Weinberger wins third term as Burlington mayor

[George II]

Source: Burlington Free Press

Incumbent Miro Weinberger will be the mayor of Vermont's largest city for the next three years.

Unofficial results showed the Democrat received 5,749 votes, defeating independent challenger Carina Driscoll with 4,155 votes. Independent candidate Infinite Culcleasure was third with 1,910 votes.

Weinberger received 48.7 percent of the vote, compared with 35.2 percent for Driscoll — the stepdaughter of U.S. Sen. and former Burlington Mayor Bernie Sanders — 16.2 percent for Culcleasure, according to an independent tally compiled by the Burlington Free Press. The media company, in collaboration with the Burlington High School student newspaper the Register, stationed a reporter at each of the city's eight wards.

The three candidates and many of their supporters portrayed the election as a referendum on the future of Burlington.

Read more: https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2018/03/06/burlington-mayor-infinite-culcleasure-carina-driscoll-miro-weinberger-town-meeting-day-2018/373612002/

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DEMOCRAT Miro Weinberger wins easily.

Good for him, he's done a great job for Burlington residents.

CAREFUL: This site has LOUD ads that you can't turn off, turn off sound first.

[lapucelle]

1. THANK YOU BURLINGTON, VT!!!

Glad to see that an incumbent Democrat will be holding office for another term.

[yardwork]

2. Another Democratic victory. Good.

[Me.]

3. Happy, Happy, Happy

Another DEm win

[Hortensis]

4. No surprise that a good Democrat was reelected

by an electorate who knew him, but great! Go, Democrats!
?color=White&height=150&width=150

[AJT]

5. Seems like a very low turnout for a mayoral election.

[George II]

8. Turnout was about 35%. For the last Mayoral election in 2015, turnout was 25%

That's a LOT more this year.

[AJT]

9. That's great.

[Wwcd]

6. K & R

[karynnj]

10. He completely deserved this win

He took the city from a near junk bond rating to an A rating which saved about $12 million dollars through lower interest fees. In addition, he has done a great job making the wonderful bike path into an amazing one.

Both opponents gave him credit for his financial acumen .. In fact, Carina Driscoll, said she favored all 17 issues he brought to the city elections, where he won all of them. She is Sanders' step daughter. I was impressed at her glibness and ability to connect .. But completely unimpressed with many of her answers where her responses were extremely shallow.

In Miro Weinberger, we had a very hard working, get very smart and skilled mayor, He also was very accessible and he has unusual integrity for a politician. My take - electing Driscoll would have been trading a diamond for a flashy cubic zirconium.

[R B Garr]

23. I read some of Driscolls vacuous complaints about him.

Truly eye-rolling stretches of the imagination. It’s good to see people are still rejecting the one/size/fits/all Dem bashing.

[George II]

11. Here are the official results for all offices and questions on the ballot:

https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/sites/default/files/GEMS%20ELECTION%20SUMMARY%20REPORT%202018.pdf

[sheshe2]

12. Go Dems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brer cat]

13. Glad to see a Democrat incumbent reelected!

K&R

[lunamagica]

14. So happy to see a Democrat win!!!

[Gothmog]

15. Yeah

[murielm99]

16. K&R

[ehrnst]

17. k & R

[Gothmog]

18. This makes me smile

[NurseJackie]

19. I love when DEMOCRATS win!! Great news to wake up to this morning! :-)

[SunSeeker]

20. K & R

[NastyRiffraff]

21. EXCELLENT news!

The people of Burlington have spoken, quite loudly! From what I hear Weinberger has been good for the city.

Democrats win again! #BlueWave2018

[Cha]

22. Great News! Thank you,

George!

[R B Garr]

24. Great news! Good to see people were not swayed by

the inane complaints about him.

[karynnj]

25. Burlington is a small town with a history of

Politicians being very accessible. In our area of town the mayor is at a local bagel place having coffee almost every Wednesday morning. Anyone with a question or problem can speak to him or some staff with him. One local person quoted that it is not true that he does not hear. It is that there are groups of people who are both not the majority, but want their way.

Not to mention, the two strongest parties in Burlington are the Democrats and the Progressives. Miro is the only Democrat who has won since the 1980s.

One thing that hurt him this time is actually his successes in getting approvals and starting a major downtown infrastructure project replacing a failing 1980s vintage mall. Some of Carina's points were illogical. She did not like that he was allowing more housing at all levels - wanting just affordable housing. Yet she was upset that one of the colleges worked with the city and are building lots of student housing. Somehow she does not get that students sharing houses in working class neighborhoods has been a huge factor in driving up prices in a town with too little housing. Think how much say 4 students could pay a month. In fact, many NGOs pushed the colleges to work with the town on this. Apparenrly, no one told her about the relationship between price, demand and supply. Economics 101. This versus a graduate of Yale with a masters in goverment from Harvard. He was a good friend of Samantha Power at both colleges - they did a baseball radio show together for the campus radio.

Samantha Power came to Burlington for his campaign. She spoke of how since she knew him he has been motivated to make government work and the one word she would use to describe him is integrity. He is a policy wonk, who has a strong background in financial stuff.

He has a very wonky book club in conjunction with UVM. Obviously, not your typical politician.

[R B Garr]

26. Thanks for this assessment. I see what you mean about Driscolls

illogical points. Not to mention she was herself a recipient of financial help for her woodworking school. Plus the supply/demand that you pointed out. Good points.