The Brattleboro Selectboard voted in favor of many suggestions by Police Chief Norma Hardy at their regular Tuesday meeting: using community safety funds to purchase surveillance cameras, plus authorizing a move forward on un-budgeted hiring of three more officers, hiring two unarmed police staff, and one police data technician. They also will move ahead with locating a police satellite office downtown.
This came after a presentation on police data that showed that the majority of police calls in town were not for crimes, and many incidents with police involve a handful of known actors.
Preliminaries
They start late. 6:20. Big crowd.
Chair Daniel Quipp – Remember to sign in. It’s the historical record and this is the largest group I’ve seen since I’ve been here. Also, if you cannot hear me, raise your hand… if you find it hard to hear us. Raise your hand, say point of order and then say we aren’t loud enough. Finally, the town website has a selectboard page and you’ll find our contact info. You can send a document, a letter… if you send it to the Town it takes a while to get to me. For a quick response, email is the best. You can mail us as well.
Town Manager John Potter – Update the board on some things. cameras at High and main are installed and operational. Very positive for image quality. Sportmans Lounge will be demolished. Two invasive species trees are getting replaced with two native species. Finance Director says credit cards will be accepted for recycle bins, but there is an extra fee. National Night Out was a great event. Last day to take pool survey is tomorrow. Link on the town website.
Liz McLoughlin – Traffic safety Committee met – if you have issues send them to the committee via the form. We discuss it and make recommendations. Meetings are the 3rd thursdays at 8am.
Daniel – Public – I’ve been lenient in recent weeks. We have public safety matters at 6:55. This part is for things not on the agenda. If you have a comment, or request a contest item be discussed.
Degray – I don’t think this is on the agenda. Plaza Park and the fountain. After the last meeting and several people were talking about it, I met with Franz and suggested we drain the fountain so people can’t take baths or use it as a toilet. On Sunday I saw Carol Lollate and said the same thing and she wrote it down. It wasn’t drained Monday or Tuesday. I sent a text message. On Wednesday I saw someone in the fountain naked. I was at the Traffic Safety Meeting and stopped in the Town manager’s Office and left a message. I thought it would be drained and so I sent Paul E. a text on Friday and he said we are not going to drain the fountain, we’ll put a sign up. You should laugh. I shook my head. John, did you make that decision, or Carol, or both? But having kids down there playing in that water, if you think that is the right thing to do, then we are in sad place in town regarding leadership. It should be drained for health reasons. People urinate in there. Wow, that’s my 3 minutes? That’s why we are in this situation.
Daniel – please don’t applaud or boo. Other non-agenda comments?
Lisa Shippee I own scissor masters. I asked the Chief of Police…
Daniel – is this about public safety?
Linda – no. I called her. She called and screamed at me. I told her not to ever call me at me. She blamed every one of you for not doing your job. Only one person responded. Check your emails.
Daniel – Other non-agenda items?
Landry – I was hoping to get an update on the trash removal contract.
Daniel – in a futurę meeting.
John P. – we have been working on it. We shifted to public safety. We are in conversations with the one vendor and are waiting on them for information to come to the board before we know pricing. Maybe second mtg in Sept.
Consent Agenda
A. Transportation Center Waterproof Membrane – Award Contract for $115,300
B. Central Station HVAC – Award Contract for $73,000
consented!
(though I miss the old days when we’d have a 20 minute discussion of the membrane… )
FY26 Budget Process
Daniel – I think Kim Frost….
Kim Frost, Finance Director – so, um. WE wanted to bring a draft budget process. Staff went though the last year process and we put that together into an April memo, then we took what worked and what didn’t and revamped how we would do it to you to see if this is something you’d like to move forward with. If you look at the draft budget process… we’d bring it to you. If approved, then we’d meet with the RTM Finance Committee to show it to them. Department will revise budgets and we have an internal committee to work with Departments to see what they are proposing. By October 7, we will have cost estimates, then finalize the numbers into OpenGov. Then we would review and compile a budget package, and by Nov 5 we would bring a draft budget plus alternates to the selectboard, then bring that to the open house – with a more developed base budget – then we will come back to the board to review open house feedback, then staff will take that and revise. The new piece is focus groups with all the districts and see the lines and see what they are comprised of, then come back to the bard, then at the end of January the board would adopt the budget, then we’d bring it to the RTM Finance Committee, then to RTM in March.
Daniel – questions?
Liz – that is a great innovation to work with RTM earlier with focus groups.
Richard Davis – how is you comfort level with Open Gov software.
Kim – Good. We can bring in data from other programs into OpenGov. A good comfort with how to move around the budget. Numbers aren’t there yet, but…
schrod – when will we be in there 100%
Kim – now. But this is the first 100% done budget.
Franz Reichsman – looking at this calendar, do you have a date when the selectboard can look at the budget in Open Gov – Nov 5th is the meeting – how far in advance?
