VT Digger had this story:
The result of this election has not been announced, yet some Burlington voters are already calling for recalls to be on the ballot next year, along with voter-initiated popular referendums. Proposition Zero, a nonpartisan electoral campaign to expand direct democracy in Burlington, on Monday (3/1) announced the addition of recall provisions to a set of charter change proposals it plans to submit for voter approval on the March 2022 ballot.
Burlington’s municipal charter currently lacks a mechanism for voters to remove elected officials before their terms end, but over twenty cities and towns in Vermont allow voters to do so by means of recall petition. The idea isn’t without precedent; during the Kiss administration, former council president Kurt Wright and current South District councilor Joan Shannon sponsored a resolution calling for a charter amendment allowing voters to initiate a recall of the mayor and city councilors.
When it comes to voters-initiated referendums, however, Burlington stands in stark contrast to the rest of Vermont, where virtually every municipality has voter initiatives and referendums enshrined in its charter document. One of the purest forms of direct democracy, Vermont’s cherished institution of “town meeting” allows voters to directly vote on municipal decisions, to propose new ordinances and to amend or repeal existing ones by majority vote.
Read the full article here.
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