Year 1 in Review!
Hi Neighbors -
I am coming up on one year representing our Ward on the city council and wanted to update you on my work so far. Before I do so, I want to acknowledge that it is hard to focus on anything other than Trump and his oligarch friends at the federal level. Reports of ICE in Burlington, clearly unconstitutional federal funding freezes, and open air corruption are overwhelming, but we cannot give in to despair or fear. What we must do now and over the coming years, is push back against the drift into oligarchy and build political power focused on the needs of our people rather than the wealthy and politically connected. With that said, here are updates on our efforts to do just that …
Tax Fairness & Utility Rates
When I ran, I heard loud and clear that people are struggling to make ends meet - especially young families, working and middle income folks, and those on a fixed income. During the reassessment in 2021, the municipal tax burden shifted significantly away from commercial property owners, and onto residential property owners - leaving residents with much higher tax bills. Statewide, the highest-income Vermonters still pay a smaller overall share of their income in taxes than folks in the middle class. Over the last few years our overarching approach to balancing budgets has been to continuously raise the general rate municipal property tax – which further exacerbates these challenges. We desperately need new solutions. Here's what we are doing about it:
1. Creating Sustainable Budgets: This year the Mayor worked hard to NOT ask voters for a general rate municipal property tax increase to balance our structural gaps (which will take a few fiscal years to correct). On the education side of our property tax bill, the school budget we just passed is estimated to lower our property taxes by 4%.
2. Fair Tax & Utility Rates: Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak announced a new group of advisors, made up of experts, residents, city staff, and city councilors from both parties, to form a Tax Fairness Working Group. The group has begun meeting and will work into the spring to make recommendations about how we make municipal taxes and utility rates more fair and affordable for everyone. While our water and electric utilities have existing strong affordability programs, we always want to find areas of improvement.
3. Right-sizing city government: The Mayor announced her ModernGov initiative, which will right-size local government while maintaining the vital services we all rely on and expect from city government. To be crystal clear, our city staff work very hard, and this isn’t politician-speak for cutting services (like we are seeing federally and statewide). All stakeholders are at the table, especially our city’s unions - to help guide this process. There are some immediate, common-sense measures we’re taking now, while pursuing an intentional and effective multi-year plan. We can’t cut our way to affordability; true affordability takes investment in our community. We shouldn't waste a dime of taxpayer funds if we can help it. Endless regressive tax increases can’t be our only tool to address a structural budget gap.
Affordable Housing:
31% of renters pay over half of their income on rent. Our rental vacancy rate is ~1.5%. The median sale price of a home is more than half a million dollars. We invest the equivalent of less than 1% of our general fund budget to build and maintain permanently affordable rental and homeownership opportunities via our Housing Trust Fund (HTF) which is an incredibly effective, but underfunded model. Here's what we are doing about it:
1. Increase investment in Affordable Housing: I was the lead sponsor of a resolution asking CEDO and other staff to commission a study on what realistic pathways we have to doubling the amount of money we invest in permanently affordable rentals and homeownership opportunities through our Housing Trust Fund. In a normal year our HTF receives roughly 1 million dollars in funding (equivalent to less than 1% of BTV’s general fund). The report will identify a minimum of an additional 1 million dollars, in ways that either do not increase taxes, or generate new revenue only from the ultra-wealthy, large businesses, and tourists. I expect to have a full report by Spring/Early Summer of this year. Communities from around the world base their affordable housing efforts on the models we started in the 1980’s. They work - now we need to properly fund them.
2. Holding UVM Accountable: This is an issue that impacts Ward 1 more than most parts of the city. UVM’s failure to house more of their students is one of the most significant drivers of our 1.5% rental vacancy rate. This is putting landlords in a great position to drive up rents, while tenants are scrambling to find anything that is habitable and affordable. The city and UVM will soon negotiate a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). I am committed to using these discussions as an opportunity to apply as much pressure as I can. Statewide, there are a few bills that have been introduced over the years that would address this issue, but they have not gone anywhere. If you care about this issue, I encourage you to ask every Burlington State Rep. & Senator where they stand on UVM housing more students or capping enrollment, and what they are doing about it in Montpelier.
