Burlington mayor to focus on ending systemic racism during fourth term - WCAX

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BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - Burlington’s mayor is outlining his plan for the coming year in his fourth term in office.

Mayor Miro Weinberger spent most of the State of the City Address Monday night speaking about ways he hopes to end systemic racism in the city, along with new initiatives he hopes to bring.

“We must acknowledge that racial justice is our most pressing issue and our hardest challenge. And it is one that we have failed to get right over a period of time that stretches before our country’s founding into the present day,” says Weinberger.

Weinberger began by touching on how Burlington continues to navigate the pandemic but quickly turned to addressing racial disparities in the city.

“I’m seeking to learn to make racial justice central to the work of local government and to become an antiracist leader who identifies racism and dismantles it,” says Weinberger.

Initiatives he announced include, an annual Juneteenth celebration, a substantial increase in the size of the Racial Equity Inclusion and belonging department, a new focus on how to increase black homeownership, and continuing to figure out how to reform the Burlington Police department with a focus on the ongoing assessment of the department.

“Our public safety reform efforts in the last couple of years simply have not succeeded in achieving the cultural and structural change that is needed or in forging the new consensus on public safety in Burlington that they all hope they would,” says Weinberger.

After the speech newly re-elected progressive city council president Max Tracy, who narrowly lost the mayoral election to Weinberger, said he was happy the Mayor chose to focus much of his speech on addressing systemic racism.

“They’ve been real significant issues in our community for a long time and issues that we really haven’t seen this administration address with nearly enough seriousness or follow through. So I think while it is heartening to hear these words this evening the real work remains yet to be done,” says Max Tracy.

But, former Republican City Council President Kurt Wright who supported the mayor’s re-election said he was disappointed in the speech saying he didn’t believe the Mayor to his supporters -- addressing public safety concerns and how the City will use federal COVID dollars.

“It’s fine to strike a tone of conciliation and talk about racial justice because we all want that and I want to be clear that I do too but you also need to speak to the people who voted for you and elected you and I think he did very little to none of that tonight. This speech seemed to be Miro’s atonement speech,” says Wright.

The newly elected council now has one less Democrat and one more Independent. Weinberger pledged to work with them to help achieve his goals of eliminating racial disparities.

Weinberger also took the time to apologize again to his racial equity director.

Miro Weinberger originally tasked Tyeastia Green to oversee a study of the police department to figure out what resources and personnel were needed to run it. He then switched course and assigned that role to the head of the Burlington Electric Department, who is a white man.

That didn’t go well with the city, so he reinstated Green.

But during Monday night’s speech, he apologized again for the move, however he did not address the controversy surrounding his director of police transformation who’s final report was plagiarized and didn’t offer a detailed plan to address the future of public safety.

In a press release, the mayor stated he wasn’t happy with the results, but refused our follow up questions.