Kim – we have it as Oct 15, but caveat – if something happens, it might be another week … around that time before that meeting.
Franz – so several weeks – will the public also have access?
KIm – that is up to this board.
Daniel – if the board has it in backup material then the public gets it. We don’t get previews. I would not want us to have a 3 week preview.
Franz – we could delay the access to the board or open access to the public. A decision yet to be made.
Daniel – the budget process is big and cumbersome and in my experience in 5 budget cycles, that info is worked on right up until right before a meeting. We can wait until November.
Potter – This is all a goal. It is a ton of work by the Assistant Town Manager and the Finance Director.
Franz – I’d like more than 3 days to review it.
Daniel – it is always a challenge. It’s available the Friday before a meeting.
Potter – you’ll have 4 months to go over that draft budget, Franz.
Daniel – last year it was a mad dash. One thing we waited for was the full line item budget. I’d like us to see a line item budget when the budget is published. We’ll still look at policy level decisions but underpinned by the line items information.
Kim – OpenGov will show line items and her will bring the policy level to the board meetings. Same as the public.
Daniel – the budget open house, the feedback on the timing…have we thought about a good day or time?
Kim – not yet. Once this is approved we’ll get more granular.
Dick Degray – Thanks for talking about line items. I look at Open Gov right now and don’t see all the current line items. Will we have this current year’s budget by line item?
Kim – we are working on that in the next week or two. That is a whole transparency platform we haven’t been trained on yet, but we can now do this piece to bring all the line items. We get trained tomorrow and next week. Before we bring the new budget we’ll have them.
Kate O’Connor – no surprised that I’m not impressed. There needs to be a process that acknowledges the pressures taxpayers are under. taxes wen up last year more than ever. This says you’ll have less meetings – you need more. Only four of the items involve the board. Just two meetings before voting is unacceptable and doesn’t do justice. I don’t think you can focus group a budget. You get three minutes to talk at meetings – that means I’ll get only 9 minutes to speak. I hope it is not just FY25. WE need it going back 4-5 years. It should be available as a PDF so people not using Open Gov can get it. I hope you can be flexible if you approve this. I’m not making any judgements. There will be a request for 6 new employees plus a police substation, and a new pool. You have huge decisions to make. Can’t do it over three meetings. Do more meetings. Understand the budget.
Daniel – I don’t want you to clap or boo… if you can’t handle then you shouldn’t be in the room…
(grumble)
Daniel – this needs a bit of decorum. You may like or dislike options. Cheering and booing isn’t good for conducting the meeting. And to Kate – I think I hear you. My understanding is that the board will consider the budget Nov 5th. Thanks for the other comments.
Degray – The question – is the board going to give any direction on a percentage when it comes back. One of you sad level-fund, which is probably impossible. Will you give any direction on a percentage to bring back?
Franz – I would say probably not, but not close to the idea of it. A lot would go into that which would be hard without a budget. We could be arbitrary, but we don’t know how the money would be allocated. I am in spymathy with having a limit but how would we get it?
Richard – level funding should always be the goal. The tax rate has gone up so much. The selectboard has a limited ability to control the increase. Have to weigh it against issues of public safety, highway needs, and prioritize… once we prioritize, then we can consider level tuning when appropriate.
Franz – Two ways to limit a budget – find specific areas to cut… but there are built in increases in contracts and such. We have to find things that we don’t need that we can cut. The other way to do it is for people to say let’s cut it 10%. That’s not successful. If we seriously do this work, the second approach we can do any time. Wecould say cut 5%, or we could do specifics. This is a complex process hat requires inntereacton between board and staff. Not a bad idea but the mechanics are difficult.
Dick – this is to adopt the budget process, and we can limit things later.
Liz – I agree that many budget items are prescribed for us – union salaries. Also health care is out of our control. Last year we had ARPA money, and we don’t have that luxury this year. We need to keep the taxpayers in mind, and keep costs to a minimum, but we need to go through the process. I’d like to investigate revenue sharing from the state because the costs the state has imposed upon us. That’s what I will work on. Identify where we can approach the legislature and governor about revenue sharing.
Daniel – I’d like us to move on… the motion is to adopt. I added wanting a line item budget…
Franz – adopting this as a framework doesn’t supersede the agenda setting process, so if we need additional discussion it can go on the agenda
process adopted as amended!
Brattleboro Police Department’s Data Project
Assistant Chief Evans, plus people on Zoom for Crime Research Group – Monica Weeber and Robin
Potter – the CRG supports this partnership and I turn it over to Chief Hardy
Chief Hardy – we have a presentation on the data we’ve been collecting. Evans has been working on this…
ACEvans – no introduction from me.
Monica – Exec Director of Crime Research Group ,and Dr Robin Joy. We are the CRG a nonprofit consulting organization working in VT for 20 years with criminal justice orgs, police departments, town governments, to help them use their data and analyze their programs and improve their processes. We are on a contract to support Brattleboro. Dr. Joy…
Dr. Joy – thank you. I help people understand their data. We worked with Evans. he gave us these calls…
28,758 calls 2022-2024
54,000 unique people called. Lots of people who had contact during this time period.
