The Burlington City Council has failed to override a veto by the mayor that would have placed a question on the Town Meeting Day ballot asking voters if an independent police oversight board should be created.
On December 14th the Burlington city council passed a charter change resolution to be placed on the Town Meeting Day ballot that would create an independent community police department control board. The seven members could not be affiliated with law enforcement and would be able to discipline and/or fire police officers, including the chief. On New Year’s Eve, Mayor Miro Weinberger vetoed the resolution. During Monday’s city council meeting he reported that he met with several city councilors over the weekend. But the Democrat, who is running for a fourth term on Town Meeting Day March 2nd, said he would not rescind his veto. “I appreciate that the Progressive councilors showed willingness to find compromise. Unfortunately however the changes transmitted this afternoon fell well short of addressing my fundamental concern that the current charter change proposal will undermine the city’s ability to ensure public safety. Further following additional consultations with the city attorney it has become more clear to me that the legally prescribed process for making charter changes does not lend itself to compromise at this stage.”
Activists’ public comments were taken for two hours, asking the council to override the veto. Ward Two resident Rachel Galus summarized many of the sentiments. “It’s absurd that our community members, especially marginalized community members, have had to jump through so many hoops to try and get this onto the ballot when you all aren’t even voting on adopting the charter change. You all are simply voting to let the people vote on the charter change. I’ll remind you that your jobs as city councilors and as the mayor of the city are to listen to the people not abuse your power. If you all are not willing to let people vote on this that truly isn’t democracy. You’ve declared racism as a public health crisis yet won’t even let people vote on protecting our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community members. Please put this on the ballot in March and do your job listening to the people.”
Ward 8 Progressive Jane Stromberg supported an override, saying the council should trust city residents to make the right decisions for themselves. “I’m increasingly getting a little scared because I’m seeing a lot of unilateral decisions being made more frequently by the administration and the mayor and I feel like this is a very special type of abuse of power. And you know withholding the opportunity and voice of voters to vote on matters this large and this important is kind of abusing the power that we have as a body.”
Charter changes must also be approved by the state legislature. Ward 5 Democrat Chip Mason believes the panel does support a civilian oversight model but cautioned that the current proposal as written wouldn’t pass in the legislature. “I don’t believe any of us think that the current model with the police chief as the sole arbiter of disciplinary matters is a good model or is the right model. And my concerns remain relating to whether this is the right model for the city of Burlington. I think we all need to face the political reality in order to get this through the legislature and signed by the governor is going to require 13 of us and an overwhelming majority vote by the citizens. And I don’t feel that this is the path that’s going to make that achievable.”
The city clerk calculated the vote total and Council President Max Tracy, also a mayoral candidate, announced the result of the override vote. “Seven ayes, five nays.”
Tracy: “Okay the motion to override fails. We need two-thirds to override a mayoral veto so it would’ve required eight votes and so the motion fails.”
