Political dodgeball is apparently Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak’s favorite sport

By Ted Cohen

Try as he might, a Vermont journalist just couldn’t get the mayor of the state’s largest city to explain why she’s filed a lawsuit against one of her harshest critics

Todd DeLuca, who posts on Facebook as Beautiful Scenic Burlington, was covering last week’s court hearing stemming from the mayor’s lawsuit requesting a restraining order against Ari Mozkowitz.

Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak claims Mozkowitz has harassed her and her family amid a political dispute over how she has handled his beefs with her administration.

Following the hearing, DeLuca, a citizen journalist who chronicles the comings and goings of Burlington on Facebook, planted himself outside the courthouse trying to interview the parties involved the the legal battle.

Attorney Robert Kaplan, representing Mozkowitz, gladly approached DeLuca’s camera, telling DeLuca he’s leaving the dispute “in the court’s hands.”

But no one from the city administration – neither the so-called “progressive” mayor nor her taxpayer-salaried lawyer, the city attorney, would discuss Mulvaney-Stanak’s lawsuit.

As the first-term mayor huffed out of court after the hearing, DeLuca’s questions to her fell on conveniently-deaf ears.

Mulvaney-Stanak walked briskly away from his shouted questions refusing to even acknowledge his presence.

DeLuca then approached City Attorney Jessica Brown as she left the courthouse. His efforts went as follows:

“Attorney Brown I was just hoping you could provide a comment, maybe give your perspective or the mayor’s perspective, on what’s going on, say something about how the hearing went,” DeLuca said to her as she ignored him, quickly walking away.

“The people, they want to hear a balanced perspective, they want to hear from the mayor, maybe from her representative about what’s going on.,” he added. “This is your opportunity. I’m just trying to get a comment.

“I would love to get your side of the story,” he persisted as Brown walked past him, completely rebuffing his questions, not even looking at him. “I would love to get the mayor’s side of the story, if you would please say something to the people, just so the people of Burlington can know what’s going on here.

“Is there a reason you don’t want to make a comment, Ms. Brown? Just something. It would seem like a reasonable thing to do after a hearing like this.”

Nothing.

DeLuca then told his Facebook followers on camera, “When I talk about this administration being against transparency, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, the disdain for their constituents, their disdain for the people of Burlington, the people who voted for the mayor, the people who voted against the mayor, the people who didn’t vote at all.

“Why wouldn’t the city attorney, Jessica Brown, who’s representing the mayor, not make a comment on the hearing?” he asked rhetorically. “I don’t know, I tried. I tried my best to get a comment.”

DeLuca on Sunday told Burlington Daily News, “Very strange. In contrast, Attorney Kaplan behaved in a friendly, reasonable, normal way.”

Mulvaney-Stanak has a history dodging questions dating back to after she won a landslide election in her first-ever mayoral bid, in 2024.

Two years ago, veteran Vermont reporter Mike Donoghue wrote in the the BDN about the difficulty reporters have getting the mayor to open her mouth.

“Mulvaney-Stanak has refused to return phone calls to local media members and ignored them when they meet up with her at public events,” Donoghue, formerly a longtime Burlington Free Press writer, now an independent journalist.

The only time Mulvaney-Stanak’s lips are parted is when she’s issuing some self-serving pronouncement, such as recently when she claimed “Burlington is back.”

The mayor may soon be forced to change her style if she runs for re-election since she already effectively has an opponent, council president Ben Traverse.

Traverse, a Democrat claiming to have had enough of Burlington’s drug and crime problems, recently said he’s seriously considering mayoral bid.

The translation of that is he’s going after the incumbent mayor’s politics. Whether that’s defined formally as a campaign to strip her of the job is moot.