2,167 arrests
867 unique people arrested
We analyzed this data. The call types – 105 different calliopes, so we grouped them to make it easier. I grouped a bunch of calls into “disorder” – suspicious people, trespassing, family fights, intoxication, loitering, custodial disputes…the constant hum in a town. When we grouped it this way, it was the most common – 32% then motor vehicle 21%, then citizen assist 16%, then other 12%, retail theft, animals, drugs.. all less. Overwhelmingly it is calls of disorder that get responses.
The top 10 locations were – Quality Inn 14% 732 incidents. The Coop 607 calls, Market 32 552, Hannaford, Hospital, Transportation center, Groundworks, Econolodge Hannaford – 200 incidents… Quality Inn at top and Circle K at 206. We can’t go back before the hotel program – different computers. Can’t say how the motel program had influenced things, just how things re now. Police do about 10 calls a day for disordered behaviors. Do homicides affect disorder calls? They don’t. The patter you do see is that there is less calls in Winter. It is seasonal. About 10 calls a day, up to 20-25 a day sometimes for these behaviors.
The next chart is about the people. I looked up what people were involved and looked at the 20 people most involved. #1 was in 151 incidents disorderly and 198 total. Number 2 person had 159 incidents. In the next chart I did incident distribution – person 1 was in 200 incidents, then in the top 20 gets us down to 45. A wide variance – 1700 incidents for 20 people – 6% of all calls for service, including public speaking engagements. There is a a person that has 200 calls and the top 20 people have 50 calls. A wide distribution there.
Daniel – when you say number of incidents, is that crimes?
Dr. Joy – not all incidents are crimes – not everything the police respond to. It could be an overdose. very few people get arrested. Some have never been arrested during this data set. These aren’t necessarily crimes. Building collaborations to reposed to incidents takes weight off of police.
Dr. Joy – Daily contacts chart – every day one of these 20 people had contact – number 19 doesn’t show up until Oct 30 2023… where were they? I don’t know. They could have aged in… I don’t have juvenile names in there. That is a possibility. Some people travel between your community and Brattleboro. Are they stable when not interacting with police? I can tell you they are not in jail. They aren’t getting arrested. Where are they and whey no police involvement?
Number of contact per day – shows that some had 8 contacts in one day, some less. Top 20 lists often have multiple contacts with police during the day.
Chart of All incident types – overwhelmingly – calls are disorderly calls. 65% of all calls with these groups. Next is citizen assist – 14%, and it goes down from there. Theft was 4%. Assault was 1% Drug 2%. Low level disorders are taking up time.
The next chart is about arrests – how many times a person was arrested. 2 people had not been arrested., despite incidents. This is where community organizations can help everyone prioritize who needs services.
Next is arrested Offenses – trespassing was the number 1 – 27%. Violating conditions of release – 20%. These folks aren’t being arrested. But they are taking up a lot of time and space for police department.
Next map shows where the 20 people are engaged with the police department. People are moving through the community and being engaged everywhere. There are in these data three multifamily residences that are hotspots. I won’t name them here. Every communities have some multifamily – I sent a program to John from Boston to reduce crimes – warning letters, fines… there is also state interest in helping with some properties.
The last chart was about person Y – in the top 20 for a while. In top 20 in Bennington and in Springfield. A lot of contact per day. Don’t know where he was. This points to a coordinated need for services across the regions with state agencies finding ways to collaborate beyond your borders.
That is what we did. Questions…
Daniel – thanks. Board – we have other public safety item so keep question to this project.
Franz – a comment that I was skeptical hearing about data collection. Having heard this it is much more clear to me that this is worthwhile.
Richard – Evans – this is your project? You in charge?
Evans – I have put a lot of focus on it. Maybe not designated…
Richard – But the point person. What’s the next step? Will data continue to come it? What do you do with it?
Evans- we can talk abut it in next steps coming up.
Daniel – I work for a social service agency and have been involved in the process – I’ve seen this presentation. This approach about data driven collaboration can yield better results. It won’t solve all our problems. I got a feeling – this is evidence that people are calling the police when they need something. It speaks to this potential for better collaboration, meeting people’s needs, being curious about individuals – we are talking about 20 people – people we could have positive collaboration with. It wouldn’t be easy, but if we can make progress at what is driving that behavior. I’m personally committed while I’m on the board. Glad it is a social service collaboration. This is potential area for success. I’ve had this information for several weeks. You are already engaged in this with other communities, has it helped them?
Dr. Joy – you are the first to complete the data piece. We presented to Bennington the other day. Everyone is struggling with how to use this data. There is the chart about contacts per day – how do we reduce that – there is an address in town with 10 calls for service in one month – that’s how they can taggert and best identify who to reach out to and get help. That’s how they will use it. Fo the meeting you saw, someone asked about if social service agencies knew these people, and people did.
