Carina Driscoll will run for mayor of Burlington, the office famously held by her stepfather, independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Driscoll announced Monday she will run as an independent, challenging incumbent Democrat Mayor Miro Weinberger, who is seeking a third term. The election is set for Town Meeting Day in March.

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The South End resident has served on Burlington School Board, in the Vermont Legislature and on the Burlington City Council. She left the council in 2004 to raise her children and start a business, the Vermont Woodworking School.

Earlier this month, while still considering a run, Driscoll said she was motivated by seeing how public policy decisions are made in Burlington.

"There's real room for improvement in our process in the city," she said. "There's a strong perception that a lot of what happens in our city is predetermined by the mayor's office and a few city councilors."

She said Monday she felt strongly that Burlington needs to change its trajectory.

"It was clear to me I had to go for mayor," she said. "I couldn't imagine turning the tide as a city councilor."

Driscoll said she wants to bring a clear "people-led process" back to the city and send a clear message that "Burlington is not for sale."

She said she plans to run as a independent because she wants to bring people together and believes she is in a position to unite people. She said she has been invited to the Progressive caucus to be held this week and will seek the endorsement, but will appear as an independent on the ballot.

"Party politics gets us into trouble," she said, adding that she wants support from people across the political spectrum.

Although Driscoll is critical of Weinberger's approach to public policy, she once was a supporter of the mayor, having helped get him elected, worked on his transition and worked in his administration.

"I believed that we needed to turn this city around financially," she said. Weinberger has "brought the right people to the table," she added, and the city is in much better shape, but the tone and approach of the mayor's office has "evolved."

In a statement, Weinberger welcomed Driscoll and another challenger, Infinite Culcleasure, to the race and said he looks forward to "discussing the progress we've made over the last six years — progress that has made our city more equitable, environmentally sustainable, and stronger and has built a foundation for even greater successes to come."

He said he welcomes a spirited debate and praised the "thoughtful, steady, decisive leadership" of recent years.

Driscoll's stepfather, Sen. Sanders, said he and his wife, Jane, were proud of Driscoll and wanted to be respectful of her desire to do this on her own.

"So, today is Carina's day and her words and her ideas should be the focus, not anyone else's," he said in a statement. Sanders was first elected mayor of Burlington in 1981 in an upset of incumbent Democrat Gordon Paquette.

Driscoll said that at an early age in Burlington, she had a "front-row seat to what was possible," through both her stepfather's political career and her mother's work with young people.

She said she sees leaders in Burlington today who were engaged as young people. She remembered youth coming into the mayor's youth office to borrow camera equipment, recording interviews on the street, and having those interviews air on Channel 17. She recalled seeing any young person who wanted to write an article being able to get it published, and spoke of empowering the neighborhood planning assemblies with money and real autonomy.

"That's not what's happening today," she said. "I'm not prepared to recognize that Burlington as the Burlington of the past."

Culcleasure, a community organizer who lives in Burlington's Old North End, announced his candidacy as an independent.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe.