Burlington, Vermont’s mayor and police chief presented a community safety update today offering crime statistics and an overview of efforts to promote safety.
Police Chief Shawn Burke offered a number of graphs and charts outlining metrics on current crime data in the city. He noted that there has been a huge spike in the number of reported drug-related incidents in the downtown corridor.
“There’s a couple of things afoot here. One, there is simply more public drug use going on. And then two, people have come back to calling the Burlington Police because we are being more responsive as of late.”
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, a Progressive, outlined strategies the city has employed to improve its response to community safety concerns.
“The Situation Table was launched again in mid-July. It’s a weekly convening that continues to focus on two to three individuals or families at acute risk,” the mayor noted. “I want to move now to City Circle. City Circle is, of course, a new aspect to our community safety strategy. Our goal now is for November for this to be stood up using our restorative practices as a way to resolve and be held accountable for violations of our municipal ordinances.”
The mayor has had something of a strained relationship with the state’s Republican governor as she seeks state aid to address issues like homelessness and affordable housing. Mulvaney-Stanak reported that productive meetings are ongoing between the city and state.
“On Tuesday members of the city’s leadership team and myself had a very productive meeting with Governor Scott and his team about areas where we can start to do partnership work between the city and the state to address the serious challenges facing the city of Burlington. Conversations are ongoing and we hope to have more information to share with you in the coming days.” Mulvaney-Stanak added, “I was very encouraged around the nature of these conversations and I have a lot of optimism about what can come forward for the city of Burlington.”
Burlington’s mayor is optimistic that low barrier shelters will be available soon.
A couple things are going to be returning. Our Community Resource Center has been under renovation on North Winooski for many months. But that is going to come back online. That’s important because right now a place for our folks to go during the day is limited in terms of public spaces where people are welcome to access regular food, regular warmth. So that should be coming back online at some point this fall, maybe late fall.” Mulvaney-Stanak continued, “In terms of other low barrier shelters, certainly providers are talking. One of the struggles though continues to be funding and staffing.”
Last Friday, Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak announced the impending departure of three key administration aides. The Senior Advisor on Community Safety, the Deputy Chief of Staff and the Special Assistant to End Homelessness will leave their positions by the middle of October.
The mayor said the departures coming close together is coincidental.
“Our Senior Advisor on Community Safety, that was an added new temporary role that I brought on when I became mayor. Ingrid Jonas was able to achieve a great deal and it was an experiment to have this role at all as a temporary role,” the mayor explained. “And for the homelessness position that definitely will need to be replaced. And if anything I appreciate how long people held in for what has been a very difficult start of an administration, probably one of the hardest times to be the mayor of this city.”
