 Welcome to another show of Celebrate Life. My name is Gary DeCarlas and I'll be your host today. The goal of this show is to celebrate the lives of every day from honors. Some people you'll be able to recognize, today's guest will be one of those, and other people, close friends and family might be the only folks that actually know them. But I can guarantee you that everyone has a wonderful story to tell about their lives. If you're interested in being interviewed or you know someone who might want to be interviewed, please email me at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com. Also, if you have a question for today's interviewee, again, send me an email and I'll get it over to him and we'll get a response back to you. Thank you very much. Today's guest is, I'd like to welcome Joe McNeil, a distinguished attorney in Burlington and Vermont, and former city attorney for this great city of Burlington, Vermont. Welcome Joe. Good morning Gary, happy to be here with you. Great to have you on the show. It's nice to see you. So I, and just for the viewers sake, Joe and I worked together for a number of years when I was on the city council. Joe was the city attorney and maybe we can talk a little bit about those very calm years that we spent together. But Joe, I'd like you to maybe take us back to your early formative years and talk about your life and your family and things that were special to you and we'll go from there. Sure. I grew up in an interesting part of Burlington, probably for its day the most diverse part of the city. We, I grew up on the corner of, for the most part, on the corner of Loomis and Prospect Street. So in the north central part of the city it didn't have a name like the old north end or the hill section. But it was distinguished by the fact that it was traditionally what I would call an old Protestant Yankee neighborhood but it had been infiltrated, if you will, by a good part of the Jewish community and a good part or at least an increasing part of Irish and French individuals and families. So and it was reflected in like Taft School, which was the elementary school for the area and as a result growing up, you know, we had a sandlot that we just called the lot and we would actually have games named Christians versus Jews. And Taft School was sort of the center. Additionally, I think I spent, well, not quite as much but a fair amount of my time at what my Jewish friends called the center which was Ohavi's synagogue because it had a basketball court, the multipurpose room and as a result, I came to know Rabbi Wall very well and got an appreciation for him that lasted almost lifelong. I would see him periodically thereafter. He would come in and ask me to stop dancing the basketball during the service. So and then the other formative, if you will, part of my existence was the YMCA. I learned to swim there. Mr. Ray Maddox, who was the executive director, was almost like an additional dad to folks that went there and it was a great community center, so to speak. My family was a large Irish Catholic family and we had multi generations living with us. My grandmother lived with us and my great aunt and I got a good bit of their philosophy on life and their experiences weaved into my life as a result. I thought it was a rich experience. My great aunt worked in the woolen mill in Winooski and she was a passionate FDR Democrat and I can remember having animated discussions where I would talk about how FDR gave away Eastern Europe and she would say, don't you say a bad word about President Roosevelt who did so much for us with Social Security, etc. So that and then a good part of my dad's and mom's friends were either World War II veterans or spouses that had that experience and they would sit around the kitchen table talking both politics and life experience that informed me as well as my grandmother who was a nurse and so had the background with regard to the hospital and all of that. So it was a rich experience. Wow, for sure, absolutely. So then the other thing that I would mention is sort of a base for me growing up that is still in the news today was Memorial Auditorium. Memorial Auditorium in my day was the location for athletic events indoor basketball primarily but for UVM, for St. Mike's, for Cathedral and then Rice High School, Burlington High School and Winooski High School and it was being used all the time. So part of the local lore for for us growing up was very frankly how could we get into Memorial Auditorium without paying and there were there were any number of methods that were used some distinctly unsafe. The Memorial Auditorium was built with recess bricks, every other sort of layer moving up. So if you were really careful you could climb your way up with perches and what would happen is that somebody would join money to have somebody pay to get in and then they'd open up a bathroom window and we climbed the wall to get in or open the door. Amazing. A youthful experience that I'll tell you about was there was also what we called the coal chute and the the coal chute was as as described it was the place where the coal was delivered to the auditorium when it was cold fired so there would be periodically a coal pile and on this if you couldn't if you couldn't get in Memorial Auditorium any other way try the coal chute and one day I did it to the with the intent of seeing a drummer by the name of Gene Krupa who was famous from the big band era and as as bad luck would have it the Memorial Auditorium had just received a dose of coal and I came right