Liz – I appreciate the info and you coming here. Next steps are also positive. Dealing with each individuals problems goes a long way to changing the situation that we are faced with as a collective problem. So much more that is on our plate, but ai want to address that after the police dept presentation.
Daniel – public – Abby, Dick Janet…
Abby – thanks. Glad to see so much participation. Community Safety Review highlighted the need for data collection and so I hope this is part of that work. I want to highlight the presenter Dr. Joy – she said numerous times that not everything they respond to is a crime, and overwhelmingly they aren’t about crime. Not everything they respond to is a crime. Police are not the best tool to address the numerous unmet basic needs in the community. I hope we can interpret the data in similar ways. The police say they can’t police our way out of these problems. Is this just a presentation or are their recommendations?
Dr. Joy – recommendations are to keep up collaborations and share more information. Police can share some things. There is HIPA and other barriers. Continue collaborating.
Degray – One thing I didn’t see- how much time is an officer spending on these people? Any way to get that into this? Especially when these are not crimes. But when they are arrested too. Officers could be doing other things if our top people aren’t taking up their time.
Dr. Joy – I think it depends – there is the time they are interacting, then the time of report writing, and can we extract info from Valcor, can we calculate what the time is. We’ll follow up.
Janet – A question – I missed the part about data not correlate with murders to disordered calls… my understand is one of those had contact with the police prior to a murder…where does that show up in the data? Could there be intervention at that level? or are these just disorder calls?
Dr. Joy – I didn’t look at people accused of homicide… this is more … in some jurisdictions.. studies have shown that a lot of disorder can lead to a homicide in some places … we were looking at that relationship – in general in town, no relationship.
David L – I didn’t see this report in the backup materials – is it publicly available? And documents to explain what the data is showing.
Potter – we have copies in the room and will have them available in the minutes. Got the report today.
Randy B -Dr Joy – thanks. Is there national and international documentation to support what we do next – social service interaction?
Daniel – ask me and I’ll direct them to people … Dr. Joy?
Dr. Joy Yes – coordinated community responses have been used for a long time – some old ones were for domestic violence in Vermont. It brings together coordination. the question Brattleboro has to ask is what does success look like with this project? When you answer that you can measure it.
Christine Allen – Turning Point – how is HIPA preventing data from being shared. With drugs – do numbers go up when police show up?
Joy – on drugs, there is a call type in the data – like overdose, possessions – then it was grouped as drugs. Another one asked if drugs were involved, but data quality not do good yet. We recommend better dayta recording for police. Adding EMS data to this would be helpful. An assist with EMS as overdose could be teased out. HIPA is an issue for all towns.
Evans – HIPA – we struggle with it or similar regulations. We are trying to present our data to service providers without getting anything back. We are limited with what medical providers can get to us We focus on the data we have out to the service agencies… we have data that would be useful to them.
Franz – the police info is not HIPA protected, so you can share, but others have protected info they can’t share with you…
Liz – under types of disorder, there is family fights, domestic. I would assume the crimes against women and children could lead to more serious crimes, more than disorder. Do you have data that shows repeated domestic violence leading to more serious crimes.
Joy – domestic violence can lead to deaths. Not all calls are domestic violence – someone might have heard yelling and called it in. Offenders, overall in Vermont, in criminal court system. The crime most common is violating conditions of release.
Bethany – I just had two things for now. Was I correct in understanding 6% id the top 20 and 96% didn’t? And can we click on the maps?
Joy – what do you want to understand – every town has people we have looked at – these 20 folks who take up 6% of the time of police departments and these people tend to negatively react to their interactions. Email me with questions and will help answer questions for you.
Danny – I’ve heard a couple people draw attention to many calls aren’t technically crimes and there is some implication that calling the police was not the best thing to do. I want to push back. When someone is behaving erratically across from the museum, we don’t know if what they are doing crime… maybe it doesn’t become a crime because the police diffuse it.
Evans – A couple of quick things – part of the process that CRG did for us was to help evaluate how we record our data and identified places where we could do better to have better data. Valcor is a new program for us. 2.5 years. Plus new officers. A learning curve to get the data better calibrated to be more useful. Some stuff – call types can change in our system. Someone could call about a dispute, but it could be something else when we show up. Things can change from start of case to finish. Drugs, too. At first no drugs, but later maybe there are drug links added later. We have a lot of calls that people don’t get arrested… but there was the concern to call us. People sometimes don’t tell us truthfully why they are calling – a guy said he fell off a ladder when he really was shot. We have the 20 people – they need resources but are clearly not getting the right resources. How do we get them what they need to get them off the list. We want to share info with service providers asap.
Daniel break til 8:15…
Christine -….Hi sorry, …
(sound cut off)
Brattleboro Police Department’s Downtown Safety Action Plan
i. Discussion of Proposed Public Safety Measures
ii. Consideration of Security Services
Daniel – we will resume. The next item is the BPD downtown safety action plan. John?