Community Safety:
When I ran last March, I personally knocked on every door in our Ward twice. When it came to public safety I heard four common themes across party or political views. People wanted to see …
1. A holistic response to community safety: we need wrap-around services including police, social workers, fire fighters, healthcare professionals, and more to both meet our immediate safety needs and take preventative action in the medium and long term.
2. Transparency & Accountability: we need reasonable oversight of our police, similar to the charter change supported by the vast majority of Ward 1 this past November and to spend tax dollars on things that demonstrate concrete results.
3. Public education around community safety - we need clear opportunities to learn about who to call for what issue and to learn in depth how the justice system in Vermont works, and where we could be more effective.
4. Collaboration - we need to stop arguing with each other and focus on delivering results. People communicated that partisan back and forth between the previous Mayor and Council was incredibly frustrating.
Here’s a list of some of the concrete actions we’ve taken to educate neighbors about, improve the deployment of, and provide proper funding for our Community Safety Response:
The Mayor brought on Shawn Burke as the interim Chief of the Burlington Police Department. Chief Burke has 31 years of experience and started his career here in Burlington. He is the strongest pick for this role we could have hoped for.
We updated Burlington's Safety and Security Guide for accuracy and clarity, so folks know who to call, for what, and when.
The Mayor holds Public Forums on Community Safety every two months to deep-dive into a particular aspect of our community safety system and gather feedback directly from residents.
The Council’s Public Safety Committee, which I served on in my first year, reviews and monitors important data regularly. At each meeting, we deep dive into one aspect of community safety that is particularly relevant or focus on a question raised by residents.
We invested $350,000 in FY-25 (a 100k increase) specifically to support recruitment at the police department.
We increased funding for community safety, including BPD, by a larger amount in a single fiscal year compared to any year under the previous administration.
We allocated funds for the Mayor’s Senior Advisor on Community Safety, a new position which is filled by Ingrid Jonas, a retired Major with the Vermont State Police. Ingrid is focused on identifying improvements to the city’s community safety response across departments, among other responsibilities.
We supported overtime shifts for officers to expand capacity on Church St. during the holiday season.
We grew proven-effective support resources like Community Service Officers to take pressure off rank and file officers.
The Mayor established a regular cross-department working meeting to address areas identified as “hotspots” at any given time. This helps target limited resources toward areas that need it the most most.
We continue to improve the response-times to ensure if someone calls for help they get the help they need.
The Mayor recently gave updates on how we will provide first responders with the facilities they need to do their jobs, without overburdening residents' tax bills.
We improved security and social services at key locations and buildings like the Fletcher Free Library, Decker Towers, and many more. At times it was clear that new partnerships were needed, such as in the Downtown Parking Garage, which is now patrolled by the Chittenden County Sheriff's Department.
In Closing:
We have a lot of work ahead and I was only able to scratch the surface of both affordability and public safety in this update. I know that there is so much more I didn’t cover. I am also working on: a resolution to require all councilors to file financial disclosure forms; and strengthening the relationship between the Neighborhood Planning Assemblies and the City. We are also working hard on topics like climate & energy policy (I was just appointed to the Mayor’s Climate Advisory Group), social & racial justice and rebuilding our REIB department, making responsible and financially sustainable infrastructure investments, and our efforts to respond to and mitigate a dangerous Trump Administration.
If you visit www.carterforbtv.com/council-blog/stayupdated, you will find some key resources to help you stay informed on our work. I post previews prior to each council meeting to Front Porch Forum and social media, highlighting key agenda items. Additionally, you can email me at cneubieser@burlingtonvt.gov, and we can find a time to connect over a coffee. Finally, I just launched a feedback form on my website to hear directly from you - Click here to take the Constituent Feedback Survey.
I am truly hopeful that we can create the model for how to thrive locally, despite Trump and his allies federally. I continue to be humbled by the chance to serve in this role. Thank you for the opportunity to do so.
