’t influence her decisions if elected. Schachter has raised about $13,500 compared to Olwell’s $2,330, according to February 2 campaign finance reports. Olwell contributed about half of that haul to herself, and her biggest listed contributor is Councilor Carter Neubieser (P-Ward 1).
Living in the student-heavy East District, both candidates want the city to pursue an agreement with the University of Vermont to house more undergraduates on campus; talks have stalled in recent months. If UVM won’t budge, Olwell thinks the school should have to cap its enrollment; Schachter said she’d need to research the idea before endorsing it.
The candidates are making their final push before Town Meeting Day. Olwell has been working the phones and knocking on doors when it’s not too cold.
Schachter knows face time is the best way to compete with Olwell’s name recognition. To that end, she’s been hosting weekly coffee hours, attending house parties and knocking on doors. Her team has hit more than 1,000 to date, and they aim for 1,500 by Town Meeting Day on March 4. By that time, though, some people may have already made their choice. Ballots went out in the mail last week.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Stakes Are High in Burlington Races | Four first-time candidates compete for two seats that will determine control of the city council”
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This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.
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