The Burlington City Council met for its final regular meeting of 2024 Monday evening. The lengthy meeting including consideration whether to place a controversial question on the March Town Meeting Day ballot.
A citizen’s petition has gathered the 5 percent of registered voters needed to place an advisory question on the March 4, 2025 city ballot that would declare the city an apartheid-free community. The question, if advanced by the city council, would ask the City of Burlington to pledge to “end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation” of Palestine.
City Attorney Jessica Brown was asked during the meeting to clarify the charter authority of the city council to place the item on the ballot when the petition had enough signatures.
"By precedent the city council takes action to decide whether advisory questions posed by petition should be warned. The authority for this is in Section 6. Historically the language for any legal purpose beyond the jurisdiction of the City Council has been interpreted to apply to citizen petitions such as this,” reported Brown. “The question whether to call for an advisory vote is within the jurisdiction of the city council.”
Dozens of people stepped up during public comments. Members of Vermont’s Jewish community criticized the proposal while proponents says it simply allows voters to weigh in on the conflict
“My name is Valerie Lodish. I live in Ward 4 and my family is part of Burlington’s Jewish community. I’m here tonight, once again, to speak with you about a proposed ballot question that, once again, singles out and demonizes Israel, the one Jewish nation in the world. The language in this petition is identical to what the City Council wisely chose not to place on the ballot last year,” noted Lodish. “The City Council should be working to create a more inclusive stronger community for all residents of Burlington, not continue to foster ideologies that lead to divisiveness and hate.”
“Hi my name is Luke Ferrari. I am a Burlington resident in Ward 8 and I would like to remind the council that a year ago three Palestinian college students were shot in our community. The Palestinian people are facing violence, apartheid and genocide not only in their homeland but here in Burlington as well.” Ferrari added, “Letting the community decide if we want to deny the ongoing apartheid and genocide will give us the opportunity to decide what our community stands for.”
The first item on councilors’ deliberative agenda was the advisory question. Ward 2 Progressive Gene Bergman moved to place the measure on the ballot.
“People have strong positions on the petition question. But what is clear is that it is a debate that is happening here. I think it’s high time to have an open and spirited debate about whether or not Israel is a settler colonial state, is engaging in apartheid especially in the occupied territories,” Bergman said. “I believe in democracy. I believe it is anti-democratic to deny the petitioners the right to place this petition before the voters.”
South District Democrat Joan Shannon says she has spoken to people on both sides of the issue but feels a leading and one sided question on the ballot is not appropriate.
“I am supportive of that community discussion that still needs to happen. We need to have it, not with yelling, not with flag waving, not with threats, not with rock throwing, not by destroying one another’s signs, not with negative stickers placed all over town. We need to have it civilly,” insisted Shannon. “It’s complex. It’s not a binary simple question.”
Placing the resolution on the Town Meeting Day ballot failed on a 5 to 5 tie vote.
Burlington councilors also reviewed concept designs for the Burlington-Winooski Bridge project, estimated to cost between $70 and 80 million. Ward 1 Progressive Carter Neubieser received clarification from planners that Burlington taxpayers will be responsible for $3.8 million of those costs.
“There’s a reality facing taxpayers that I really want the public to appreciate and this council to appreciate. We don’t have an opportunity to do this in the future, especially with the change in administration, and the sidewalks on the bridge are literally crumbling before our eyes.”
Councilors approved the bridge design on an 8 to 2 vote.
