Vermont mayor politics as constituent home burns

By Ted Cohen

The fire department in Vermont's largest city saw it as just doing their job - putting out a house fire.

But Burlington's mayor took advantage of the incident to count votes, so to speak.

"We'd like to thank Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak for coming out to show her support for our members at today's fire and to congratulate Class 26-01 on the successful completion of their academy," the department innocently announced on Facebook.

But the first-term mayor happens to be under growing pressure to disclose whether she's gearing up for a re-election battle.

So she certainly helped her cause by showing up at a Linden Terrace house fire Friday to show the flag as it were.

The blaze was the first for fire recruits Aaron Sherman, Vikas Mangipudi, Paul Cirignano, Kyle Blanchard and Isaac Bauer.

And there in the middle of it all was Mulvaney-Stanak posing with them by a fire truck in jeans and sneakers for a photo op at the scene of the fire where two cats died.

Even before she officially announces her political plans, Mulvaney-Stanak already has one likely challenger, council President Ben Traverse, Democrat.

Vermont Daily Chronicle and WCAX-TV have reported Traverse saying that "there are some changes that need to be made" in the corner office.

Traverse said he expects to make his final decision on entering the race against the "progressive" incumbent in the coming weeks.

Mulvaney-Stanak has been under growing fire to get a handle on burgeoning crime, open drug use and "homelessness" in the Queen City's troubled downtown.

The mayor often boasts that she was elected as Burlington's first female and openly LGBTQ+ mayor.

March 2027 will mark the end of her tumultuous term, which has recently seen her Democrat council counterparts, including Traverse, demanding accountability on the degradation of the main shopping district in Burlington.

Mulvaney-Stanak has said that she would soon announce a decision regarding re-election.