Burlington City Council President Kurt Wright, the body's lone Republican, will not seek reelection to his Ward 4 seat come March 2020.

"It was an incredibly tough call," Wright announced on his radio show, WVMT's "The Morning Drive," on Thursday. "I don't make this decision lightly, and I don't feel great about it, but I think for now, I am out of politics as of the end of March."

Wright has served the New North End for nearly 25 years as a city councilor, state representative or both. After losing his House seat to Democrat Bob Hooper last fall, Wright vowed he wouldn't run again for political office. But he said he'd reconsidered in recent months after his council constituents urged him to stay on.

Wright's new talk radio gig, however, posed a problem. Federal broadcasting rules require that WVMT must afford equal time on-air to both Wright and his challenger, Sarah Carpenter, during a campaign. That wasn't feasible, so station ownership told Wright he'd have to take a 60-day hiatus from the airwaves. It was too long a break, he told listeners.

Burlington City Councilor Sharon Bushor lost her bid for the Progressive endorsement Wednesday night after a majority of voters selected Zoraya Hightower to represent Ward 1 in the March 2020 election.

Hightower clinched 42 votes to Bushor’s 17 in the caucus' only contested race. The loss was unprecedented for Bushor, an independent who had earned the Progs' endorsement every time she'd campaigned since first winning election to the city council in 1987.

“I'm disappointed,” Bushor said at Edmunds Elementary School. “It was clear to me from the people who came to the caucus that the support seemed to be in [Hightower's] favor.”

Bushor said the vote signals “a parting ... from the Progressive party, and one that’s sad for me.” She still plans to run for reelection as an independent and noted she welcomes the competition from Hightower, a relative newcomer who has called the Queen City home for four years.

The City of Burlington will pay $25,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged the city trashed a homeless man’s belongings without adequate notice.

The November 26 settlement with Brian Croteau Sr. also prescribes a new homeless encampment policy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, which represented Croteau along with cooperating counsel Jared Carter and Gary Sarachan.

“With this settlement, some of Burlington’s most marginalized residents are protected from having their personal property seized and destroyed without due process,” ACLU of Vermont staff attorney Lia Ernst said in a press release. “The ACLU remains committed to ending the criminalization of poverty and homelessness in Vermont, and this agreement is a positive step toward that goal.”

An effort to resuscitate ranked-choice voting in Burlington was met with support at the Burlington City Council meeting on Monday.

A council majority approved a resolution that asks the council’s Charter Change Committee to consider reinstating the voting method. The subcommittee will now review whether to recommend adding the item to the March 2020 ballot.

The final council vote tally was 9 to 3, with Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) and councilors Chip Mason (D-Ward 5) and Joan Shannon (D-South District) voting no.

“We currently have a voting system that I feel is very flawed and does not accurately represent the will of the majority of voters,” said Councilor Jack Hanson (P-East District), who spearheaded the proposal.

Under the current setup, a candidate can get just 40 percent of the vote to win a race; ranked-choice voting requires a 50 percent majority. The method allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If their first choice is eliminated, votes for that candidate are reassigned to the voters’ second choice and so on until one candidate earns 50 percent or more of the vote.

Ahead of the Progressive Party caucus on Wednesday, several candidates have already announced their intention to run for Burlington City Council in the Town Meeting Day election.

Spots in all eight wards are up for election in March 2020 and the Progs expect to endorse candidates in every race except Ward 6, according to Vermont Progressive Party executive director Josh Wronski. That seat is currently held by Karen Paul, a Democrat.

Political newcomer Zoraya Hightower is seeking the Ward 1 spot that's belonged to independent Councilor Sharon Bushor since 1987. Bushor and Hightower will go head-to-head for the Progressive endorsement this Wednesday, though each said she would run as an independent.

Hightower works for an international development consulting firm and has lived in Burlington for four years; she's served on the city's Development Review Board for two. She'd like to expand public transit and to create more affordable housing for residents and students.

It will be challenging to take on a 32-year incumbent, but "I think people are excited to see a change," Hightower said. "I hope to be the one to facilitate that."

Updated on December 2, 2019.

A group of Progressive Burlington city councilors wants to resurrect ranked-choice voting, a controversial election method that Queen City voters repealed nearly a decade ago.

Councilors Jack Hanson, Brian Pine and Max Tracy will introduce a resolution on Monday that seeks to place a question on the March 2020 ballot to reinstate the election system. If approved, the topic will go to the council’s Charter Change Committee for consideration.

Councilors Perri Freeman (P-Central District) and Sharon Bushor (I-Ward 1) have also signed on as cosponsors of the measure.

Ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff, allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If none wins a majority, the last-place finisher is eliminated. Votes for that candidate are then assigned to voters’ second choice until one candidate gets a 50 percent majority.

Under the current system, a candidate can earn just 40 percent of the vote to win an election for mayor, city council or school board. The system puts independent and non-major party candidates at a disadvantage, the resolution says, and forces voters to choose the candidate who is most likely to win instead of who they favor most.

"In Burlington, there’s alway been a long tradition of being ... a multiparty city," said Pine, a Ward 3 prog. "This is a well-tested way to ensure that you can have a more pluralistic political system."

