 meaningful. So we'll probably go ahead and get started. Thank you very much everyone for being here. My name is Ben Travers. I'm Ward 5 resident now live on South Crest Drive as a couple weeks ago but lived on Home Avenue before then for a number of years. I'm a member of the Ward 5 NPA Steering Committee and I'd like to introduce our other steering committee members as well before we begin. We have Andy Simon over here, Joe Derry is here, Lucia Campriolo, Scott Pavek, Nate Lantieri, and Billy Clark. I think I've covered everyone. Did I get everyone there Joe? I think so. A couple of our steering committee members the reason why I'm asking that question recently stepped off so we do have a couple vacancies on our NPA steering committee and so folks are interested in that will be publicizing that opportunity for anyone who would be interested in joining the steering committee. Our NPA normally meets the third Thursday of every month and we try to touch on a diverse set of issues of interest to many different neighbors and really the format of those meetings, the agendas, sorry we take time 10, 15, 20 minute segments doesn't really offer much of an opportunity for us to really dig in on a particular issue. We called this special meeting though in response to and as an opportunity to dig in on two issues in particular that have been a big part of a lot of community discussions as of late. One of those is the state of public safety and the other is the Sears Lane community which is here in Ward 5. And clearly I think the special meeting was called for. The attendance in this room is great. It's awesome to see so many people in person and we're also here on Zoom and I see 44 participants on there which is pretty good for an NPA meeting. So thank you all for being here. Before we begin our discussion and I think discussion is the key word here. We're looking for this to be a discussion and dialogue and certainly would be open to questions from the public as well as on Zoom. I believe there's a Q&A function on Zoom that folks will be able to use if they'd like to submit questions there. I'd also say that we did solicit questions beforehand and we received over two dozen, 25 questions from the public before this meeting which again was great to have that feedback from the public going into this. I don't know that we'll be able to get to every question but I suspect it won't come as a surprise to folks that there were some common themes there and so we'll try to touch on those. But the intent here is that this be a discussion. Many folks are rightfully passionate about the issues that we're seeking to discuss and I think it would be remiss of me to not begin this meeting by acknowledging as we have really as an NPA over the last year and a half in particular that our nation, our state, our community continues to reckon with longstanding issues of equity and inclusion and there's still much to do to build a stronger and more just community particularly for those who suffer from disparate treatment because of the color of their skin or their economic status or their housing status for that matter. All are welcome at our meetings and all viewpoints are respected. This is a safe space though and I will say and unfortunately it's something that we've had to say here over the last year and a half that we will not tolerate any messages of hate and I do want to make that clear that this is a safe space for all of you points. Also, I do suspect it will be impossible for us to steer clear completely of this being a policy or political debate. But our intent really is for this session to be more informational and less of a debate. We'd like to focus on the current state of public safety, the current state of housing issues, what the root causes are behind that current state and what resources are available to folks now in our community to address the issues that are there. And to have that discussion, we're really thrilled to have our panelists tonight. I'd just like to sort of go around and introduce folks and if you could take a moment to introduce yourself as well. And we have one panelist up on Zoom as well. I should mention thank you to CEDO as well. Bridget, I appreciate you being here. And thank you to the town meeting TV to for coming together on on short notice and to get this meeting out to as many folks as possible. So if I could introduce our first panelist, we have acting Chief John Mirad from the Burlington Police Department. If you would like to just say a couple words to introduce yourself to folks. Sure. My name is John Mirad. I am the acting chief of police and have been since June of last year in 2020. I'm really I'm happy to be at these again. We I made it a practice to go to almost every NPA and and once showed up at a very busy one in this end of town where Scott Pavek was it was concerned that I was going to be here to actually to break it up because it was so overcrowded at the city market. But I just went to them. I loved them. And I really missed having them during the pandemic. And the idea of all of us being here together again is really terrific. The Flynn opened up last weekend and had the same feeling during that big opening event this sense of of everybody maybe finally being together again and turning a corner. But I'm really thankful to be here. Thank you very much for having me. And and I'm hopeful that we can have a good discussion about these really important issues. Thanks chief. Just going down the line. Councilor John Shannon our South District Councilor. Live right down the street. I used to be the Ward five representative and now I represent the South District which is wards five and six. So I really thank the NPA and you've been for hosting this