Updated at 9:04 p.m.
Burlington voters on Tuesday struck down a controversial measure to create a new police oversight board with the power to discipline and even fire officers.
The result was decisive: Question 7 failed 63.2 percent to 36.7 percent, or 6,653 to 3,864 according to unofficial election results reported by Town Meeting TV.
The result is a blow to advocates who had been organizing around the charter change for two years. But others, including Mayor Miro Weinberger, opposed the measure. He had argued that the board would have driven officers out of the city and made Burlington less safe.
“Voters have made it increasingly clear that they value public safety, that they believe in putting the appropriate resources into the police department, and that good 21st century policing is a high priority,” Weinberger said from the Burlington Democrats’ watch party at Halvorson’s Upstreet Cafe on Church Street. “Tonight, Burlington voters delivered a decisive outcome by defeating a charter change that would have left us more divided and farther away from these goals than ever.”
Another ballot item opposed by Weinberger, Question 8, also went down on Tuesday. It would have allowed residents to place proposed ordinances and advisory questions on the ballot. It failed 52.8 percent to 47.1 percent.
Several other voting-related charter changes passed, including those to use ranked-choice voting in all city elections (64.4 percent to 35.5 percent); to allow all legal noncitizens to vote in city elections (67.9 percent to 32 percent); and to redraw the city’s voting maps (72.5 percent to 27.4 percent). All require approval from the state legislature and Gov. Phil Scott.
A measure to charge a "carbon pollution impact fee" on new buildings heated with fossil fuels also passed, 67.2 percent to 32.7 percent. So did the $104 million school budget, by close to the same margin: 68.4 percent to 31.5 percent. School officials estimate that the owner of a $370,000 home who does not receive a state tax credit will pay an additional $207 in taxes next fiscal year.
The oversight board was easily the most contentious item on this year’s ballot. The ballot question called for creating an independent body empowered to investigate misconduct and discipline officers, including the chief of police. People with law enforcement experience would have been barred from serving, but not their family members.
The measure also would have created an investigative office — a new city department — whose staff could compel witnesses to testify during internal investigations.
Activists known as People for Police Accountability gathered about 1,770 signatures to place the item on this year’s ballot. It was nearly identical to a question that Progressive city councilors had attempted to bring to a vote in 2021 after allegations surfaced of Burlington police using excessive force against people of color. Weinberger vetoed the measure.
Those incidents — and the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police — led the council in summer 2020 to vote to reduce the size of the police department through attrition. Officers exited swiftly, plunging the city into what Weinberger and his allies call a “public safety crisis.”
That rhetoric was central to the campaign to defeat Question 7. Burlingtonians for Responsible Police Oversight, a political action committee backed by Weinberger, raised $13,500 to print 300 lawn signs and 10,000 mailers. The literature called the oversight board an “experiment that will undermine the successful rebuilding of the Burlington Police Department.”
Five deep-pocketed donors, all housing developers or business owners, funded the “vote no” effort. Proponents, meanwhile, ran a meager grassroots campaign that raised less than $2,000 for 100 lawn signs.
All four Progressive city councilors supported the effort, along with Councilor Ali Dieng (I-Ward 7).
Advocates charged that the PAC misled voters about the proposal. The ballot question, for example, said only Burlington residents could serve on the oversight board, but if they moved to another Chittenden County community, they could finish their term. The PAC’s mailer said the board “could be filled by non-Burlington residents.”
PAC treasurer Jane Knodell defended the language in a recent interview with Seven Days, saying that scenario is “conceivable.”
“We’re not saying it’s likely; it’s possible,” she said. “There’s nothing in the charter change that would prevent that from happening.”
Tyler Pastorok, an organizer with People for Police Accountability, previously told
Seven Days that opponents to the board were ignoring the real issue: Burlington police arrest and use force against Black residents at a disproportionate rate. The proposal called for “rebuilding trust with communities that have deep, historic — and rightfully so — distrust in policing systems,” Pastorok said.
Advocates said they got the item on the ballot to make up for Weinberger’s shortcomings in addressing systemic racism in policing. When he vetoed the council proposal in late 2020, the mayor said he’d support giving the city’s existing police commission more oversight power, but that work has stalled.
Weinberger and Democratic city councilors have said they would discuss alternative police oversight models once Town Meeting elections are over.
This post will be updated.
click to enlarge - File: Courtney Lamdin ©️ Seven Days
- A "Vote No" sign near Burlington police headquarters