down on it so I emerged you know black and head to toe and I was and I was going up the back stairs of Memorial Auditorium and to get to the bathroom to sort of clean up a little bit and the who was there was this man standing there I didn't recognize and he said boy you must really want to see this show and I said well yeah and he said well I'm Gene Krupa oh no you're kidding he said wow I think you're not going to be in a position to clean up well enough to sit in the audience without scaring people so here's what I'd like you to do he says I'll give you a chair from the dressing room and you bring it up on the stage but on the on the other side of the curtain so people can't see you right sit there for the whole concert so are you that's amazing Joe I had that I had that experience wow wow that is cool the other the other thing that I think we both have in common now that was nurtured for me as a youth Gary was love of train travel and and we my grandmother when I was in the third grade took me on an overnight train from Burlington Union Station to New York City came into New York City on I'll never forget it the the lines that were still elevated at that point I think I think we came down the west side but then to to grant over to Grand Central Station and you know that was such a such a mind expanding a kid from Burlington exactly thanks to Melinda Moulton and others like Pat Leahy who have worked so hard to train service back here we're all looking forward we're going to do it again that's great wow amazing the other thing that I would just mention about about growing up is I I in the summers would go to this place called Camp Holy Cross that was out on Mallets Bay the Outer Bay and as a result I developed both a love of water sports water skiing in particular and and boating etc as well as baseball that was that was a good part of our existence we would mm what amounted to athletic competition against the other boys and girls camps that were populated all over Lake Champlain in those days like Edge and Abnaki and Hoshilega and and that sort of thing so as a reason as a result of both the YMCA and the and Camp Holy Cross I think I developed not only a lifelong appreciation of water activities but a real love for Lake Champlain and and exploring exploring it being on it etc yes but I would also say Gary and this reflects into areas where you have spent a good part of your professional life you know our family was not not entirely removed not not removed at all from the the difficulties relating to substance abuse and I had family members that that were you know had difficulty with either alcohol primarily alcohol consumption and I I knew at a at a young age from experiences dealing with it that that was something I needed to be very careful about because because of proclivity for that type of addiction so I was careful there I'm not so careful with like sweets and sugar I must but but but I have to say that on a more serious side that it it teaches you that life can be vulnerable and it teaches you that sometimes when you're knocked down you need the truth is the the character is not shown necessarily by the fact that you are knocked down and because we all are right but your resilience and getting back up again and exactly I would mention that my dad who was a practicing attorney before me in in Vermont he he would be proud to say that like the last decade of of his life was spent sober as a result of you know tremendous effort on his part and others part to to help him and so you know that it is a tremendous effort it's I don't think people appreciate what it takes to be able to move to that place to be sober and with that background it's it takes every fiber of your body to pull that off yeah it sure does so that you know it wasn't it wasn't all just excitement and fun there were some serious parts to growing up as well but I think I was informed by it all and challenged by it all and also often by it all in the end yeah and Joe did you so you on your own though came to to realize that you had to be careful that was something that you you did on your own yeah I just I I discern that both from the experience with others one we had 11 kids in our family okay I would say right now six or seven of us are totally sober in the sense of alcohol do not do not consume alcoholic beverages because of the I am not among that number but I but I'm very very careful and yeah so I come to that realization one of my siblings my brother who may well have been the most talented of us all in every respect because he was both intellectually curious but also very hands-on in terms of figuring out how things work mechanically and and somehow that gene missed me but he he had it in spades so he was our he was our family go-to guy and and he he battled that demon for most of his life and and departed early we believe because of it yeah but nonetheless I think we're all stronger as a result absolutely yeah you know there's an old saying that the oyster that creates the pearl of the grain of sand that is in the oyster creates the pearl and those those irritations in life those challenges in life make us better and stronger and more beautiful no question no question I mentioned I also should mention that's part of growing up the the educational opportunities that came my way first from my parents who were in different ways very instructive my mother was more quiet but artsy and musical and always willing to lend a hand with homework and that sort of thing um my dad was sort of more brash and rhetorical um loved