kind of forum which I think is really welcome in the community as as we can see. And I know I was on zoom at the last meeting and there weren't very many people in this room. So it's impressive to see how many people have come tonight. I agree. And thank you for being here as well. I don't know if the mics can pick us up with our masks on or how that's working. Hopefully they are. Folks are monitoring the chat. And if for any reason folks on on zoom can't hear us if they could drop something there and then we can do what we can to fix that sound is good so far. Great Billy. Chip Mason. Thank you Ben. My name is Chip Mason. I am a war five. There are the war five city councilor. I live on Scarf Avenue where I have lived for over 20 years now. I also want to thank the steering committee for pulling this together because it's a very different format than a city council meeting where we're often you know sitting behind the table and many members are looking for more of a discussion only to be disappointingly told that this is not a point for discussion. We're there just to take comment. And I know that many people who come to meetings are very frustrated with that format. So it's it's nice to have a different format to you know and also to have an opportunity to hear people's thoughts on these issues which have taken up legitimately are the focus of a lot of council and administration time. So I look forward to this discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Next down the line we have Professor Stephanie Seguino here wearing her hat as a member of the Police Commission but I know you've worn a number of different hats in the public safety area over the years and so thank you very much for being here Professor and if you could introduce yourself. So Stephanie Seguino I'm a member of the Police Commission I joined I think just a year ago last September. And I actually am a former resident of Ward 5 half of my life in Burlington has been on on Pine Street actually we moved up to South Prospect so feel like at home in this neighborhood. And I wanted to just say that I wanted to actually thank you Ben for setting the table and the way that you laid out the issues I think that's really really generative and can really help us have a productive discussion and I will just say this about the Police Commission. Many of you may observe that have observed the Police Commission's role has been changing over the last year. And one of the things that we see as our role is to be this intermediary if you will between the Police Department and the community. And I think we're going to be making more efforts to hear from the community and to be able to facilitate that dialogue. So I really welcome this opportunity tonight to to hear you all turn to this side of the table. Stephen Marshall greatly appreciate your being here as well. We've we've we've had you here to our NPA before to discuss issues related to the housing and the homelessness and appreciate your coming back and joining us again. Well thank you very much. I'll try not to be intimidated by the fact that all those folks are over there and I'm over here by myself. That's why I said I'm over here. No good. It was it was a joke. You laughed right? Um I would like to introduce Gabe Gray Bereta. He's a member of the Sears Lane homeless community camp. And realizing that he was not invited as a panel member. I might in the course of the meeting say I will defer to gray to make a statement. Depending on the question and and what I think the answer will be. I should say I'm a member of a course I've been an advocate for the homeless community for seven, seven years at least, maybe eight, depending on how you count. And now I now am proud to call myself a member of the local mutual aid community, which is a community of people who care about other people and care about reducing injustice and inequality and make ensuring that services are delivered to all people in some way to help them to survive. And that is the foundation of what my comments will be for tonight. Thank you, Stephen Gray. I appreciate your being here as well. I will say that that on the agenda, we had also had Councillor Hightower who's been a member of the Public Safety Committee and as part of the police transformation project. She will not be here at this meeting. And that is in part, at least because there are again, it will come as no surprise to folks. Many voices on this issue. And Councillor Hightower felt it important for this panel to include additional voices, which I agree is important as well. We also had concern that we have a panel of seven folks already and simply the logistics of it would not permit a panel of that size and providing everyone an opportunity to be heard. And so what I would like to say in that to that end is that we certainly don't see this as being the beginning and the end of the discussion. We would like this to be one part of the discussion. Stephen, we've appreciated having you and other folks from the effort to address homelessness in Vermont here at these meetings. We've had certainly folks from the public safety community as well. And we'll look forward to having another meeting to bring other folks to continue this discussion going forward. So with that said, and again, yeah, Andy. Oh, yeah, sorry. Thank you very much. We do have one other panel. That's right. Tammy Buddha, Tammy playing a vital role with the street outreach team through the Howard Center. And Tammy, if you're there, if you could unmute yourself and introduce yourself to the room and the folks participating on Zoom. Thank you so much for being here. Sure. Hi. I'm the disembodied voice from a computer somewhere, probably. So I think I was asked