By Kolby LaMarche

The challenge for the Democratic nomination for Chittenden County Sheriff is officially on, with incumbent Dan Gamelin and challenger Kevin Bloom both set to campaign through the August 11 primary.

Gamelin, who has led the department since February 2023, confirmed his re-election bid this week, as covered by journalist Mike Donoghue. Bloom, who announced his candidacy in Sept. of 2025, has been actively gathering signatures and engaging voters across the county. 

With no other candidates having emerged, the two will face off in the primary before the winner advances to the November general election, likely to be uncontested. 

Gamelin, 64, is a Winooski native with deep roots in local public service. His father, George Gamelin, served more than 60 years with the Winooski fire department and rose to the rank of assistant chief. 

Gamelin began his own law enforcement career in 1981 as a full-time patrol officer with the Winooski Police Department. In 1982, he joined the Chittenden County Sheriff’s Office under then-Sheriff Ronald “Butch” Duell. 

Over the decades, he advanced through the ranks, serving as a patrol deputy, working in special enforcement and interstate crime units, and rising to sergeant and lieutenant. He earned a criminal justice degree from Champlain College and is a graduate of the Vermont Police Academy. Retiring Sheriff Kevin McLaughlin endorsed him, and Gamelin took office on Feb. 1, 2023.

Since assuming the role, Gamelin has overseen significant growth in the department. The office now includes 21 full-time deputies — up from about a dozen when he started — along with additional part-time staff and an expanded fleet of vehicles. 

As one of Vermont’s busiest sheriff’s offices, it handles a wide range of responsibilities without the authority to levy taxes on county residents. Funding comes primarily from contracts, grants and service fees.

Gamelin has emphasized efficient operations and professional development of his team. The office has secured contracts with entities including the Champlain Housing Trust, the Burlington Housing Authority, and towns such as Charlotte, Underhill, Jericho and Westford to supplement Vermont State Police coverage. 

Bloom, 31, offers a starkly different background and vision. 

A longtime Burlington resident who has lived in Vermont for 15 years, he is a renter and the frontman of the experimental psych-rock band The Dead Shakers, which released its sixth album in September 2025. He announced his candidacy without accepting campaign donations, instead opting to self-fund. According to the most recent campaign finance disclosures, Bloom has given himself $4,000 thus far. Bloom has, according to himself, collected signatures from residents in 14 of Chittenden County’s 18 municipalities and has conducted listening tours from Burlington to smaller towns like Charlotte.

Bloom’s platform centers on the sheriff’s unique authority over civil process, especially evictions — an area where the office plays a direct role in one of the county’s most pressing issues. 

Statewide, Vermont sees roughly 1,700 eviction cases filed each year, with the number one cause being unpaid rent. In Chittenden County, data shows that over 70 percent of evictions stem from nonpayment alone, and about half of those (roughly 35 percent of all evictions) involve amounts of $2,000 or less. 

Bloom argues that the current system too often results in families and children being displaced, sometimes during winter months, over relatively small debts without sufficient effort to address underlying problems.

If elected, Bloom proposes directing deputies to connect tenants facing eviction with housing assistance programs, job support services, rental aid and community organizations before proceeding with removal. 

He describes this as a practical, proactive approach that could reduce the flow of people into shelters or onto the streets while still permitting evictions in clear cases where tenants have no legitimate basis for withholding rent. He has called the strategy “a radical investment in our community” that would yield broad benefits by promoting housing stability.

Beyond housing, Bloom wants the sheriff’s office to function as a broader community resource. He envisions deputies providing practical guidance to residents dealing with wage theft, hate crimes, racial profiling or violence against unhoused individuals, helping them navigate reporting processes and access support systems. 

He has also pledged that the office would not assist federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

Bloom has been critical of the department’s expansion of paid security contracts with private businesses, which generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue in 2024 alone. 

He contends that assigning deputies with full law-enforcement authority — including the power to use lethal force — to private gigs blurs the line between public service and for-hire security work. 

Chittenden County hasn’t seen a contested race for sheriff in some years. The last challenge to an incumbent came in 2018, when former Sheriff Kevin McLaughlin faced a challenger, one of his own deputies, Michael Major. McLaughlin would best Major and serve until his retirement in 2023, where Gamelin then took over.

Core duties include transporting prisoners for courts in Chittenden and Franklin counties, serving civil papers such as evictions, divorce filings and other court documents, providing supplemental road patrols in towns that contract for the service, and securing court facilities. 

The department also operates a Street Crimes Unit that has made at least 847 shoplifting apprehensions in Chittenden County over the past two years, addressing retail theft concerns raised by local businesses. 

Additional initiatives include a portable fingerprinting unit that serves schools and medical facilities, processing around 100 employment-related requests per week, and grant-funded highway safety programs.

Voters will select the Democratic nominee on Aug. 11, with the general election following on Nov. 3.