Burlington, Vermont’s mayor held her monthly community health and safety briefing this week to provide updates on the police and fire departments and general public safety issues.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, a Progressive, began by praising members of the city fire department who traveled to Kentucky to aid with search and rescue efforts following recent flooding.
“If any state can really understand the need and solidarity of mutual aid it's the state of Vermont, as we have gone through now two summers of really horrible flooding and that need and that solidarity is very much appreciated when we've been in our time of need,” Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak noted. “And I'm happy that our Burlington firefighters could be part of that for the state of Kentucky.”
Mulvaney-Stanak reported that the city is working on a “Situation Table” case coordination initiative.
“This particular case model program convenes public health and safety officials and service providers to support those causing the most harm and at the most risk in our community. It provides some support and it also develops action plans to disrupt this harmful behavior. We just received confirmation by the state of Vermont that Burlington will receive the situation train table training,” Mulvaney-Stanak announced. “And this has been previously conducted in other Vermont towns including Bennington, Brattleboro, Springfield and Rutland. This comes free to the city of Burlington, which is also very helpful given our fiscal constraints with our budget. And we very much appreciate this strong partnership now with the state of Vermont. There was one last spot and Burlington was able to get this for the situation table. So we're excited to bring this online very soon.”
The first-term mayor noted that the city council this week was presented with a draft proposal to create an Overdose Prevention Center.
“We're in the implementation phase, and we were able to brief the City Council on the work done so far and the work to come. We hope that we will return on Monday the 28th, that's the next city council meeting, to refine the proposal document from feedback from the city council and then have them endorse that proposal, which is a requirement under Vermont State law for us to advance and get funding flowing from the state of Vermont's Department of Health and for us to move forward this critical life-saving tool within the city of Burlington,” the mayor reported.
Police Chief Shawn Burke said meetings with staff and community partners have shown a desperate need for better coordination of all police services in ways that can help operational efficiency.
“But more importantly, getting the right resource to the right crisis at the right time. We will definitely be looking toward efficiencies in how we use our Community Service Officers, our CSLs, and how we can ultimately better coordinate with our Community Justice Center,” Burke said. “We all know about the backlog that we face in district court, the challenges that are presented there. There's a missed opportunity if we're not really leaning into restorative practice to better, kind of better, address really low-level crime and disorder in the community. And ultimately, we know if we do this work correctly, recidivism rates are just simply lower.”
Mulvaney-Stanak called recent ICE detentions in Vermont deeply disturbing and reinforced the city’s sanctuary city philosophy.
“I am quite angered with the federal overreach. It's very disturbing when folks who are legally here are just abducted, as they were just the other day with Mohsen Mahdawi over in Colchester,” Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak remarked. “And the city of Burlington, all of the principles that we put forward in the 2018-2019 resolution that first put the core principles of a sanctuary city still are in play here in Burlington. Nothing has changed there and we are clear eyed on our commitment to creating a safe and protected city. We do not participate in civil immigration enforcement matters for the federal government. We've really gone beyond the line now around what is proper and it is deeply disturbing. We're headed in a very dangerous direction.”
Community safety forums for the public are held every other month. The next will be on May 8th and will focus on the unhoused and mental health.
