Jane Sanders, Her School's Iffy Loan and Nepotism
Even as federal investigators probe a land deal Jane O’Meara Sanders advanced as Burlington College’s president, new questions have arisen regarding nepotism and insider deals during her tenure.
The wife of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she led Burlington College from 2004 to 2011. In 2010 she pushed the school – with 195 students and a $4 million budget – to purchase a $10 million plot of land with hopes of expanding the small, alternative liberal arts college.
As Jasper Craven reports for the website VTDigger.org, the school’s final president, Carol Moore, blames that deal and Sanders for the college’s closure in 2016. Craven reports that federal authorities “are examining whether Jane Sanders accurately represented donations to the college used as collateral to back the bank loan.”
Moore is also critical of a deal Sanders brokered between the college and the Vermont Woodworking School, which was run by Sanders’ daughter, Carina Driscoll.
Although the arrangement was continued after Sanders left the school, and the woodworking school produced a small profit for the college, Moore described it as a “sweetheart deal.”
Craven also reports that between 2009 and 2011 Burlington College paid $68,140 to the Andros Beach Club, an oceanfront lodge in the Bahamas, to host students during spring break. The Club is owned by the son of Jonathan Leopold, a former member of the Board of Burlington College who was Bernie Sanders’s city treasurer when he was Mayor of Burlington.
Craven also reports that:
The Burlington College-Vermont Woodworking School connection is not the first time Sanders and her daughter have been accused of nepotism.
Sanders & Driscoll LLC — a mother-daughter limited liability corporation — offered political consulting for Bernie Sanders’ 2002 and 2004 House races, and Jane Sanders drew more than $90,000 from the campaigns. The practice was allowed but frowned upon because of the opportunity to benefit from campaign donations.
Driscoll is listed as a principal at Sanders & Driscoll in a business registration with the Secretary of State, but Driscoll said that she never took a nickel for the organization’s media consulting work for Sanders. Driscoll said the only time she was paid through Sanders & Driscoll was for consulting work for the Vermont State Employees Association.
While Driscoll said she was not engaged in media work for Sanders, she received a salary of about $65,000 through the Sanders’ campaign for a four-year period from 2000 to 2004, according to Vanity Fair.