a good argument and but also had a prodigious memory and and would encourage reading and as a matter of fact to sort of project forward one time one time and probably the early 1970s I was at my parents house and I was just walking through the room where the tv was and my dad said sit down sit down you've got to hear this guy and uh and so I said who who what and he's like there is this debater who's running for office he's a fringe candidate he's never going to win but he's the best debater I've seen on a political stage in years and so and that was of course that was Bernie I figured that was in his in his youth younger iterations running for congress or senator yeah whatever whatever he ran for in those days and my dad who had been a college debater and and was a trial lawyer he was just captivated by Bernie's intellect and and ability to to argue a point passionately yet effectively so that was that was the first time that's amazing he's conscious of a guy by the name of Bernie Sanders interest did your father was your father still alive when you were the city attorney with Bernie was uh no not with Bernie unfortunately my dad died early of a heart attack at 58 like just a year or two before Bernie became mayor um yeah he would have enjoyed that he would he definitely would have yeah but I also I would say that my education was much enhanced by number one my parents number two in the neighborhood the the Jewish families that I befriended and would be in their houses most of them took education very very seriously yeah and I learned a lot from just watching them at at high school I was lucky enough to have like two or three coaches that were not only athletically inclined but also you know well grounded that taught taught life skills and then and then there were a couple of sisters of mercy that were I just remember them as old they're probably younger than I am now but who instilled in me you know sort of like the notion that you can do better you you should you should apply yourself better than as I had I had a lazy streak to me at times there were you know I would just go along to get along sure and I did the homework tomorrow and these these nuns two these two nuns in particular one of whom I remember was riddled with arthritis and could barely move but her intellect was just stellar and they encouraged me to you know really stretch to to to reach your reach potential and then at at St. Michael's there was a professor by the name of John Ingalls who was a fairly well known regional poet national poet but yes his his writing would appear periodically in the paper and he was just an excellent writer in terms of you know precise use of wording mm and I was I was going I had him as a junior in a in a writing seminar and I thought I was a pretty good writer and and the first paper I got back from him said your subject is pedestrian and you describe it in a very inept way he pushed you he pushed me and then I I took constitutional law at UVM and there was a professor by the name of Gould who was sort of legendary there for constitutional law and he was he just was inspiring to me and then at and then at Notre Dame I I was inspired by President Ted Father Hesburgh who was at that point the head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and and just understood I thought the way the country needed to move and the way we needed to recognize the value in everyone and and and was very articulate about that on a national scale but also if you would see him on campus I'm not sure that he ever really remembered from time to time my name but he remembered that I was from the boy from Vermont and so I'd see him on the campus and like oh yeah Vermont or how how are you and yeah go ahead I just know I'm just gonna say that you have it's sound listening to you you squeezed every opportunity there was everything out of every opportunity to learn something from various people situations where you lived your family you like a sponge you just absorb all this it's so wonderful I can tell why you are who you are because you're just you're just bring it in yeah it was it was a I must say it was a it was a fun growing up sort of like punctuated from time to time with the recognition that life also had some real challenges for example two or three of my good friends growing up got killed in Vietnam and and that was heartbreaking and and I remember I remember being on a ferry boat ride for some reason during the Cuban Missile Crisis and there was this guy talking about how we would be a primary target because of the Plattsburgh Air Force Base having nuclear armed surface air or air-to-air missiles and that that sort of thing on the B-52s that then flew out of there and and I'm and I'm thinking oh my gosh you know sometimes sometimes we don't know and it's it's better off that we don't that's right and history showed there how close we came to yeah to real conflict that's right but I but I moving moving on to sort of my professional life I became I became a lawyer I I was lucky enough to to be able to because I had put my name on a list at the at the at the urging of a of a guy that lived out near us in the summertime and in Mallards Bay and and was a sergeant in the Air National Guard he was like you should put your name on the air guard list and so I did it when I was like a sophomore in college and totally forgot about it but my during my last year of law school all of a sudden I get this call from somebody that says they're a personnel officer in Vermont at the Air National Guard and they were you're