Vote Ed for City Council

Time and Change

2008-02-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

The last several weeks of the campaign season are always the most grueling. Lots of meetings to go to, that I actually really enjoy, but it is tough to be away from the kids and Jen that much. So the schedule for the past few days has been: 2/10 - a meeting sponsored by Vermont Interfaith Action at St. Paul's in support of affordable housing; 2/11 - Channel 17 Debate; 2/12 - UVM Student Senate; 2/13 Ward 1 NPA; and 2/14 Ward 2/3 NPA. Fortunately, I was still able to eat dinner with the family each night which is very important in our house.

Campaigning again in such a short period of time has given me the opportunity to re-affirm some of the issues that I ran on just one year ago. Here is a preview of the piece that I wrote for the Free Press Candidate Statement:

When elected, I ran on a platform consisting of three issues: Family, Environment and Process. I have taken an active role in addressing each of these issues.

In respect to Family, I fought hard and helped organize the community when it became apparent that the School District was going to take educational choice out of the hands of parents. The District was ultimately persuaded to pursue a system of choice and is now exploring magnet schools, rather then forced redistricting.

In respect to Environment, we value the integrity of our neighborhoods. That is why when it appeared that the zoning rewrite process was moving at a pace that would have had a substantial impact on the neighborhoods, I convinced the Council to slow down to allow Burlington residents greater say in the rewrite.

In respect to Process, when it came to the attention of the Council that difficult questions needed to be asked about retroactive pension monies, I sponsored a successful resolution that required the matter be investigated by the City Attorney’s Office. The people of Burlington must feel that their hard earned property taxes are being spent wisely.

Effectuating substantive economic change on the City level is difficult, I do believe that we can take a role and lead on social change, which is why I asked that a consistent system of civil tickets be pursued for both low-level marijuana offenses and for smoking tobacco in a crowned public space.

Best,
Ed

Starting Campaign 2008

2008-02-03T19:19:00.000-08:00

Well today was my fourth day out on the streets of Ward One and I have to say that it feels pretty good getting out there. One of the things that folks most want to discuss is the Moran Plant redevelopment. As I posted on the Front Porch Forum several months ago, while the proposal for the Moran Plant is not exactly what I personally want, it has something for everyone. Of course the biggest concern is whether the 7 million or so the City has to come up with will be able to be obtained through federal grants or through a the taxpayers. In addition, there are concerns as to what will happen if one or more of the Moran users (the businesses/non-profits) leaves or cannot come up with the money. These are good questions, however on March 4th, what we will be deciding is whether we like the concept (or at least parts of the concept) proposed by the Administration. There are still a lot of important details to be worked out with financing and if I am reelected, I will do my best to make sure that the taxpayers do not end up with an albatross on the waterfront.

On another note I have not yet met any of the three folks that are running against me. I know that some of the residents whom I have met with recently have told me that they have met some of my opponents who were gathering signatures for petitions. Although none of my opponents are from one of the three major parties (as defined by state law) I am taking their challenges very seriously and hope to get out in my door to door campaign to as much of the Ward as I usually do. I also look forward to meeting my opponents at the first debate on Channel 17 at 5:25 on February 11th.

Lastly, there have been a number of folks while going door to door who have been very supportive of my request to have the City Council consider placing a marijuana decriminalization question on the Town Meeting Ballot (which failed by a Council vote of 6-7). There have also been a few folks who wanted to let me know that although they have supported some of my other positions (such as that concerning school redistricting, the zoning process and the oversight of past and present city pensions) they were not supporting this issue. I welcome feedback from everyone on this issue, especially since as Chair of the Public Safety Committee, I have been charged by the Council to exploring alternatives to addressing instances of cases concerning small possession (which passed the Council by a vote of 11-2).

Well that is all for now. More to come soon.

