Last month, Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak proclaimed: “Burlington is back.”
Not so fast, according to Burlington Democrats.
Most of the city council’s Democratic caucus assembled on Friday morning to announce “Burlington Forward,” an aspirational resolution they plan to present at their next meeting in August. They believe persistent homelessness and public drug use require greater intervention to address.
The resolution contains a wide array of policy recommendations with the intent of pushing homeless people out of public places, strengthening the public safety presence in downtown Burlington, and bolstering public services while demanding neighboring cities and the state do more.
Burlington has a strong tradition of compassion when it comes to caring for people suffering from homelessness, drug addiction and behavioral health problems, City Council President Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5) said at the press conference on Bank Street.
“But compassion does not require us to accept conditions that leave people suffering on our streets or make our cherished public spaces less safe for everyone,” he said. “There’s nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing our daily status quo to persist.”
Dems insisted that their resolution calls for greater “accountability” for the homeless people that sleep on downtown streets and camp out in its public spaces. While advocating for a larger and more forceful public safety presence downtown, the councilors denied the proposal would result in criminalizing the city’s homeless population.
The Democrats were reluctant to clarify what “accountability” looks like, but they indicated that arrests would have to be made. Councilor Buddy Singh (D-South District), who was appointed chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee earlier this year, said that just 89 people account for more than 1,500 public safety incidents in the city so far this year, and 40 percent of those people have housing.
“I think accountability looks like, for those people that are refusing to engage in the system, we have to put them through the system,” Singh said.
The resolution calls for more police to be hired in Burlington as quickly as possible, and more police to be deployed in the city’s public spaces. Both Dems and Progressives have supported greater public spending on law enforcement, and the budget recently passed under Mulvaney-Stanak’s administration contained money to add 10 more officers to the Burlington Police Department.
Dems have sought to position themselves as the party of public safety, however, and pushed for provisions in the budget that would add more police and security in the Central District. Friday’s resolution calls on the city to expedite the hiring process for those officers.
The resolution also calls for the city to establish public space response teams that “supplement, but not replace, traditional public safety resources by increasing the city’s visible presence within public spaces, promoting lawful and welcoming public use, and assisting in the preservation of City property.”
These teams would be able to issue citations and connect people with social services. They would theoretically be staffed by properly trained city employees or employees from other organizations who volunteer to take on these roles. The city has already maintained an increased police presence around City Hall Park and the Church Street area, but problems persist. The Burlington Concert Band canceled a performance in Battery Park last week, for instance, after homeless people refused to vacate the bandshell.
Dems also want to see the city take a heavier hand with unauthorized encampments. Unsanctioned camping is technically illegal in Burlington but is currently allowed the on many city-owned parcels. The resolution calls for greater scrutiny and quicker removal of encampments, but also calls on the city to expand shelter capacity and designate some places for sanctioned encampments.
Part of the resolution is also dedicated to calling on state and neighboring municipalities to do more to shoulder the burden of sheltering and providing social services for Vermont’s homeless population.
Prominent council Democrats, including Traverse, said during the recent budgeting process that they would like to see the city reduce its role in providing support services for homeless people. He would rather see organizations outside city hall, such as the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, take a larger role in those efforts. CVOEO is currently searching for a place to stand up a 100-bed emergency homeless shelter.
The Bank Street press conference was held outside the new AC Marriott hotel and was attended by a small crowd of local professionals. Behind the speakers was the relatively modest exterior of Vermont CARES, where a needle exchange for intravenous drug users opened recently after the Howard Center closed its exchange.
Dems have pushed back on the new needle exchange and questioned the need to have one in the downtown area. A sizable portion of the “Burlington Forward” resolution is dedicated to calling for new zoning regulations that would subject needle exchanges and the planned overdose prevention center to a great public input process.
Councilors Mark Barlow (D-North District) and Evan Litwin (D-Ward 7) both separately claimed to have witnessed drug dealing and other illegal activity around the Vermont CARES offices since the needle exchange opened. Mulvaney-Stanak said at a city council meeting earlier this month that neither the nonprofit nor the Vermont Department of Health, which funds the program, notified the city it would be opening at that location.
Traverse said he hoped Mulvaney-Stanak and council Progressives would support the resolution. In a statement issued after the press conference, the mayor said she appreciated Dems “interest” in matters of public safety and the persistent homelessness issues in Burlington. But she admonished the councilors for a resolution that did little to set a tone of collaboration or introduce new ideas.
“The resolution contains concerning ideas that move Burlington away from its values of being an inclusive community by suggesting we should remove people and legislate restrictions that contradict what public health data tells us works,” she wrote.
“Our City’s response efforts must include compassion and accountability measures, as these are necessary to respond to these unprecedented times,” the mayor continued. “We also must acknowledge our resources are not unlimited, and we must use our City staff in strategic and appropriate ways.”
Councilor Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2), the Prog caucus chair, said he could not comment on the substance of the resolution, having only received it the night prior to the press conference. But Bergman said he hoped the Dems, who hold a majority on the council, would seek a collaborative process and allow the resolution to go through the committee process rather than “ramming it through.”
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