about to graduate as a lawyer right and I said yeah and they said well would you like to be in the Vermont Guard you signed up and there's a spot in the in the legal office and and I knew what was ahead of me otherwise and so I was like you bet yeah so I I spent a fair amount of time in the Air National Guard which was which was also instructive and fun and yes but I became a lawyer and and I got hired as a as a deputy to Pat Leahy who is state's attorney and and I was appointed to be what was called the city grandeur in Burlington which in those days handled most of the criminal cases that occurred within the city of Burlington and so but between Patrick at first just Patrick Leahy and I and then no excuse me with another attorney Charlie Tetzlap we were doing the the county prosecution and the the reason I say that is because Charlie Tetzlap at some point decided that he was going to leave the state's attorney's office and go into represent the University of Vermont so that meant that I was going to move up from deputy state's attorney to chief deputy state's attorney which you know since there are only three of us it didn't count for me and there was no doubt that Patrick was the guy so but anyway we went over to tell Mayor Kane at the time of that impending change and funny enough Mayor Frank Kane who I later learned had had his own sort of sense of humor he during that meeting he said Joe you've been we've appreciated the work you've been doing prosecuting Burlington cases I don't know whether you know it or not but our city attorney is is resigning to go back in the private practice so we're going to have an opening for city attorney and we'd like you to consider it and I had I hadn't so much as taken a municipal law course in in college so I but I started to think about it and and I said well I'm pretty happy I'm pretty happy being a deputy state's attorney and Mayor Kane said right you know with a smile but sort of an edge to it he goes no no no he says Joe come over here he said you'll be the department head and if you stay with Patrick you're always going to be second fiddle and he's not going anywhere right a little did he know so have you told have you told senator lehi that's all right well he was there he heard it I think he joked back and and at the time but there was there was no doubt that Patrick was going places the but anyhow I ultimately decided to to give it a shot as city attorney and I was glad that I did I had nearly four decades of I would say probably the richest legal experience that I could have hoped for serving under six mayors and you know three three of whom spent nearly a decade each Gordon Pochette Bernie and Peter Clavel and and I and I would say that although they they they all including Peter Brownell and Frank Kane and Bob Kiss although they all had different personalities different political persuasions ranging you know from very progressive on Bernie's part to pretty conservative let's say on Peter Brownells part right and then you know sort of in the middle with Mary Kane a bit more to the left with Peter Clavel and Bob Kiss but what I what I enjoyed about each of them and what I enjoyed during our time uh with probably I would think more than a hundred city counselors um absolutely yeah during my time was for some reason um well I understand it was in their character for the mayors and for the counselors as well there was a deep affection for the city yeah a deep a deep interest in moving it um into a better place than it had been each each with different approaches but but I found I found that service to be just wonderful um Mary Kane was a I I'd use the word smart but also debonair you know always dressed well well spoken he was classy classy and am I and in my mind he was the first one that I had um was aware had the notion of that the history or that the future of the city involved a good working connection between the waterfront up to the downtown and and that you know there were there were good and bad parts to that uh um the urban renewal part um although um very helpful in some respects uh many respects was also very harmful to a number of a number of families particularly you know a um um a well-established Italian-American uh segment of the city uh and and it was unfortunate also in the sense that um the the eminent domain procedures that the city used to acquire those houses for whatever reason was not offering fair compensation uh and and many of the people that were displaced needed to go to court uh to have jury trials to establish a better value for their homes wow that was before my time is I was going to ask you okay uh but so my time was mostly the aftermath of that with the property cleared and how to uh had a first deal with it um in terms of the redevelopment in a way that protected Burlington and um so Mary Kane had had that idea he also uh uh was very good about um I would say even KG in the way he went about things um he uh he was responsible for the acquisition of what is now Oakledge Park and and uh that was slated for purchased by a bunch of developers from the Albany area and he he had a meeting with them and and he asked me to attend it and he asked me to every once in a while during the course of the meeting uh just break in to the conversation by saying mayor what are we talking to these people for let's just take this by a minute domain we need it for a part and he he said Joe when you say that I'm going to shush you and I'm I'm going to say uh please uh Mr. City Attorney be respectful of these gentlemen but he says