Best,
Ed

Snow and Circus

2007-02-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

Well it has been quite the circus out there. Actually I have found it to be quite relaxing in a weird sort of way. This is the first time in a while that I have actually spent two solid days with my family, without having anything planned out in advance. Of course, I would rather not have had to shovel out the house and cars, but hey, we live in Vermont, not Florida. The kids of course had a blast as well. This is the first really big snowfall that Elsa has seen as a kid (as opposed to a baby).

You know the nice thing about the old fashioned circus is that it came to the people. Before the advent of the automobile it was just too difficult for folks to travel very far so the circus would go around on a circuit and when it came to town, it was a big event. So between the weather and one of the forums that I attended the other night, I started thinking, if people want to be included in the process, but cannot bring themselves to the process, why not bring the process to them? Why can't the City Council go on a type of "road show" from time to time and hold meetings in the Schools and Senior Centers. This way it might be easier for these two populations (folks with young kids and older folks) to attend City Council meetings from time to time.

In addition, we need to make it easier for both of these two populations to actually be able to get to City Council meetings. For the folks with young kids, that means providing child care on site. We had child care set up at the Democratic Mayoral Caucus last year and it worked out great. There were dozens of children there and the parents got the opportunity to participate in the caucus. For the older folks the biggest problem is transportation since many of them do not drive. We need to seriously consider investing in a shuttle system to stop at the main senior centers and provide transportation to Council Meetings. Are both of these ideas going to cost something? Of course. Is that cost worth something? Yes it is because it will allow two traditionally "handicapped" groups to have greater access and participation in city government. Because process without access is meaningless.

Hope you are shoveled out and warm.

Best,
Ed

Family Politics

2007-02-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

Greetings. I thought I would take off a few nights from the blogosphere.

As many of you know, I have two small children. Elsa is almost 4 and Henry is almost 1. Both preschoolers and both enrolled in the excellent YMCA program. We are lucky to have gotten into such a wonderful community resource. It is very, very difficult to serve in a capacity such as City Council with small children. For example, two City Councilors with preschoolers are both leaving (Ian Carleton and Carmen George). In fact, Ian even cited his family as one of the reasons that he was leaving. It is indeed a difficult dance, especially in situations where families are already stretched to the max because of time commitments. For example today I was up at 5:30 with Henry, worked a full day, got home about 5:30, made and ate dinner with the family, went out and knocked on doors for a couple of hours (OK for those of you who are paying attention, it has NOT gotten any warmer, which may be a good thing). Got home about 8:15, put Elsa to bed, made the kids lunches, e-mailed and blogged. Tomorrow will be more of the same.

I believe that the Council should be representative of the entire City and reflect that diversity and make up. I think I can help to maintain that diversity that will be lost with the departure of Ian and Carmen. Not only is my family a busy one. We are a working class family, a professional working class family, but a working class family nevertheless. We have always qualified for the property tax prebate and sometimes it is a real struggle just to make ends meet. Of course I realize that at the same time we are quite fortunate to have what we have. But we are practically full time working parents (Jen works 4 days a week) and it is, as many of you know, really tough to find time for all the things that we want to do and offer to our children.

In addition, to offering the unique perspective of an active father of two little ones, I think that I also bring to the table at least one other unique asset, the ability to ask hard questions and protect the people of the community through vigorous advocacy. This is not an easy task and may notalways be a pleasant one. However it is a necessary task and I feel comfortable in representing that I will be able to draw on a decade of experience if elected.

Hope to see you soon.

Best,
Ed

Coming In Out of the Cold

2007-02-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

I know that I have mentioned this a couple of times before but I am continually amazed and thankful that so many people actually invite me into their homes for a couple of minutes. Especially this time of year (and you thought that we were not going to have a winter this year. I say bring it on. That's why we live in VT). The reason I am amazed is that I am, to some, a total stranger (although perhaps they have seen my face or recognize me from last time). Very, very few folks seem concerned or hesitant. And that is a good thing and one of the things that makes Burlington a great place to live is that we feel safe in our homes and secure in our community.

Another great thing about being let in all of these homes is that I get to see a tremendous amount of the wonderful work that people have done to their homes in recent years. The great thing about this is that you know if people care for and are tending their homes, they are also caring for and about the community.

Yet, as great and as safe a community that Burlington is, it is not without problems and hazards. We must continue to be ever vigilant in order to protect ourselves and our love ones. It is my hope that I can draw on some of my past experiences with law enforcement to help improve and develop those systems that make our city great. Working together we can continue to improve Burlington and make it an even better place for our children.

Hope to see you soon.

Best
Ed

Zoning Zone Out

2007-02-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Boy it was cold out there tonight! Thanks again to all those folks who let me in (it is true that I do not bite).

So many people are extremely concerned with how things are going to look in their neighborhood, 5, 10, 15 years from now. Most of the times we think of our own house and what we might like to do with it (or not do with it over time). We are less likely to think what our neighbors might do over time or what might happen in other not so distant parts of our neighborhood. The long and the short of it is that when someone hears the word zoning his or her eyes usually start to glaze over or if there is an article in the paper about it, it gets skipped in lieu of reading about the on going murder case or the latest food article. Nobody really pays attention to zoning until it comes knocking on the door. . . .

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

It is here and it is not a sexy issue, but it is an important one never the less. Check out the proposed zoning rewrite. The proposed ordinance is going to have a ripple effect on the look and density of the city for generations to come. Now it is nearly impossible to become conversant with all aspects of the plan. However, I would encourage you to take a look at the proposed changes for your neighborhood, in particular the proposed density changes. It it something you can buy into? Is a 20 unit condo going to potentially go up in your single family house neighborhood? How much should the core downtown area be built up and how high is it proposed that the buildings can be? Are you comfortable with Burlington transforming from a large, vibrant town to a small city?

Obviously the questions to all these answers are highly personal and will be different for each individual. However, it is important that none of us zone out on this one, because if you do the next knock you hear may be the sound of the backhoe breaking ground next to your house.

Best
Ed

The Owl and the Library

2007-02-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

Covered most of North Prospect today. For those of you who received my literature, but whom I did not get a chance to speak with, please feel free to e-mail me or give me a call.

Many of you might remember the whole spotted owl fight that took place in the Pacific Northwest during the mid-90s. I remember it quite clearly because one of my environmental law professors at Vermont Law School was directly involved in the litigation and fight to protect the owl. For those of you that do not remember or who were focused on other things here it is in a nutshell. The Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protects certain threatened or endangered species that are classified as such. The obvious prophylactic devices are put into place (like no hunting or eating the endangered species). Less obvious measures are taken as well. For example if an listed species lives in a particular niche habitat, then the habitat will receive certain levels of protection, because if the habitat is extinguished, the species that survives in that habitat will be extinguished as well. Simply put, species (with perhaps the exception of humans) cannot evolve or adapt rapidly enough to survive when the sole habitat that they exist in is suddenly eliminated. The Spotted Owl just happens to live in the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. While the owl as an individual species is in and of itself quite important, what it represents is the health of the ecosystem that it inhabits. Less Spotted Owls was translating in to less Old Growth Forest. In order to save the owls the groups that brought the litigation knew that they needed to save the forest as well and vica versa. Thus, when the battle was fought the end result was that not only were the owls saved, buy the Old Growth Forests and all hundreds of other unique species were saved as well. The owl was at its core a symbol and "indicator species" of the overall health of the old growth forest.

How many of you receive annual solicitations from the "Friends of the Library" asking for donations to help improve the library infrastructure? OK what is wrong with this picture? Does the police department ask for donations in this manner? Does public works? How about the Burlington Electric? Not that I am aware of (and I am not aware of everything). Yet the library needs to engage in this course of action in order to sustain itself. What is wrong here?

The other agencies are undoubtedly very important and necessary to sustain life in the modern age. After all how many of us would survive very long in a lawless, road less, dark community. Life would indeed be nasty, cruel, brutish and short. All of these things while necessary to sustain life, are not what life itself is all about. Life is about Mount Mansfield on a winter morning, the band you want to see on a hazy summer Thursday night in Battery Park and all of those millions of other things that do not just sustain life, but make it worth living. The library and what it represents is one of those very things. The library is our Spotted Owl, our indicator species. We cannot allow the library to be partially funded, just like we cannot the mechanisms that make our City tick to be partially funded.