Potter – The slectboard has town staff on a wide ranging agenda to address public safety and health in at least 12 areas, including the data project to get ahead of some problems. Were are also working on state legislation, safety zone ordinances , communications plan, team of teams collaborative, data project, community safety fair and forum, collaboration with HCRS and place, Project CARE, human services funding, Community safety Review recommendations, resource mapping project, situation table at two sites. Those are the 12 big things. 13-16 are things are part of the downtown safety action plan. Maybe the board will take some action. No one item will solve the challenges, but together with help of community and services, we can make a difference and get out ahead of issues we are reacting to all the time.
Chief Hardy – we sent a memo..
Daniel – begin with the resource assistance team project
Hardy – we brought this to the board in 2022, to have a pilot program to integrate some civilians, we started the program and had a young man walk up and down downtown to help them with services. Worked really well. Business owners liked it. Someone to talk to every day. He’s now an officer. We hired another and got more rave reviews. Didn’t have resources to have officers on patrol as much as we had liked to. Now he’s an officer. It has been successful downtown but also produced two officers who want to be part of the team. Local people. They stayed on and became officers. Our Resource Team – BRAT – we’d like to fill this two positions to have someone downtown to operate with the businesses and the people down there, and our eyes and ears downtown. We started it after an incident at the garage with a stolen car. We hired security for the parking garage and extended it to other parts of downtown, especially the library. Security services are hard positions to fill. They may not be available when we need them. We suggest that if we can hire them in-house we can train them and they can be part of our team, in unarmed positions. Levi 2 officers. They could be used in ways a civilian can’t. If there is an accident, or needs assistance , they can get them to the correct resources. Or crimes could be reported to them. And they can add data to the Valcor system. Have to be part of a police program to access that system. And for training. We want them to honor our mission and values. And they could interact with businesses – they can do some things officers can’t do, such as an escort to a car – we could provide that with team members.
Daniel – let’s do the BRAT program – Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team and hire two team members to replace contracted security folks downtown.
Franz – we have had two security personal – so, this would still be two people. Just replace the outside people, but where does that include the contact with the merchants on Main Street.
Chief – we ask for this because we can implement this immediately. This is for immediate action. If we can hire them we need to get them trained. Plus a dedicated officer downtown with arrest powers.
Franz – what would the team as a whole…how big would you see that in the future?
Chief – immediately – if we got two now I’d ask for two more to have more hours. I’m trying to cover our security hours now, but I’d like to cover more hours as a constant.
Liz – is there – what are the budget implications?
Chief – I’d leave that to John…
Potter – this will about break even, maybe be a little bit less. Neither is budgeted. It will be a challenge but we hope it can work out. For expansion, if you want a full cost proposal we can do that part of the budget proposal.
Richard – would the Library lose a dedicated person?
Chief – dedicated when the person is available… same security company, so when they can be at work, we try to get them there for late night safety issues, but they also have this building and the rec center. We’d try to have that as part of the plan. same level of support.
Peter Case – if we pass this we’ll make a good situation better and more stable, more in our control. More foot patrol would also be provided.
Daniel – they’d be unarmed, but sworn and with some police capabilities. I see this as one way to help with collaboration. They could, with the right training, be good collaborators with other service providers. If we were talking about removing security it is something the community wouldn’t see… but this is more reliable and predictable for now and we’ll budget for it in coming years.
Chief – they’ll be better trained for additional services.
Robin Morgan – I’m so happy the town and police are engaging in data based examination of our resources. When you consider the future, I hope it comes from the data – 36% is non-crime, and they recommend deeper collaboration with social services so they don’t have to call the police. I hope we add more positions to decrease the number of incidents. For the future budget season.
Stacey – quick question about two current security guards – still paying them even if they aren’t showing up…
Potter – we are not paying them when they can’t fill positions, and the flow?
Randy – 80 man hours for the two positions? (yes, full time)
John and Lissa – 118 Elliot – wanted to commend Norma Hardy and the police department for doing an amazing job. We support hiring the three new unarmed officers. We’d like to see more of that. We’d also like you to include Elliot and Elm Street .. (John) we have a constant stream of people coming on the property with no way to stop them. We don’ know what to do. Going back there with some impunity – they go away and come back 5 minutes later. (Lissa) need to advocate for more resources state and federal.
Caitlyn – you want to deputize citizens to respond unarmed to domestic violence and human trafficking so cops don’t have to respond. Will they be trained by anyone other than cops? I’d love a real response to that.
Chief – the short answer is yes – when we want people in these positions, all our officers are trained by other entities – other community groups, other experts, others in town, with interpreters for the deaf, and the entire team is a build up of many people not just these two.
