What Kind of Mayor Was Bernie Sanders?

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/208849/bernies-burlington-city-sustainable-future

The battle over Northgate Apartments illustrates Sanders’s general approach to governing. In addressing this and many other issues, he encouraged grassroots organizing, adopted local laws to protect the vulnerable, challenged the city’s business power brokers, and worked collaboratively with other politicians to create a more livable city.

Now that Sanders is running for president, the eight years he spent as Burlington’s chief executive (1981–89) will be under close scrutiny. Although President Obama recently joked at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that Sanders is a “pot-smoking socialist,” he was actually a hardworking, pragmatic, effective mayor who helped transform Vermont’s largest city (population: 38,000) into a thriving town.

Thanks to the enduring influence of the progressive climate that Sanders and his allies helped to create in Burlington, the city’s largest housing development is now resident-owned, its largest supermarket is a consumer-owned cooperative, one of its largest private employers is worker-owned, and most of its people-oriented waterfront is publicly owned. Its publicly owned utility, the Burlington Electric Department, recently announced that Burlington is the first American city of any decent size to run entirely on renewable electricity.

[Kalidurga]

1. And let the record show...

This is great. IIRC he had around an 80% approval rating as mayor. I don't know what his approval rating as a senator is, but it must be pretty high, he keeps getting elected.

I would like the whole country to be more like Burlington.

[Enthusiast]

2. Kicked and recommended!

[Capt. Obvious]

3. The GD thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026768671