click to enlarge - File: Derek Brouwer ©️ Seven Days
- A needle left on a Burlington street
The Burlington City Council passed a resolution on Tuesday declaring the drug crisis the top public health and safety issue facing the city.
For the first time in her 18-month tenure, Council President Karen Paul (D-Ward 6) passed the gavel to participate in the discussion. She used her turn at the mic to urge her colleagues to “speak with one voice” about the crisis and to approve the resolution unanimously.
“We must act now, and we must act together,” Paul said.
She ultimately didn’t get her wish: Councilor Joe Magee (P-Ward 3) cast the lone no vote after voicing concerns that some of the language stigmatized people with substance-use disorder. Councilor Zoraya Hightower (P-Ward 1) was absent.
The resolution says the city will host two community forums about the drug crisis before year’s end and will add the topic to each council agenda. It also reaffirms the council’s support for opening an overdose prevention center and calls on Burlington to “be bold” in trying new ways to reduce overdoses.
Councilors unanimously approved one such effort on Tuesday, voting to spend nearly $183,000 in opioid settlement funds to form an overdose response team within the Burlington Fire Department.
Comprised of EMTs working an overtime shift, the team will be dispatched to suspected overdose calls to administer Narcan and provide patients with drug-testing kits. EMTs would respond in a passenger vehicle rather than with a fire truck and ambulance. Fire Chief Michael LaChance, who described the effort as a six-month pilot program, said the team could be up and running as soon as Monday.
The two items were part of a meeting agenda that largely focused on the city's twin housing and drug crises. Councilors also heard an update about narcotics investigations from police detectives and approved state funding for a new warming shelter that will be open to people who aren’t sober.
Burlington first responders have seen a dramatic increase in overdoses this year, notching approximately 400 calls to date compared to 252 in all of 2022. Officials attribute the uptick to a more dangerous drug supply that includes meth, fentanyl and xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that doesn’t respond to opioid-reversal drugs.
Drug use has also become more prevalent in public spaces, adding to a sense of unease in the city. Residents routinely complain to city officials about finding discarded needles on sidewalks or in parks. The majority of the two dozen people who spoke during the meeting’s lengthy public forum described feeling unsafe.
The council’s resolution calls for a “holistic approach” to the problem that includes both harm-reduction strategies and enforcement of drug crimes.
The resolution also acknowledges that the problem is bigger than Burlington and asks other entities to support the city’s efforts. It specifically calls out the state Department of Health for being “slow to distribute” $8.5 million in opioid settlement funds to cities and towns.
The measure also asks the state to hire more judges and deputy state’s attorneys to reduce the backlog of criminal cases. And it calls on Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George to provide a quarterly report of cases referred to her office by police, how many were prosecuted and their outcomes — a clause that some Progressives objected to.
Councilor Magee introduced an amendment to strike the section, saying the software program George’s office uses can’t produce the town-level data the council wants. He also took issue with a clause that suggests people with substance-use disorder are responsible for an uptick in crime.
Councilors Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2) and Melo Grant (P-Central District) supported Magee’s amendment, but they were the only ones. It failed on an 8-3 vote.
Later in the meeting, the council accepted $600,000 in state funds to open a 30-bed homeless shelter in the former Veterans of Foreign Wars building on South Winooski Avenue. Burlington’s low-barrier shelter has existed in various forms for nearly a decade, managed by a rotating cast of nonprofits. This iteration will be the first managed by the city directly.
The shelter would serve only a fraction of the city’s homeless population, which is estimated to be more than 200 people — up from 80 a year ago, city data show.
The measure passed on a 10-1 vote, with Councilor Ali Dieng (I-Ward 7) voting no because of his concerns with the shelter's location.