Karen Tyler – I’m here speaking for the Library Trustees and how much we appreciate the security we’ve had and the difference it made. Some of us were apprehensive that it would be a negative culture change, but it allows us to maintain the culture we want to maintain. It is difficult to keep up with being a librarian while being overwhelmed by social service needs and risks. Having security has relived stress for the staff and helped restore the positive atmosphere. I’m very interested in the model. We like what we have and am nervous about a change, but it might be more coverage.
Lisa – Boys and Girls Club – so happy to hear about more consistent security at transportation center – what hours and if patrols happen, when does it happen?What hours?
Chief – a combination of things we are looking at. Trying to look at what are the times – very early is an issue, then afternoons when children go back and forth – how do we get the most bang for our buck -we can make the schedule fit the times that are busier. Contact me about your area so we can formulate a plan as to how to react.
Sonia – a few thoughts – it kind of feels a little hard to talk of this proposal – it feels so far from the conversation. It feels counter to the data just presented. Police aren’t the appropriate folks to respond to most calls. The Library wanted someone to help with social services. If community safety fund is paying for this, it should be the resources and social services, and an overdose prevention site, and housing. Other towns have non-cop 911 dispatch centers. let’ shave the resources to call. Invest in a real way, not just throw it all on cops. It shouldn’t be just police downtown. Social services. A separate department.
Daniel – not funded by community safety funds… board, we have a motion. Do you need more public comment? There will be more opportunities to weigh in… to formalize the BRAT and hire two to replace folks downtown.
– for clarity – does this cancel the contract with he security agency?
John – yes, that is the intent of it – replace the contacts with BRAT team members and do a transition, not immediate, but phased out.
Franz – this replaces an existing service with a better service… the action plan that is coming is what we need to talk about.
approved!
Downtown Safety Action Plan
Daniel – Chief, walk us through the action plan?
Chief – short term, we talked about having available officers downtown as much as possible. Trying to place someone downtown and walk around down there. When you talk of social services, we provide some of the best social services in the state. My department is community based and empathetic, we don’t want to arrest people if possible. Our officers provide empathy and comfort in ways I have never seen. We try to have officers downtown when we can. WE’ll do it more in September when we have new officers. Also HCRS liaisons work with us in the police department down there. We have regular cleanups with DPW, by NEYT and Boys & Girls Clubs – clearing doorways. We want to enhance lighting in the Preston lot, and maybe adding cameras in certain places – for crimes, but also for information, bad weather….
(sound goes out….)
…it’s all about short term things. What we do is we have some individuals that are addicted to drugs who refuse services, so if we see the people in Preston Lot or garage, so if there is active drug use we will trespass them for 30 days from these spots. Can’t use drugs openly out in the open. We are telling them Stop It. By NEYT, Elliot, parking garage….no, Stop That. That’s our short term plan.
Chief – once we get the people in place, the entire team – our officers plus HCRS liaisons. We’d like to hire more, plus a field support specialist.
Daniel – in the material is says to hire and train two resource assistance…part of the BRAT team?
Chief – yes. Long term is to hire two more people to have 24-7 coverage. And to have backup, for safety, plus an officer. The field support specialist can deal with addictions… someone we employ as part of our team.
Liz – HCRS people are embedded in the department, would the peer support person be an embedded Turning Point person..
Chief – that might work.
Peter – At the Preston Lot – 6:15 in the morning – watching the “You Can’t Do That” happen – took two hours. It doesn’t stop the flow of people dumping a tremendous amount of resources about what we hear about people who use downtown, and downtown retailers. All I saw was extreme consideration. One person did get arrested, quietly. This is no criminal behavior, but behavior that needs to be addressed. I support drug courts and restorative justice, Medicare services… alll part of a big, big plan, to address issues, to slow this down and try to control it. I’d hope we’d be given time.
Richard – what happens if they disobey the trespass (they get arrested) Do they respect it?
Chief – yes – they respect it, generally.
Daniel – the long term zone?
Chief – FY26 plan for in 30 years we have never had a dedicated team for downtown area. With all the calls all over town. This is the time to implement the dedicated team for the downtown. I’d like three more officers. We’ve been at 27 for many years. With the amount of crime, sex assault and theft we deal with – know that in Brattleboro we also support other state agencies – the sheriff of state police – so we share people with them. We are very spread out and very well-rounded. All of it matters when I ask for what I’m asking for. Not just creating bigger police force, I’m being practical. 195 assaults, over 1000 thefts… to give our attention to downtown, our commerce area, we need to be able to expand on our patrol procedures. We talked about cameras – we’ll talk about location of cameras – we don’t know where would be best, but we know we need more cameras in town. Just putting police out won’t solve it. Cameras, lights, tools to make it better. To give us more ability to enforce. They affect the quality of life of the people who live and work here. We have to be fair to everyone, but realistic and think about everyone else who has to live here. The data analyst is something we’d like to utilize to help us get better data and show how good or bad we are doing, plus we want to are informed with other departments and organizations. We want a place downtown to do reports and take meals – a satellite office – so they don’t have to travel back to the office. Now they have to go back to the station to finish their report if there is something downtown.
