Burlington business owners have banded together to plead with Gov. Phil Scott for help with the public safety issues that are plaguing the city’s downtown.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and the Burlington City Council have also asked the governor to pour more state resources and effort into solving these problems — requests that Scott has shrugged off.
But the letter from the Church Street Market Commission puts an economic spin on things, saying Chittenden County contributes a quarter of the state’s total tax income and noting that the Queen City is “the top spot for tourism” in Vermont. “A crisis in Burlington is a crisis” for the state, commissioners wrote.
“As you are well aware, Burlington’s downtown is essentially in a state of emergency,” reads the letter, which was sent on Wednesday. “Our residents, business owners, their employees and property owners, have let us know, loudly and clearly, that time has run out.”
An early draft of the letter warned that some Church Street businesses “have months before they will be forced to close their doors.” That part was stricken from the final draft.
The nine-member commission outlined four requests. They asked Scott to help the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity find a location for a 100-bed homeless shelter, something with which the nonprofit has struggled.
The business owners want state troopers to again regularly patrol downtown. And they want the state to bring back the “accountability court,” which was dedicated to hearing cases involving repeat offenders. Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George has continued a more limited version of this dedicated court without additional state resources, labeling it “support court.”
Given the increase in incidents involving people with untreated mental health issues, commissioners want the Agency of Human Services to develop a plan to “establish a State mental health facility to replace/enhance the services previously provided by the Waterbury Hospital that was closed 15 years ago,” the letter says.
The letter is just the latest attempt to convince the governor to do more to help the Queen City with its problems — many involving the downtown homeless population — including open drug use, untreated mental health issues and low-level crimes such as shoplifting.
A bipartisan resolution passed by the Burlington City Council in August made nearly identical requests of the governor. Scott never directly responded, saying instead that the state had already “done a lot for Burlington.” He’s said he would prefer advocates create multiple new homeless shelters as opposed to one large one.
Church Street business owners are hoping that their request will mean more coming from them. After all, when Scott initially sent state troopers into Burlington over the summer, a spokesperson for his office said it was in response to concerns from “community and business leaders.” The governor didn’t confer with Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak before ordering the deployment.
Marketplace commissioner and Homeport owner Mark Bouchett said he hoped downtown business owners were a constituency Scott would “value enough to give some consideration to.”
“It’s time for all of us to stop reassessing the past and to instead look forward — at the present and the future,” the commissioners wrote, echoing language in Burlington Democrats’ public safety resolution.
Bouchett said the letter was drafted in response to concerns brought to the commission by business owners and residents at a July meeting.
Mulvaney-Stanak hosted a forum at the end of August at which business owners complained about the negative impacts of bad behavior from some homeless people who live on and around Church Street.
Just two months prior, the mayor and Bouchett stood on the Church Street bricks to proclaim that Burlington “was back.”
Bouchett said the “landlords and business owners” of Church Street, who pay an additional fee that contributes to the maintenance of the mall, look to the marketplace commission as their “conduit to the city government.”
The city has taken some steps to address the issues downtown, including restarting a program that targets “hot spots” of bad behavior and installing a surveillance camera and other deterrents in City Hall Park.
A spokesperson for Scott did not immediately return a request for comment.
Read the full letter below:
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
