click to enlarge - Courtney Lamdin ©️ Seven Days
- A "Vote No" sign near Burlington police headquarters
A political action committee backed by Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger has raised $13,500 to defeat a ballot item that would create a new police oversight board.
The PAC, Burlingtonians for Responsible Police Oversight, was formed by Weinberger's chief of staff in January. It opposes Question 7 on the Town Meeting Day ballot, which seeks to
form a civilian-led board whose members would investigate misconduct and discipline officers, including the chief of police.
If passed by voters, the charter change would also need approval from the state legislature and Gov. Phil Scott.
Early voting has already begun, and polls will be open on Tuesday, March 7.
Five donors are bankrolling the push for a “no” vote, according to recent campaign finance reports. They include Burlington real estate magnates Ernie Pomerleau and Eric Farrell and local development firm Redstone, which each donated between $2,500 and $5,000 to the effort.
A former member of the Burlington Police Commission, Michele Asch, whose family owns Twincraft Skincare in Winooski, kicked in $1,000. Burton Snowboards’ cofounder Donna Carpenter donated $2,500, according to the report.
The PAC has spent all but $785 on 10,000 mailers and 300 signs that bear the message "Vote No On #7: Stop Experimenting with Burlington's Public Safety." Incumbent city councilors Joan Shannon (D-South District) and Mark Barlow (I-North District) have also printed signs using their own campaign funds.
Proponents of the measure have been working with far fewer resources. Their PAC, People for Police Accountability, has raised $1,640 from 14 donors. It's spent about $634 to print 100 lawn signs and to rent a post office box, according to organizer Tyler Pastorok.
"This is what this citizens' group is up against," said City Councilor Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2), who helped write the ballot language. "It validates that it's going to be a hard sell."
Police oversight has been a discussion point
since spring 2019, when the public learned that three Burlington police officers were accused of using excessive force against young Black men. Activists charged that the officers were let off easy, and in summer 2020, took to the streets to demand that the cops be fired. One officer
took a buyout and left the department.
That summer, the council voted to reduce the size of the police force by 30 percent through attrition. Officers left in droves, and some Burlingtonians have blamed the recent uptick in some crimes on the lack of police presence.
The council previously attempted to place a similar oversight proposal on the 2021 ballot, but Weinberger vetoed it. At the time, the mayor proposed giving the existing civilian-led police commission more oversight power, but that discussion has stalled.
Weinberger and his allies argue that passing Question 7 would harm the city's efforts to rebuild the department and have cast the ballot item as an "experiment" akin to the cop-cutting vote. Advocates acknowledge that Burlington's oversight model would be unique but say racial disparities in arrest and use-of-force data prove that police need more oversight.
Bergman said it's concerning that a small number of wealthy donors are supporting the opposition's PAC.
"I'm disappointed whenever elections are bought and sold," he said. "That's a significant amount of money for a ballot item."
It's also more than any individual candidate has raised this election cycle, according to the most recent campaign finance filings. Councilor Shannon has raised the most, with $8,405 from 78 donors. She's running against Progressive Will Anderson and independent FaRied Munarsyah, neither of whom has filed financial disclosures.
Jane Knodell, treasurer of the mayor's PAC and a former Progressive city council president, dismissed contentions that "big money" is funding the oversight board opposition. Rather, Knodell said, the donors are housing developers and business owners whose tenants have experienced "public safety problems."
"They're stepping up on behalf of many members of our community to try to get the message out," she said. "I think it's just a statement of how important some of us feel it is to defeat this measure."
To Pastorok, with People for Police Accountability, the big spending reveals Weinberger's priorities.
"It’s very telling, the level of rigor and effort and resources that the mayor and other folks are willing to put into defeating this ballot item but so far not to truly listen to calls for community oversight," he said.
Still, Pastorok admitted, "I don't think I anticipated them to go this hard."
Weinberger was not immediately available for comment.
Both sides have launched fierce campaigns leading up to the March 7 vote. Last month, Weinberger called a press conference with more than a dozen community leaders to urge people to vote it down. Among his guests were University of Vermont Medical Center president Stephen Leffler and Lake Champlain Chamber president Cathy Davis, whose quotes were printed on the PAC's mailers.
Oversight board proponents followed up last week with a presser of their own, during which Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's ice cream handed out free scoops to fellow supporters. Proponents are planning a rally in City Hall Park on Friday.
Some of the big donors have previously spoken out about their public safety concerns. Last fall, Farrell and Pomerleau were two of the 100 or so people who attended a virtual town hall with Weinberger, which was called in response to mounting complaints about crime and disorder in City Hall Park and the nearby Church Street Marketplace.
Farrell, who is developing the Cambrian Rise neighborhood on North Avenue, said the park had become a "poster child" for the city's problems. Pomerleau, whose late father was a longtime financial supporter of Burlington police, lamented the rise in panhandling and drug use downtown.
Despite their success raising funds, members of the PAC aren't actively courting donors, according to Knodell. She said they're urging voters to read the entire proposal — not just the short version that appears on the ballot.
"We're asking for people to talk to their neighbors, to get informed, to read the thing and see if they're convinced by our argument," she said.
Pastorok, meantime, is heartened by the discussion on Front Porch Forum, which he said has swayed some voters to support the cause. But he also recognized that the opponents' well-funded messaging — that passing Question 7 will degrade public safety — has taken root.
"The wind is not in our sails, but we’re here and we have it on the ballot," Pastorok said. "This has revived, in a huge way, a really important conversation."