Daniel – motions 2 and 3 – to add 3 additional cameras by end of year and develop FY26 budget for hiring 3 officers and 2 team members and a data analysts and designing a satellite office at the transportation center.
Peter – I’m in full support of all of this. The satellite office seem to be in the top three always. Full support of that. More cameras… it helps solve crimes.
Liz – Very appreciative of the police department work and support these initiatives. The data collection specialist and the top 10 places… I feel we need to calculate the ant of police time , effort, and expense related to the motel program and need to build the case for revenue sharing to pay for these police expenses. I sport it and want to work on those costs and the Governor know the needs of the town.
Franz – I am supportive but also want to tie remarks together – it is a big discussion. Three things for me for the crux – 1. the population we are talking about, we have to provide adequate services to enable them to move in a better direction. We are already doing a lot. We can do better – more toilets downtown. Turning Point have talked about sober living alternatives to encourage recovery, we need to help people access services quickly and easily. Based on those services being available, then the community needs to come together and have standards for how we act and behave downtown. need to start talking about what we expect and how we expect people to think…
Daniel – keep it to the motion..
Franz – no – this is what these folks are here to talk about…. don’t applaud. WE need to get the message out that giving money isn’t compassionate, and they need to know they don’t ask for money here, and for FY26… we don’t have that time to wait. We need to start doing things now. I’m so eager to hear what we can do starting tomorrow, for all the people coming to us. We need to find ways in addition to what’s in this motion. None of this is in the budget. Those need to be on the table.
Daniel – you took an action tonight about right now… the chief proposed it and we took it. Other actions will be beneficial. John mentioned the 12 point plan so I encourage you to support that.
Peter – was part of the 12 point plan messaging? (yes)
Cassandra – I’m a downtown resident and do recovery work. I want to share who I am because I have a lot to bring. I’ve worked with the police and social service providers. We all need to collaborate more but are in crisis mode. I encourage all of us to work together and include the broader community. This is going to take everybody at this point. All need to be a part of it. What can we do as a community. Communication is a challenge and we all see each other a lot, but work on things we can do. We will have problems for a long time, and it can be overwhelming. What can we co to make it secure for everyone, including people just trying to survive.
Kevin P – Lived here since 1976. I have a copy of the Town Ordinances, available to all on online – 3 points I want to make – we have codes that are clear that aren’t being enforced… let’s talk about the satellite police office – it isn’t true that we’ve never had a dedicated downtown police service – it was in this building for many years. The need is immediate. The office can be opened tomorrow. Town owns the building. parking has an office there. Just have a cruiser park there tomorrow morning. Tomorrow there will be kids downtown – not FY26 – tomorrow. I suggest we open an office as soon as tomorrow.
Daniel – we have many to speak… yes, reminder – no applause and boos.
Chief – when I talk about a dedicated police department, dedicated to be downtown. they were located here, but not dedicated downtown. That’s what I’m talking about.
Emily – I hear some common ground in some areas – we want to not have to see and be in relationship with so much human suffering, and concern in this space, and we come from different reasons – livelihoods, neighbors, friends, different visions, but we are all concerned. Also hearing concern about inflating the budget plus 8 police officers and a new building. data was very helpful and similar to what we found in the Community Safet Review – out are not for crimes. Police are the only people to call. Really hope..,. we started this process years ago and so much potential to address this. Really grounded recommendations to build infrastructure without greatly inflating police’s role. This is about policy, not people. Police here are compassionate. I’m here to ask if it makes sense to spend all social support to the police. Doesn’t make sense e to me. cameras – this is a real violation of selectboard promise – money for policing resources. many meetings were to discuss creating a process of how to use the community safety funds. You are ready to go on this. Engage some visionary leadership without incredibly expanding the police department.
Spencer – born here and live here. 3 more officers downtown is the best ideas I’ve heard in four hours. I’d double the police force. The time to save the titanic is before the iceberg. WE have to take proactive measures now. Burlington should be ashamed of itself. We can’t house everyone in the region. Other towns are abdicated their responsibility to us and it breaks our back. criminals will find the path of least resistance. Destructive empathy benefits no one. Business owners and families are the underdogs now. Back the police, give them teeth. Criminal behavior is not welcome in Brattleboro. Being tough is compassionate. Do we want to be know as an arts hub or a drug hub? With pride in our town let’s establish a positive vision so all folks feel safe and people want to come here.
Daniel – what do you do of a living? You are a lawyer. Not everyone can speak and we have other agenda items. I see where the board is going with this.
Red – owner of everyone’s books in Brattleboro. Additional resource officers – they won’t be police officers – unarmed and can’t arrest. What resources are they able to offer and what they can do for people, and my largest concern is the access to public bathrooms and none of this address it. It is most disruptive to my business and they don’t have anywhere else to go.
