Thread by @Datoism

So yesterday we took a look at Bernie's achievement through CEDO which he created(1983) instead of the planning commission. Let's take a walk though how and why CEDO was created and more of Bernie 1981-1983.

In 1986, Pierre Clavel published "The Progressive City: Planning and Participation, 1969-1984", Burlington too was featured in this, 10 pages of Bernie's tenure is available in google book preview. books.google.co.in/books?redir_es…

Pierre Clavel named Sanders' first term as "Stalemate".
A Mayor was very powerless in Burlington then. He had a opposition of 11-2 among aldermen in his first year of administration. City was run through boards and commissions previous aldermen appointed.

Bernie couldn't even hire a secretary, that high was the democratic machinery obstructionism.
👉Alderman rejected all six of Bernie's nominations for city's administrative jobs.
👉They used parliamentary maneuvers to keep Sanders off the agenda at board meetings

👉The Planning Commission held meetings with developers without Sanders' knowledge.
👉City clerk locked the door connecting his office to Sanders' and was once caught stealing the mayor's mail.
👉Director of planning said he would not go out of his way to cooperate with Sanders.

How did Bernie respond to this obstructionism? With "substantially commonsensical and efficient" responses.
👉Hires civil defense director, health and safety inspector who bought in visible results.
👉Mayor's commission for youth, elderly, arts, women, city finances and taxes.

He even paid a "constituency worker" of his own funds.

And the biggest, secured the volunteer labor of a supporter, as director of a youth office, guess who? who else? @janeosanders was the one. 😊

The net result of these obstructionism was to discredit the democratic aldermen. A "Citizen of fair play" committee was formed, urging a cooperative approach on the part of aldermen.

Brulington Free Press wrote editorial saying democratic machinery was preoccupied with tarnishing Bernie than protect the interest of people. Bernie and progressives organized a single slate of aldemanic candidates against the obstructionists.

And the result? Democrats were decimated in 1982 elections. Five out their six candidates lost the election. Progressive coalition won three of them. Practical implication was, dems and republicans together(8/13) lost power to override veto so had to negotiate.

Bernie was able to make some key appointments including the one of Peter Clavelle as personnel director, his mayor successor and first CEDO director.

Administrative Reforms:
These new appointments quickly began to make inroads into changing a set of administrative practices were in need of dire overhaul.

👉City undertook an aggressive program of productivity increases and cost containment which in 1982 alone saved between $400K and $600K.
👉Department purchases centralized.
👉Gasoline costs cut 5% to 10%.
👉Low-interest loans given out to friends of Cemetery Fund were eliminated.

👉City insurance contracts were put out for competitive bidding resulting in savings of $200,000 or 40%.
👉City pension funds were invested properly as an audit revealed that most retirees were not receiving their proper benefits due to inattention and poor management.

👉A new cash management system, investing city's short-term cash rather than leaving it in low- or no-interest bearing accounts was instituted, for a gain of $70,000/year.
👉A new centralized phone system to save $100,000/year.
👉Higher fees for building permits-$150,000/year.

And the big one we've all heard of, the city audit which found a surplus of $1.9M.

With all these achievements, Bernie was still stalled on economic development front by Planning commission, who were appointed by the previous administration. Then came the next election. Speculation was Dems & Reps might run fusion ticket, Sanders though they wont, and didn't.

And obviously Bernie won. And his first agenda was to take economic development into mayor's office from planning commission. Many business leaders too helped and he succeeded with the help of republicans in city board.

So why did the businessmen supported Bernie? Their answers were:
1. They understood that they couldn't defeat him, so working with him was the solution.
2. He was competent.
3. He was pro-development. He wanted to develop his tax-base.

And there ends the preview of the book, but i guess the rest was covered in yesterday's thread linked at the top. Bernie Sanders was a revolutionary of his kind who completely reshaped his city. No current primary candidate even come near his administrative achievements of 8 yrs.