I want I want you to be the bad cop while I'm the good cop here so uh we had we had that meeting and I played that role and you know whatever for whatever reason it was effective wow and we ended up purchasing the property to City for a wonderful park wow flash forward to Gordon Popcat who um I think is one one of the great unappreciated mayors in terms of in terms of things that he accomplished when you are we're accomplished with that would help of others of course they're always up from others but during his time we acquired what is now Letty Park um we passed the City passed a series of ordinances that led to the amortization or the elimination of the blight on the waterfront that it accreted from the industrial times the oil the oil storage tanks the junk yards and metal salvage yards uh you wouldn't if you see pictures of the way it looked yeah that's horrible now it's not horrible yeah so he was responsible for that is during his time the church street marketplace was created that's right and the and the uh the defense of the first major defense of act 250 occurred uh when when we opposed the original pyramid mall out in Williston under his under his leadership the king street youth center uh got created so uh but his style was totally different than the styles of like Frank Cain and then right and then say Bernie um um the uh uh Gordon would sit in a coffee shop and and people would come and sit down and right most of the business was done there and as the actors yeah actors right and as a young city attorney at that point i didn't want to go over there uh because but i did from time to time but i always tried to go and get out uh because i i felt that just i had too much energy for just sitting yeah in a coffee shop and and yeah but it was effective um the way the way he did it but then but then Bernie came in with a totally different style uh Bernie was passionate about many things and you know um that was and you were you were a part of that right on so does figure the and the first years were the toughest uh he had Bernie had a lot of wind that he had to face and uh with people including many of the current then current city counselors who thought that the end of the world as we know it had occurred with his election yeah and and i uh found myself as city attorney in the middle of many a political battle oh i know where you know that both for whatever reason the legal aspects of it would become challenged and i um i if i if i look back i'm i'm glad to have survived that and i i remember telling myself look you you are like the guy with the white and black striped shirt you're you're a referee here yeah you you cannot uh you cannot uh be a partisan you have to be you have to be you know straight down the middle that's right and and how and how you do this or you'll have no credibility that's right with the with any of the competing factions ultimately so but bernie you know he had he had a public side and a private side and i enjoyed both i uh the public side was you know his passionate debate uh and position particularly his uh work for the disadvantaged but he was also he was also a very careful steward of the city's financial status and it's uh it's it's various commitments i particularly enjoyed bernie's commitment to the youth establishment of the youth office his attention to parks and rec programs um uh that sort of thing which which got far um uh less notice yeah that's true i also i also um and i believe that bernie although you know we fought a couple losing battles with regard to taxation of the institutional facilities um uh i think that uh he sort of like reset uh the the um the balance of power if you will and and move the city towards what ultimately became a more cooperative collegial relationship among uh the educational institutions right the health institutions right that we had um uh don't you know yeah go ahead yeah so i'm listening listening to you have six different mayors you have um pretty significant shifts in personalities and and law became very important in many of these mayors lives uh how how we move thing how we change the like the waterfront and and how did you take care of yourself during all that time and when after a city council meeting could you go home and go to sleep how did you deal with all that it was uh that's a that's a great question gary and at times it was i look back and i say how did how did this happen there were there were years where if it wasn't a city council meeting at i would have the full day it worked and then i would bargain collectively for the city um right with the various unions in in night meetings so i can remember one time um a a collective bargaining meeting that i thought was going to go to like ten o'clock or so finished at like seven thirty and and i had the feeling that it was like a vacation and and then i remember saying to myself wait a second this is nonsense uh you know starting at eight o'clock in the morning and finishing at seven thirty is not a vacation uh right but the you know the it sort of get locked into the effort or and the way the way i would try to take care of myself would be you know by going out and playing basketball at noontime uh or going going up to the ymca and um going or going out and running or you know in the summertime getting away at the end of the day and taking a swim or going out in the boat or whatever yeah to try to balance things but i people that work with me and i should say too that one of one of the whatever success i was likely i was fortunate enough to have was in