A seemingly tone-deaf Brattleboro Selectboard pushed forward on multiple options for a multimillion dollar swimming pool project, as well as a messaging campaign directed by Town staff with catchy slogans to discourage being generous. This came after many objections by meeting-goers.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will continue their attempts to legislate downtown safety by discussing and implementing a campaign for “Acceptable Community Conduct” at their first meeting of October 2024.
They will be discussing swimming pool renovations at Living Memorial Park and how much the project is expected to cost. Staff are suggesting that this project possibly be put off to future budget years. The Planning Department will also give the board an update out housing permits and projects. You can bring up other items not already on the agenda during public participation.
The Brattleboro Selectboard got an earful from people in town that definitely do not feel safe downtown. Things have reached new levels of awfulness for people of all ages. The board is considering making downtown a “safety zone” to take care of this problem once and for all. What that means exactly remains to be determined. But progress is being made! And the Youth Council created a cool map.
The board also learned that come September, people in the hotel and motel program will begin to be kicked out of their lodgings and will require sheltering of some sort.
Brattleboro will take possession of the new park at 250 Birge Street during their first regular meeting in August. The floodplain has been restored and the work is complete.
Emergency housing, water treatment plant construction, and “safety zones” will also be discussed. You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
The first meeting of June for the Brattleboro Selectboard and they decided your Water & Sewer Rates are going up 5%.
The board spent quite a bit of time, though, talking about raising your parking rates, too. Remember the great meter system that the Town staff insisted be purchased a few years back? Fast forward a bit and now the Town staff wants to cut down every meter and replace them with a handful of credit card powered kiosks. They’d like to get rid of any coins or cash in the system. And Town staff suggested merely doubling current rates.
Newly increased water rates will be adopted and the FY25 Parking Fund will be presented for approval at the next regular meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard. Part of the discussion will be the adoption of a grant for downtown parking system improvements. A slightly more unusual part will be to choose between parking fund revenues of $654,500 or $1,029,500, which most likely means a decision about raising parking rates.
There will be a small affordable housing grant for BAAH, and an application for a grant to improve sidewalks and add a path to the backside of the Common. You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
The Brattleboro Selectboard had a first reading of a new ordinance regarding vacant buildings around town. If a building is vacant for 180 days, it must get a permit, and the cost of the permit doubles each year. Will it finally put some pressure on the empty Home Depot building? Not as written. It will be exempt.
In a discussion about possible municipally-owned properties that could be candidates for new housing developments, Liz McLoughlin mentioned a confidential plan that might include both the Municipal Center and the High Grove parking lot. She didn’t explain further.
And, your water rates will go up 5% rather than 1% this October.
At their next regular meeting, the Brattleboro Selectboard will consider a number of ordinance changes, and in one case an “ordnance ” change. Water and sewer rates, liquor licenses, and vacant buildings are the topics.
They will also hear about the suitability (or “suitablity”) of municipal properties for potential housing, and list the various committee vacancies that are awaiting members of the public to apply and serve. You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation.
The Brattleboro Selectboard bravely took no action against a non-existent problem at their most recent meeting. Panhandling isn’t a problem to be solved, and existing laws cover any other potential issues. Perhaps we will make… a sign!
The Library has a strategic plan, housing development is lackluster, the town might get McNeill’s property to pay off demolition of his building, the public wondered about unusually large raises for department heads given an expected increase in property taxes, and an exhaustive search led the Town to hire Golden Cross’s billing service for EMS billing.
Ooops. A “previously overlooked item” will require an estimated base increase in Brattleboro property taxes for FY25 of 3.6%. It’s on the agenda for the next regular meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard.
The Brattleboro Fire Department would like $3000 a month to pay an outside company for EMS billing services. Doing everything in-house is no longer an option.
The board will also hear about a strategic plan for Brooks Memorial Library, and update on how their housing plan has been going, talk of acquiring the McNeill’s property in exchange for the demolition costs, and another discussion of things that can be done about panhandling.
You can bring up almost anything else during public participation unless it is some issue the Chair doesn’t want discussed in public.
The results of the Brattleboro Selectboard board retreat will be discussed at their next Tuesday meeting. Hint: they have established their five top goals of the year to be good transportation center parking, the town pool, the community safety plan, safety zones, and housing.
Tax rates and utility rates will be set, housing and land use will be discussed, and you can bring up any other items not on the agenda if the Chair allows under Public Participation.
A combative public greeted the selectboard to kick off their Tuesday night meeting. The quick version: downtown is unsafe and your website sucks.
After that was out of the way, the board was treated to a discussion of I-91 exit 1 bridge repairs next spring and summer, emergency housing plans, and about EMS transition items such as potential municipal revenue, the RFI process, and a new project-related website.
Surviving in the Rough Handbook:
For those living unhoused in Vermont who either have been or are due to evicted from the motel/hotel program or have otherwise have already been abandoned to the streets, woods or elsewhere with nowhere else to call home.
A living, work-in-progress, document anonymously co-written by various peers (those with lived experience, knowledge and insights, because we have been there and have done that).
In solidarity. Don’t give up!!!
Municipal EMS potential revenues will be open for limited discussion at the next Brattleboro Selectboard meeting. The board begins their official EMS decision making process, which they continue to call a “Fire-EMS transition,” and will ask potential 3rd party EMS contractors to give the town information. They’ll also announce a new project website, a new taxpayer-sponsored and government-generated news program, and an email address!
The board will also discuss emergency housing, cemetery changes, and a new plan to fix the I-91 pile of rust… er,. bridge at Exit 1.
You can bring up other items not on the agenda during public participation, if the Chair doesn’t read your mind and forbid you from speaking on issues he doesn’t want discussed.
For those who were not already aware of it, Brattleboro resident and author Matt Whalan will be among two speakers at an event on homelessness held at Kellogg Hubbard Library in Montpelier this evening at 6:30 PM and aired live by ORCA Media (via YouTube):
Although I have since discontinued engaging in activism and advocacy (save for continuing to focus on access to public restrooms and related matters for a few more months or so), in case you missed it and it is of interest, I just stumbled upon this commentary of mine that is in the legislative record concerning attitudes regarding people living houseless (i.e., unhoused aka homeless), fyi:
The Town of Brattleboro will vote on a ban to No Cause Evictions in a referendum on March 7, 2023. Landlords and managers of rental properties are strongly opposed to this ban.
The term “No Cause Evictions” is a bit of a misnomer. There is always a cause when a property owner or manager does not renew a lease. And these are not exactly evictions, they are non-renewal of leases at the lease terminations. Tenants are able to leave at the end of a lease, why should the owner or manager not be allowed to ask the tenant to leave?
No Cause Evictions are a tool used by property owners and managers to ensure the safe and quiet enjoyment of rental properties by all tenants. Taking a tenant to court for a “For Cause Eviction” is extremely costly ($5,000 to get started), take many months and offer no guarantee of results.
The Brattleboro Selectboard will hold two public hearings to discuss a Charter Amendment. The first public hearing will be held on Friday, February 3, 2023 at 6:15pm in the Selectboard Meeting Room at the Municipal Center (230 Main Street) and the second public hearing will be held during a scheduled Selectboard meeting on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 6:15pm in the Selectboard meeting room.
In case you have not already come across it yet, a book on the subject of homelessness to consider obtaining and reading is:
“Homeless Anything Helps” by Vermont author Matthew Vernon Whalan; An Oral History (2021; Hard Times Review Press; paperback):
In case it is of interest, fyi:
Archived video: Montpelier Homelessness Task Force Listening Session (12/22/2022):