Think about it.

Best
Ed

Macs and Whoppers

2007-02-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

First, shout out to Haik for the link.

I'd really like to try to spruce this blog up a bit by adding some photographs. (OK at least I can link to one nice photo. Jen (my wife) is a graphic designer and as many of you might know designers almost exclusively utilize Macs. Now don't get me wrong, the Mac is an excellent machine. I have a PC at work and if we did not have a crack IT team I would have even less hair then I do (which admittedly would be pretty difficult). The problem with PCs I am told is that one company makes this piece of hardware, another company makes that piece, one company makes this software application and another company makes that, hence the thing tends to crash be cause there is not a seamless interface between all the pieces of technology. Now the Mac I am told is all made by Apple, hardware, software the whole schmeer, hence seamless technology, hence less malfunctions. In essence, the Mac works better because when one piece speaks to the other, there is a much greater likelihood of understanding.

KEEP READING THIS IS ALL A METAPHOR FOR SOMETHING POLITICAL (of course I will never be as talented as the scribe here).

Now the Mac is a lot like the non-QWERTY (QWERTY keyboards are standard on all of your computers) typewriters. The non-QWERTY typewriters all went by the wayside, even though many of them had superior keyboards to the QWERTY typewriters. Why? Because the person who invented the QWERTY system marketed it well and shut out the competition before it even had the chance to take off. Same thing with the Mac, the PC although in my estimate a inferior product had the head start and people who bought into the idea did not want to let it go.

Now that brings us up to the three points of this post.

First, is that I need a PC (or at least a Windows OS) to post photos and that I obviously do not have.

Second, the PC is really quite an eloquent metaphor for what is going on at City Hall, different commissions, boards, task forces, council, administration, offices etc. All were designed to run on the same unit, but all were not made by the same designer. We need a city that runs more like a Mac and less like a PC.

Now, here it comes . . . . The YMCA and now this idea in respect to SEI or socioeconomic integration from the Task Force united and assembled by the School Board. OK so the idea was pitched and . . . and . . . a swing and a miss. There are those out there who feel the schools are integrated enough. Many feel as a matter of common equity that we should have total integration. However, and here is the rub, the discussion has only been one sided "information" disseminated from the Task force in a way that has a lot of people concerned. Why? Why you ask? Because nobody really knows what the plan is at this point in time.

Let us all hope that whatever the SEI plan turns into, the Task force does not, after taking into account the concerns of the community, refuse to let go of or adapt a QWERTY keyboard or PC or YMCA on the Water. That would truly be the Whopper of them all.

See you on the streets of Ward 1 tomorrow.

Best
Ed

On the campaign trail

2007-01-31T18:17:00.000-08:00

1/31/01 9:17 PM

Well tonight I covered North Street going door to door. It has been great getting out and reconnecting with all of the folks that I met in my first campaign. It really seems that the big issue just floating around out there is one of process. This was an issue of tremendous concern in the last election that I was involved in where the YMCA was the focal point. Now the focal point is the plan for school redistricting. Folks in Ward 1 seem generally concerned, not because they are against socioeconomic integration, but because the process has broken down and many feel that they have been left out of the process. Process is one of the keys to good government because even if people are on happy with a particular program, if they have been able to participate in a fair and open process, they are often at least willing to accept the results of the process.

I also want to say how amazed I am at the kindness that the vast majority of people show when I come to the door. Nearly everyone has time to talk and many times people will let me in. One of the great things about being let in to someone house is the ability to connect with them on the home front. A side benefit is that I get to see a lot of the wonderful work that people throughout the Ward have been doing to improve their homes. I want to thank Azur Moulaert for taking the time to turn me on to the ease and simplicity of Blogging. Until next. - Ed