many cases as a result of great assistance that i had um the cadre of assistant city attorneys that work for the city some great people and and also my my own legal partners and yeah you had some some wonderful lawyers um yeah absolutely and we were we we were very fortunate to to work collegially and and some of our internal meetings would be knock down drag out you know in terms of clashing clashing of intellects but we we'd come to a result and and we we we that was that was our story and we were sticking with it and and that seemed that seemed to work um you know uh peter clavell for example and he became mayor i had the benefit of working with him both in wanouski beforehand and as cito director and hr director in burlington but yep you know he was tremendously effective too in terms of acquiring waterfront property um advancing the public trust doctrine um and started moving towards that connection that i was talking about between the waterfront and the downtown so yeah uh it uh it was it was great fun well i have a couple of questions before we have to end and did did you ever uh think about running for office yourself you know gary yes but then no uh uh i uh there were two things that um uh that potentially um would have moved me in a different direction uh two or three times i got opportunities from governors to move over into state service and be like a commissioner or something um would like the public service board or banking and insurance and that sort of thing and i would give those serious attention but i liked what i was doing um more i guess um and then with regard to a elective um service you know i uh when i first uh became a prosecutor my intent was yes i'm gonna i'm gonna run for you know office and hopefully be elected and be a politician and that sort of thing and then the more i worked with um elected politicians the more i felt i was my my joy came uh as much from helping as part of a team and uh that i didn't need to be i didn't need to be number one as it were and yeah and yeah and i saw what mayors had to go through i mean yeah i thought being a mayor of burlington was for many a year the toughest job in the state because while the governors had layers of protection uh that's right the secretary of administration and governor's assistance or whatever the mayor was out there everyone had the mayor's number yeah and people would stop into the mayor's office and whether it was trash on the street uh to complicated million dollar financing issues the the mayors uh were were bearing their responsibility that's right yep um i should i should mention oh gary that um you know part of part of living too is your family side and and uh my my siblings uh my wife my kid um uh i got to i got to see uh our son grow up um as he was a athlete and i as a result uh sort of drifted into coaching i i coached basketball at both rice and burlington through that i also sort of developed the aau basketball program in vermont and and and and as a result of that effort by happenstance first through the kids but then ourselves uh we got we got a what we call the burlington baltimore friendship exchange occurring and we interfaced on on a regular basis with a program in the if you will one of the least prosperous areas of baltimore he's baltimore called cesil kerb which happened to produce great athletes like reggie louis and mugsie boges and people of that nature but um was so different so very different right than um uh burlington and and in such a riching experience for our for our kids we would go down we would go down there in connection with martin luther king usually and we ended up through their efforts playing in like washington dc as a as a preliminary game to a big college game like georgetown versus syracuse wow nice and we all became um honorary citizens of baltimore wow and that group would come up uh to burlington in the summertime and we would try to reciprocate and you know the mayors were so gracious to them champagne college would house them and uh we would give them a vermont experience i remember that's fantastic remember a young kid we had taken a bus out to the conant farm in richmond to watch to have them watch uh a dairy production and i remember this little tough kid you know with a dew rag on his head right getting getting off the bus saying i'm telling you coach i don't do cows i don't do cows and and by the time the day was finished he had become an accomplished melker of uh oh my gosh that's amazing he had never seen in his life uh inner city baltimore so one of the that's one of the things that i'm most proud of but in the end that you know it's just the opportunity to work with people like you uh that were on the city council the opportunity to work with the commissioners uh the various people that made burlington what it what it is and i hope what it will remain yeah um despite challenges that every that are faced in every generation i just was proud to be able to be a part of it for a person and joe your public service is beyond and i so thank you for all that you've done for the city and we'll continue to do um and uh we're lucky to have you we're lucky to have your family here be honest with you i really appreciate i really appreciate the time that spending with you today and same here it's been too long i've been too long yeah well other than other than this we need to get together absolutely well thank you again enjoy the rest of your day and uh much appreciated and we'll uh we'll connect again soon thank you joe stay warm gary yes you too all right bye