The Kind Of City We Want to Be
Remarks delivered at the 10/16 Burlington City Council meeting in opposition to the Square Mall project & in support of keeping Burlington Telecom local.
Hi. My name is Eric Maier. I live in the Lakeside neighborhood. I’m here to register my disappointment with the amount of city time and resources being devoted to holding the hands of corporate profiteers like those looking to invest in Burlington Telecom, and real estate developers like Don Sinex.
While nobody can doubt the mayor and council’s success in pulling our city out of the financial troubles they were handed, it would be very difficult to claim that recent economic gains have focused on the most vulnerable. Instead, we see our economy transferred more and more into the hands of rich white dudes who know the difference between racquetball and squash.
Which, for the record, include racquet and ball size as well as pace of play.
In the 80s, here in Burlington, we had a mayor named Bernard Sanders. He was elected and re-elected under a platform of working for average people — the many, not the few.
In 1984, the Sanders administration commissioned “Jobs and People: A Strategic Analysis of the Greater Burlington Economy”.
The report looked at the overall health of Burlington, but with a particular focus on the city’s most vulnerable citizens. In the area of economic justice, after years of Gordon Paquette’s so-called “Democratic machine,” the “Jobs and People” study found great room for improvement. While there was economic growth at the top, the report stated:
Most of the residents of Burlington are not participating in the region’s prosperity; those who do are likely to move out of the City. Instead of being leaders and participants in the economic boom surrounding them, [average residents] are relegated to the role of spectators.
The report advocated for “a deliberate strategy of structuring Burlington’s inevitable economic growth to the benefit of all citizens, not just a few;”
and “a drive for quality over quantity, that is, a deliberate preference for good jobs over any jobs at all.”
“Jobs and People”, in remarkable terms, takes very seriously the issue of the under-employed.
The over-educated human ‘surplus’ of the Greater Burlington economy, loosely tied to what they consider to be transitory, ‘dead-end’ jobs and eager for more challenging employment opportunities.
Most of their stories speak of the need for a challenge; for a change to exercise their creativity and skill in a way which their present jobs do not allow. Many leave Burlington not having been able to find the challenges they seek.
The authors of Bernie’s 1984 report treat such workers as human beings with full lives and needs — not simply as numbers. If the compassion of the cooperative approach seems like it’s from another world — that’s because it is!
Such human-focused inquiry seems downright strange at a time when our city government has become a tool for rich people to turn Burlington into a financial playground.
It is demoralizing to compare Bernie’s “Jobs and People” report with the economic study used by the city in its advocacy of the new Burlington Square Mall, a.k.a. “City Place”. Instead of being commissioned by a socialist mayor, the current study was commissioned and paid for by…the developer of the project himself, Don Sinex. So. The numbers quoted by the mayor, President Knodell, and other supporters of the new mall were paid for by the business person who stands to profit most. Needless to say Sinex didn’t close his eyes and choose at random when selecting the study’s academic framework.
Sinex chose Kevin Chiang. Chiang is Professor of Real Estate & Finance at Grossman School of Business — so we know he has experience using complex formulas to tell rich, white dudes that they deserve their money. In fact, Professor Chiang’s primary area of academic interest is in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which is Wall Street speak for “the exact type of financial instrument that triggered the global economic collapse of 2008.
That was almost ten years ago but I am sure the financial crisis sticks with most of you. At the time, in advocating for their obscene bailout, Wall Street types engaged over and over in the kind of condescending, technocratic persuasion in which nobody who didn’t go to an Ivy League business school could understand how to fix our economy. Most people, including President Obama, listened to them, and here we are. Economic inequality is worse than it has ever been. Donald Trump is president. Mega-hurricanes are striking. Ecosystems are dying. Maybe it is time to reevaluate the way we look at, and talk about, our economy. There are alternatives to corporate development; to our present day “Democratic machine.”
We have a legacy in Burlington as being a progressive leader; and a responsibility to show the rest of the country what is possible when the needs of regular human beings are elevated. As much as shrewd economic maneuvering helps our municipal credit rating — if we’re not looking at the most vulnerable citizens, our efforts are morally lacking.
Instead of satisfying ourselves with comfy, neoliberal policy, we should follow the lead of communities like Jackson, MS, and, in the words of the community activists behind the recent election of radical mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, “replace the current socio-economic system of exploitation, exclusion, and the destruction of the environment, with a proven democratic alternative.”
The group Cooperation Jackson advocates for:
An alternative built on equity, cooperation, worker democracy, and environmental sustainability to provide meaningful living wage jobs, reduce racial inequities, and build community wealth. It is our position and experience, that when marginalized and excluded workers and communities are organized in democratic organizations and social movements they become a force capable of making transformative social advances.
We can learn from cities like Jackson. We can do better here.
Thank you for your time.
