Tuesday, August 18, 2020
The mayor on Tuesday proposed limiting outdoor residential gatherings to 25 people, indoor ones to 10, and to end all alcohol sales at 10 p.m. The indoor gathering limit would be 15 if at least five of the attendees are household members.
He's requested an emergency city council meeting for Thursday to approve the new rules.
Tags: Mayor Miro Weinberger , City of Burlington , University of Vermont , Suresh Garimella , coronavirus , covid-19 , gathering size limits , Web Only , Image
City officials will break ground Wednesday afternoon on a “deconstruction” project for the old coal-fired power plant on the Burlington waterfront. The long-awaited redevelopment will remove the outer brick layer of the building and leave the interior steel framework, the centerpiece of a new city park on a waterfront that was once devoted to industry.
Known as the FRAME design, which stands for “Fearless Relook at Moran Electric,” the first phase of the project is expected to take a year to complete, Mayor Miro Weinberger told Seven Days on Tuesday. It’ll “transform what has been up until now an eyesore into an iconic landmark,” he said of the long-vacant building.
“The Moran FRAME concept is unique, it’s authentic to Burlington, and I think it’s quite exciting,” Weinberger said. “This new structure is going to be an enormous piece of public art” that includes public access to the area.
“The framework creates the real potential for those uses to expand and grow over the years,” he added.
Tags: Burlington , Moran plant , redevelopment , park , waterfront , FRAME , Miro Weinberger , mayor , Web Only , Image
Monday, August 17, 2020
Members of the Parks, Arts and Culture Committee agreed Wednesday that Gina Carrera should fix up her rain forest piece that was covered up by the parade mural, known as ELAP, in 2012. Carrera painted the colorful jungle scene in 1992.
"The city should be paying Ms. Carrera for her time," said City Councilor Karen Paul (D-Ward 6), who chairs the three-person subcommittee. "There's only one person who should be doing that work, and that is the artist who put it on the wall."
The committee also agreed to ask the full council to allocate $25,000 to remove the parade mural. The city commissioned the piece to celebrate the 400th anniversary of explorer Samuel de Champlain's arrival in Vermont. It has been highly criticized for omitting people of color, specifically the Abenaki people who had settled here first.
Tags: Gina Carrera , mural , Everyone Loves a Parade! , Web Only , Image
Friday, August 14, 2020
Sinex announced, in a Burlington Free Press story posted online Friday morning, that he has "a binding agreement" to buy out the majority partners on the project, Brookfield Asset Management. The deal should be finalized within 30 days, subject to "normal closing conditions," Sinex told the paper.
In Brookfield's place, Sinex said he has formed a new partnership with three local businessmen: Scott Ireland of SD Ireland, Dave Farrington of Farrington Construction and Al Senecal of Omega Electric Construction. None of the partners, nor Sinex, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Yet the announcement drew a sharp rebuke from Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, who said in a statement Friday afternoon that Sinex and his firm, Devonwood Investors, have not provided the city "the basic project information that any financial partner would require when contemplating a new agreement."
Tags: CityPlace , Don Sinex , Brookfield Asset Management , Burlington , development , Miro Weinberger , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
On Monday, university president Suresh Garimella reiterated his confidence in UVM's current approach in a written response to a slate of concerns raised last week by Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger.
"I am proud to say that it not only meets the Governor’s standards, it exceeds many of them, and is one of the most stringent plans of any university in the nation," Garimella wrote.
Tags: University of Vermont , Suresh Garimella , City of Burlington , Burlington City Council , Miro Weinberger , Jane Stromberg , Karen Paul , coronavirus , covid-19 , college reopenings , surveillance testing , Web Only , Image
The final tally was 7-5, one vote short of the eight needed to overturn the mayoral decision. Councilor Ali Dieng (I-Ward 7) joined all six Progs in the effort, but it wasn't enough to reach a two-thirds majority of the 12-member body.
Weinberger issued the veto, his first ever, last week, quashing a resolution the council had passed in July to hold the special election. In a one-page memo, the mayor wrote that it would be wasteful to spend $45,000 to print and mail local ballots in November when the question could be called on a Town Meeting Day ballot next March for free.
He repeated that stance Monday night.
"There's a limit to what we can afford to take on in this environment," Weinberger said, referring to how the coronavirus pandemic has squeezed city finances.
He said the city must weigh the cost of special elections against "whether there's a real reason to spend that money ... And in this case, because of COVID, the cost is especially high."
Tags: Burlington City Council , Black Lives Matter , reparations , Vermont Racial Justice Alliance , evictions , CityPlace , Brookfield , Web Only , Image
Sunday, August 9, 2020
The Chittenden Solid Waste District closed the Burlington facility and four other drop-off centers in March after staffers were potentially exposed to the coronavirus. All of the centers — except Burlington's and Richmond's — have since reopened, with physical distancing protocols.
Located across from Citizen Cider, Burlington's facility is one of CSWD's smaller centers, which makes social distancing more difficult, spokesperson Alise Certa said. Customers have to get out of their vehicles to dump their waste.
Tags: CSWD , drop-off centers , Burlington , Pine Street , Chittenden Solid Waste District , Web Only , Image
Thursday, August 6, 2020
In a one-page memo, Weinberger wrote that he objects to "the timing, avoidable expense and substance" of the city council's July 13 resolution to bring back ranked-choice voting. The measure, passed by a slim 6-5 majority, sought to place the question on the November ballot.
"I am returning the Resolution ... to you unsigned," the mayor wrote in the August 6 memo. "I do not take this action lightly."
Weinberger wrote that it would be "wasteful" to spend $45,000 on separate local ballots this fall when the question could be called on a Town Meeting Day ballot for no extra cost. The city budget is already constrained this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, he added.
The ballot question "will divide and distract" from the city's pandemic response and racial justice efforts, Weinberger continued. He said that debating the "polarizing and divisive issue ... will consume community attention and resources at a moment in which those finite resources are urgently needed elsewhere."
Tags: ranked-choice voting , instant runoff voting , IRV , Burlington City Council , veto , Mayor Miro Weinberger , Web Only , Image
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger asked University of Vermont leaders to reconsider key aspects of their plan to bring students to campus later this month, suggesting that it may not protect Burlington from a COVID-19 outbreak.
"Despite weeks of coordinated planning and multiple discussions with your team, I continue to have concerns with UVM’s current plan in a number of key areas," Weinberger wrote.
City officials posted the letter publicly on Thursday afternoon.
Tags: University of Vermont , Mayor Miro Weinberger , Suresh Garimella , COVID-19 , coronavirus , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
The city hosted a public hearing — on Zoom and in person at the Department of Public Works garage — to discuss a new report on the parkway, a 2.8-mile roadway planned for Burlington's South End. First envisioned in the 1960s, the road will connect I-189 and U.S. Route 7 with the city's downtown.
Environmental concerns and legal appeals have delayed the project for decades.
The city has billed the parkway as a solution to alleviate traffic, but meeting attendees contended the very opposite. They said the project will route more vehicles through the Maple and King street area, one of the poorest neighborhoods — and the most diverse — of the eight impacted by the project.
"This is an ill-conceived idea because this neighborhood is full of low- to middle-income people ... that depend on walking," Mayumi Cornell said. "There are children that live in this neighborhood, and somebody will die. It will be most likely a Black or brown child."
Tags: Champlain Parkway , Burlington , EIS , environmental Justice , Web Only , Image