Burlington International Airport will use a $10 million federal appropriation announced last Friday to expand its main terminal.

If all goes as planned, construction on the project will begin next fall and be completed by 2021, according to Nicolas Longo, deputy director of aviation at the airport.

The project sets up the airport “for where we're heading in the future," Longo said, and will allow the terminal to better accommodate larger aircraft now flying into BTV.

Updated at 8:27 p.m.

Once completed in 2023, CityPlace Burlington will boast 318 apartments, a rooftop restaurant, a 174-room hotel and more than 530 parking spaces.

Construction on the much-delayed project will begin in August 2020 and is expected to wrap up 30 months later.

That’s according to new documents that project majority owner Brookfield Asset Management filed with the city late last week. The Burlington City Council’s Board of Finance reviewed them at its meeting Monday night and voted to allow the city to submit a “substantial change request” to the state body that oversees the tax-increment financing program.

The memos provide the first glimpse into the new design since Brookfield unveiled its scaled-down proposal nearly a month ago. The 14-story towers in the original design, which spurred lawsuits and financial challenges, were replaced by 10-story buildings.

The submitted designs don't include plans for the former Macy's building, which was not part of the original project but is now envisioned as the future home of the University of Vermont Medical Center offices.
The memos reveal that construction costs are greatly reduced now that the project has morphed from 1 million square feet to just over 730,000. When bidding on the original project ended in May, the costs came in at $190 million. The developer attempted to reduce the price tag “but ultimately determined there were not enough savings to justify starting construction,” according to a project memo.

In July, Brookfield announced that the “scope, scale, and the timing” of construction would change.

The scaled-down design uses lighter-weight steel and is now projected to cost $120 million to build, according to the documents. It should be complete by February 2023 barring any regulatory delays or legal challenges, according to Jeff Glassberg, a liaison between city and the developers.

Assistant city attorney Richard Haesler confirmed that the new project will fall slightly short of its anticipated TIF revenues. In 2016, Burlington voters approved a $21.8 million TIF bond to fix up sidewalks and rebuild streets lost to the former Burlington Town Center mall decades ago. Such debt is meant to be repaid with additional tax revenue, known as “increment,” generated by the new project.

Glassberg wrote in a memo that TIF funds from the project will pay for the reopening of Pine and St. Paul streets and "streetscape upgrades" to parts of Cherry and Bank streets that abut the project. But early estimates show the new design will only generate $19 million in increment, Glassberg said Monday.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said the TIF shortfall may be closed by other projects in the city’s Waterfront TIF district, such as the former Macy’s building and the existing mall building that fronts Church Street. That building will remain intact as part of the redevelopment.

“We haven't reached the point where we’re concluding that $19 million is where the new budget is going to be,” the mayor said.

The city will discuss the project changes on December 19 with the Vermont Economic Progress Council, which oversees the TIF program.

The memos also outline the project’s phasing and amenities. New schematics for the hotel’s southern tower show seven retail spaces on the ground level, topped off with a rooftop restaurant, community space and observation deck.

The residential tower on the north side of the site will feature 121 studios, 142 one-bedrooms and 55 two-bedroom units. The designs don’t specify the rental rates, but Brookfield has committed to making 20 percent of them “affordable” as required by Burlington's inclusionary zoning ordinance.

Brookfield also anticipates having to undergo state permitting under Act 250 because of the hotel concept. The developers say a hotel “is responsive to market demand and can contribute to the continued dynamism of downtown Burlington.”

After many delays, Glassberg said the recent updates from Brookfield show significant progress.

“The stuff they delivered to us ... is the kind of stuff we've been looking for forever,” he said. “I thought it was great news.”

Correction, November 25, 2019: A previous version of this story misstated the number of parking spaces in the project proposal.

Updated at 3:44 p.m.

Jake Burton Carpenter, the man who pioneered the sport of snowboarding and whose name graces its leading board and apparel company, died at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington on Wednesday. He was 65.

The cause was complications from recurring cancer, said Taren Dolbashian, a spokesperson at the company Carpenter founded, Burton Snowboards. He'd initially been diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2011. Carpenter sent an email to employees earlier this month announcing that the cancer "has come back."

"The odds are in my favor, but it is going to be a struggle for sure," he wrote. "As much as I dread what is facing me, it’s easier to deal with when you know that you have a family that will carry on."

"He was the most incredible human," Dolbashian said, speaking through tears. "This is absolutely devastating. He inspired all of us."

The City of Burlington has enrolled in a federal class-action lawsuit intended to hold drug manufacturers and distributors accountable for their role in the nationwide opioid crisis.

Burlington joins St. Albans, Bennington and more than 2,500 cities, counties and Native American tribes in the “multi-district lawsuit” that will be heard in U.S. District Court in Ohio. By taking no formal action Monday night, the Burlington City Council automatically enrolled the city in the suit against 13 defendants, including Purdue Pharma, Cardinal Health, McKesson Corporation, Cephalon, CVS, Rite Aid and others.

“This is unlike any previous mass tort litigation," Burlington City Attorney Eileen Blackwood wrote in a memo to the council. "Individual cities, town[s], and counties across the country are pursuing claims against the same major defendants to recover money to help fight the epidemic and fund prevention and treatment programs."