Evans – we’ll have them patrol the downtown area with direct connect to the police department, doing escorts to the parking lots, checking out different places, but more expectations… focus on connecting with businesses and their needs. They can take police reports. Deal with retail theft reports. They can help with vehicle crashes in parking lots. They can direct traffic downtown. Deal with trespass warnings. And work with other social services and emergency services. To help people get to the right resources.
Daniel – I know there are more questions. It is 10 to 10 and we have other business. Community safety is on almost every agenda. It is great to see so many people engaged. Usually 3-4 people are here. I know people really care and want to see action yesterday. So, these two motions, but a question to you all… there was some desire to have it all happen right now. We have a current plan to do budget plans – want to do the transportation center police substation as an un-budgeted item this year?
Peter – yes, but it will add a tax burden. Change is good until it happens. It would change what is paid in taxes. But we can’r solve it with what we have.
Liz – I support the initiative – are police ready for us to accelerate this, and could we look at other resources to fund it?
Franz -Liz said it. there are operational, process, and budget issues here. WE need to look at what we can do an how to pay for it. Let’s figure it out.
Richard – if it is unbugeted how is it paid for?
Potter – we can develop this for FY26. If you want sooner, we could implement asap, and we’d come back with a way to do it if you want. It would have an impact. Might have to go to RTM. Could be complicated.
Daniel – we don’t even have cost estimates for this. We should know the dollar amount… we can say yes, bring us numbers for the next meeting. Let’s see what we are working with… and if we have to have a special RTM, we warn it and they vote. Not in favor but if we explore all those options it might happen.
Peter – it is easy for the five of us to say yes or no… Chief?
Chief – if anyone recalls when I came here, you were down 1/2 a department. We put a lot of work building up the department. We do what we need to do. It would be hard but we’d make it work. If you give us the two people immediately we can start their training and start that right away. Quite a few young people are interested in this plan and I will meet with them.
– you are talking about positions you already approved…
Chief – the other things is when doing cost estimates remember there are only two police academy sessions a year.
Daniel – even if we say yes, accelerate this, there are built in lags – people related, building related
Aaron – delaying any of this would be costlier to delay it any further. Regardless of cost estimates. can afford another delay. There has to be places to find the money in the budget. This is a community in a bad climate – maybe tap climate change funds.
Daniel – I’ll amend the motion to develop cost estimates and plan forward to fund 3 additional officers, 2 BRAT team members, data analysis, and transportation center satellite office… the difference is not in FY26 budget anymore.
Richard – are we locked into the Transportation Center or is there a cheaper alternative?
Peter – good question.
Daniel – this building has space…
Daniel – wait wait…can’t hear when everyone is talking – amended to the best place possible (not just parking garage)
Potter – that will delay things for us to look at other locations.
approved 5-0 to amend
5-0 to approve new office, BRAT team members, data analyst, and improvements to best place for satellite police office.
Daniel – One more motion – add cameras using community safety funds…
Potter – we have about 40k left
Daniel – we have not spent the funds as we said we would do.
5-0 in favor of spending community safety funds on expanding the surveillance state.
Penelope – we have a problem with cycling on the sidewalk… can we put writing on the payment.
Daniel – not germane to the topic…
….
They will discuss the annuals safety fair and the esteyville gazebo… on their own. : )
Short-term memory and long-term problems
The board was scorned for forgetting the studies that they instigated to delay the SAFE Policing disarmament plan and other measures approved by the safety committee . Renaming really helps forgetting.
In 2020 BCS offered real estate for a police sub-station at zero cost. Now the idea comes up with a better name — “satellite” station. This was comfortable office and residential space at zero cost, that the board forgot.
The board ignored the decentralized homeless shelter for more than a year before proposing “dispersed” campgrounds in June 2023.
In 2018 the board was about to fund an energy study for municipal buildings when someone pointed out that Honeywell had done an “energy audit” just eighteen months earlier.
The board also delayed and renamed BCS’ short climate resolution in 2021. It had been endorsed by Vermont 350 and approved by Representative Town Meeting without an official name in 2018. It was informally named “Cow Power” by the board, and the board changed the name over the years to “Fossil Fuel Free Facillities Fund” and later to “Global Solutions . . ” It may have another name by now.
It also bears noting that BCS did the petition for energy conservation and the energy coordinator which was renamed “sustainability coordinator” by the board.
Studies help to delay, and new names help to forget. But we need a board that remembers things, and has good original ideas.
Brattleboro Common Sense
brmse.org
What real estate. . .
did Brattleboro Common Sense offer for a police sub-station at zero cost?
We offered part of our headquarters at 16 Washington St
We offered part of our headquarters at 16 Washington Street. We later offered to help the department with an RV for a mobile substation.
"5-0 in favor of spending community safety funds on ex
“5-0 in favor of spending community safety funds on expanding the surveillance state” is exactly right. Very disappointing but unsurprising. Not a creative or community engaged solution in sight (unless one thinks a “community” is just businesses).