BCS started a low-cost semi-private community-based true emergency shelter in RVs In Brattleboro in 2022. “Community-based” is not a buzzword here. This shelter model relieves downtown of hosting many homeless and provides a healing space away from crowding and drugs and away from downtown. “True emergency” means it is a cheap — not pretty — solution for the poorest victims of the housing crisis.
We asked town officials several times to start a permitting process to fit the new kind of shelter, and after one told us to go ahead without a permit, the planning board sued to evict us for zoning (parking) violations, and the local health board (selectboard) sued to evict us for violations of rental safety codes. In April, 2023 a Superior Court Injunction said the shelter was safe and could continue under easy conditions. In almost all trials the Town has relied on rumor and technicalities and excluded much of our evidence. The Town wanted fines of $72,000, and the court decided on only $9828, but the court approved the notion that individuals can be sued for actions of corporations that they work for ! We thought we had a plea-bargain to remove the RVs and drop all the charges, but the Town is still threatening to take our home and fine us $4M.
On April 30, 2024 the local safety case was dismissed, and so the injunction expired, and July 12 The Supreme Court decided against us re an order from the State Board of Health, citing inadequate formatting of our brief. Lacking time, and unable to produce proper briefs, we withdrew our appeal of the zoning case. So, the town still theoretically has the authority to sell our home. On May 4, 2024 the Town said it would not “release any enforcement”, but to date has not filed any enforcement action .
We continue to advocate the true-emergency community-based shelters in RVs as the only realistic shelter model . Our RVs have been donated as shelter for homeless people around Brattleboro, and we have started a small shelter in our home. The board must still address the issue. Their behavior standards ordinance does not create housing or shelter for the three hundred families who are losing their housing subsidies (hotel vouchers).
At its meeting Tuesday (September 3, 2024) the Brattleboro Select Board voted unanimously to approve the staff update of the recommendations of the 2020 Community Safety Report. Board members praised the committee for writing 200 pages after only three months of work. The board also praised the town manager for making a list of meetings that swelled the 96-page background notes.
In early 2021 Town Manager Peter Elwell praised the Community Safety Report and forwarded it to staff for their advice. The explicit purpose of the Community Safety Committee was for townspeople and two hired experts to advise the Select Board on public safety without a police officer. The report was their advice. Staff reviewed the report and offered their advice in the form of an “implementation table”.
In early 2023 the Select Board learned of research being conducted by the governor’s safety consultant, Jim Baker, (Reformer March 10, 2023). This provided another valuable excuse to delay the safety report.
The “Staff” in 2021 turned out to be pro-tem police chief Mark Carignan, who, instead of offering advice, was allowed to do a hatchet job on the report. Captain Carignan had been implicated (and absolved) in a police-involved killing and would have been the last officer on earth that the committee would like to include. Yet here he was placed in effect to supervise them. This was an insult and a violation of the purpose of the committee. No doubt staff this year means a police officer again. Now staff has confirmed the hatchet job, rejecting 28 of the report’s 41 recommendations as “illegal, impractical or counter-productive”. For the selectboard to hack the report to pieces and then praise it for having lots of pages is — who knows what that is.
For the record, BCS thought it was bad idea to exclude the police from the committee. BCS started direct discussions with Chief Fitzgerald on its SAFE Policing limited disarmament plan in 2017. That was before George Floyd was killed and before the formation of the committee. But under great public pressure the selectboard formed the committee without an officer. They must accept the committee’s report (or reconvene it for discussion of possible illegalities).
There was much in the report that was ignored by the board. The committee had recommended the BCS SAFE Policing limited disarmament plan. “Staff” asked for confirmation by a person with direct experience of police disarmament. That had already been done, and we re-introduced our consultant, Officer Graeme Donald of Police Scotland, (retired), who is an inspector, weapons training expert and also expert in unarmed policing. The Select Board has recently proposed funding for three unarmed officers, calling them “resource officers,” and BCS is glad that the Select Board has begun to implement the SAFE Policing measures. But we must ask about other aspects of the plan. For instance, what is impractical, illegal, or counterproductive about not bringing firearms into public meetings and schools? Do police feel in danger at a Select Board meeting? No. But many people are scared to be near police with guns, and they hesitate to attend meetings. This is spelled out in the community safety report.
Hearing similar questions at their September 3 meeting, Police Chief Norma Hardy retorted that school children like police. She also retorted that she would never expose her officers to unnecessary danger and that our consultant thought that disarmed policing would not work in Brattleboro.
We have more confidence in Brattleboro and Brattleboro police, and we say it will work. Similar plans work all around the U.K. and around the world, in places more dangerous than Brattleboro. Besides, guns do not protect officers: helmets and bullet-proof vests do that. What’s more, the chief forgets that the Community Safety Committee was not designed to make the police feel safe. They are safe. No policeman has ever been killed on duty in Brattleboro. Only on very few calls do police even unholster their guns. The chief retorted that the unarmed officers go out only on selected calls. That’s like saying, armed officers go out only on selected calls when use of fire-arms is anticipated, and that’s what the SAFE Policing plan prescribes. And, of course, there is nothing illegal, etc, about applying this to all the calls and officers.
We do not, like the selectboard, resort to the most heavy-handed use of the police force. The board has used the police to destroy homeless’ tents and property, to expose their hiding spaces in bushes and overgrown spaces and to deny them of any place to sleep. The board wants to violate the principle of civilian control of police, as promoted by the safety committee.
The old board has ignored policing proposals that were not reviewed by the committee. In 2020 we offered real estate for a substation close to downtown at no cost to the town. Now the board wants a substation (at great expense). We regret that the town missed having a substation for four years, but we are glad that this new board is moving toward our proposal. BCS offered a special mobile office RV that was just right for a mobile substation. Such an office could be stationed in front of drug houses to inhibit traffic, or it could be moved downtown. The BCS SAFE Policing Pilot Plan is right for downtown: regular unarmed officers on foot patrols. It’s a schedule for every officer to patrol downtown and record data. The sight of unarmed police officers would be a welcome sign of a safe and peaceful downtown. We are confident that Brattleboro Police Department can make this happen.
Brattleboro Common Sense
info@BrattleboroCommonSense.org
brmse.org
