Mayor MIro Weinberger swearing in newly elected city councilors Credit: Katie Jickling
During his State of the City speech Monday, Mayor Miro Weinberger appeared to extend an olive branch to the Progressive Party by outlining a left-leaning agenda addressing climate change and the local housing crunch.

Those were both priorities espoused on the campaign trail by Perri Freeman (P-Central District) and Jack Hanson (P-East District), the two young political novices who ousted incumbents Jane Knodell and Richard Deane on Town Meeting Day.

With one fewer member of his own party on the council, Weinberger, a Democrat, also emphasized collaboration in city government during the annual address at City Hall.

The mayor, who’s starting his eighth year at the city’s helm, vowed to double down on climate change by introducing e-bikes and e-scooters and adding bike lanes. In the coming year, he said, the Burlington Electric Department would release a road map toward achieving the city’s 2030 net zero energy goal. “It is, perhaps, the most ambitious climate goal of any city in America,” the mayor said to applause.

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Weinberger also said that his office would hold a summit in May to review housing policies and priorities and then enact them, pointing to the city’s low 1.5 percent vacancy rate. He also said he’d continue to encourage more housing development, both market-rate and affordable.

“Let us resolve together that 2019 will be the year we accomplish the structural fixes needed to make housing for all a reality,” he said.

The mayor also reverted back to his bread and butter: fiscal responsibility. He noted the city’s achievement in finalizing the sale of Burlington Telecom to Schurz Communications last month. In his speech, Weinberger proposed using a portion of the $7 million in sale proceeds to eliminate the 1.5 percent property tax increase that voters approved on Town Meeting Day. He also proposed using some of the cash to replace the city’s fleet of sidewalk plows.

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He touted the city’s efforts addressing the opioid epidemic — and said the work is not yet finished. Starting on Tuesday, social workers at the police department would begin screening arrestees for addiction and offering those addicted immediate access to treatment, Weinberger said.

Also on Monday, the council elected Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) to a second term as the body’s president.

Wright, too, emphasized a willingness to work across the aisle, and praised Weinberger’s plan to avoid raising the property tax. “I’m really pleased,” he said. “I think it shows trust in voters, that we said … that we wouldn’t call that money up if we didn’t have to.”

He was less enthusiastic about the mayor’s plans to replace parking spaces with bike lanes. “I part with him very strongly on that,” Wright said.

After the speech, Councilor Brian Pine (P-Ward 3) told Seven Days that he was optimistic after hearing Weinberger’s proposals for the year ahead. “I think the mayor took the results of the election and tried to use the State of the City comments to reflect the temperament and the mood of the public, and assure people that he shares those priorities,” he said.

“I’ll take him at his word and at face value,” Pine noted, adding that “obviously the details may be where we disagree.”

Weinberger began the meeting by swearing in the three new councilors that were elected in March: Freeman, Hanson, and Franklin Paulino (D-North District). They replace Knodell, Deane and Dave Hartnett, respectively. Incumbent Joan Shannon (D-South District) also took the oath of office. 

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Katie Jickling is a Seven Days staff writer.

9 replies on “Weinberger Prioritizes Climate Change, Housing in State of the City”

  1. Im not hearing much about the millions of gallons of untreated sewage pouring into lake Champlain every time it rains. What are we doing about that, Miro? How about we deal with that before worrying about providing e-bikes and scooters?

  2. Hard to believe the guy who spent the past 8 years trying to get rid of inclusionary zoning, evicting homeless folks from public land, and sitting idly by as landlords jack up rents and evict low-income residents, is suddenly going to listen to low-income housing and tenant advocates. Fool me thrice shame on me.

  3. Miro could care less about the homeless and low-income people! Affordable housing to him is about 1200 dollars a month for an economy apartment! Burlington needs a rent control system so the slumlords can’t charge whatever they want!

  4. Miro knows he doesn’t have a huge majority of like minded Neo-liberal/Disaster capitalists on Council anymore. He still has a slim majority and will use that to hammer thru everything the Chamber of Commerce demands. His agenda of over-populating the city is still at the forefront. He still wants a high-rise playground downtown for the Elect and Elite. He fails to offer any relief for those at the bottom with any real rent control policy, so obviously Miro is very comfy with the poorer folks being gouged. “Free Market solutions”,eh?

    As far as this “net zero” stuff it is nothing but the empty talk of posing Trickle Down capitalists fondling themselves in front of their mirrors as long as people in Burlington continue to burn natural gas for heat. Yes, gas burns cleaner than coal but anything burns cleaner than coal. Natural gas is filthy to extract. It is the typical DNC response to addressing Climate Change with shallow solutions that won’t disturb our rampaging “free market” or affect too many people’s comfort or sense of entitled unlimited consumption of the planet. “American exceptionalism” and “liberties and freedoms” have become nothing more than rationalizations for gluttony and greed.

    If we have an extra $7 million laying around from the BT sale and we need new snow removal gear then just go buy it now because we will have to buy it eventually, instead of the usual bait and switch of “tax cuts”.

    At this point we are nothing more than a snake eating its own tail, desperately trying to believe that if we only eat more and eat faster we will grow ourselves out of our problems.

  5. “The mayor vowed to add bike lanes.”

    Oh, great!

    Not currently enough plastic-pylon garbage placed by Miro & gang in the streets of the state’s largest city.

    Go Miro!

    Can’t blame the guy. He’s catering to his meal plan, no pun intended – the liberal share-the-wealth crowd. (You know, the same hypocrites who love sharing your money but not theirs.)

    Without the fake environmentalists – who use cars but pretend they walk or bike wherever they go – Miro wouldn’t have a job.

    Go Miro!

  6. I don’t know about rent control. Having the colleges house their own students would go a long way in freeing up some rental units. I also don’t know about a network of bike lanes in a city where biking is only practical part of the year.

  7. Weinberger prioritizes himself. Bike lanes would be a nice feather in his cap but really don’t solve the transportation issue nor does it do anything to resolve the giant holes in the middle of Burlington’s streets. Speaking of giant holes in the middle of Burlington…

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