here to kind of speak about like services and resources that are available in general. So I'll do my best to fill in there where I can. Thanks, Tammy. Appreciate your being here. So, you know, if folks here in the room have questions at any point, if you could raise your hand and we'll make sure to get to you again, if folks on Zoom have any questions at any point, feel free to use the Q&A feature and we'll be monitoring that. Joe, did you have a question already? Eating question. Yeah. So I'm right next to the TV. Could you hear back there? Should I turn that up some? Or is it fine? Okay, that's all. I'll turn it up a few notches. It was a little quiet. I don't know how this works. All right, great. But we will try to get to a lot of the common themes that were raised by folks before the meeting. And again, as I mentioned before, I think, obviously, a lot of people have passionate viewpoints on a lot of the issues we'll discuss today. And for some of those folks, you know, the answers to some of these questions may seem self evident. But even for some, the issues that seem self evident, there's there's two sides to the coin, right? So for some in this room, I suspect they would say it's it's self evident that that crime has been on the increase over the last year. There's other folks who would say it's self evident that there's there's data and other information out there that showing over the last few years that the crime has decreased. And so I would really like to start with just sort of the general question of our panelists and chief, if I could start with you, if you could speak to sort of through your role, how you view the lay of the land and how crime has increased decrease stayed the same. And obviously, not all crimes are alike, right? So if you could speak to the lay of the land from your perspective, sure, and I'll try to be brief. So overall incident volume, the kinds of things that come in mostly as calls from 911 or from citizens through our dispatch unit, but also sometimes self generated by officers, incident volume is drastically down over the past several years. And it has gone from averages of around 30,000 to it's going to be in the very, very low 20s this year. And part of that began obviously the pandemic affected that. But a lot of that decrease precedes the pandemic. And a lot of that decrease actually stems from a reduction in discretionary officer activity. So our the diminishment of our car stops alone, and we've reduced car stops in the city by about 80% over the past five years. That alone constitutes about half of the total decrease in incident volume. So that's part of it. But obviously another component is that there are fewer calls for service. However, what we don't see is a change in the calls for service that are the most serious. This past year, we created something called a priority response model to address the fact that incident volume was going up again, not as high as it had been, but had gone up again after a very low point during the pandemic. And we were losing staff at an alarming rate. And so to address that that issue, we created a priority response plan where we took our calls for service the 130 calls for service that we track, and we sorted them into priority one priority two and priority three. And all of this is available on our city website. We have a lot of transparency efforts on the city website that you can go to city of Burlington, the police department page, and then there's something called transparency and data. And it shows the priority response plan right there, the kinds of calls, ranks and tears the calls. What we see is that the decrease has been entirely among priority three and priority two calls. And priority one calls this year are actually higher than they've ever been since 2017. Now among those priority one calls are a range of different things that we would constitute call crimes. Some of them are up. Some of them are down a little bit. Some of them are alarmingly up. The data that I most recently presented to the police commission included the fact that burglary has gone from it was 86 in 2019. It was 91 in 2020. It's 159 so far this year. And that's year to date as of October 25th when I presented this information to the police commission. Stolen vehicles have gone from normally hovering around the high 30s or 40s. We've had 106 already this year. We have more aggravated assaults felony assaults than we've had in the past five years. Simple assaults, however, are a little bit lower than they have been in some previous years, higher than last year, but lower than the years that preceded that. So some of this data is a little bit mixed. But overall what we're seeing is that the priority one calls those most serious types are higher than they have been. And what's troubling about that is not only that they're higher, but that the per officer available for them is much, much lower. We have gone from having a normal availability of somewhere between usually in the mid 50s of officers available for patrol on the road to having fewer than 30. We currently have fewer than 30 officers available for patrol on the road. And that's because our total headcount has to be divided among the airport and our detective bureau and the services there and the road. And the one that actually has no contractual obligation to it is the road patrol. We have to have a certain number at the airport. We have to have by contract a certain number in the detective bureau and really that's a minimum number for it to function. And so we generally end up losing officers from the road as officers retire. And we've lost a great number of officers. Now the good news is that we've come up with a couple of different ways to address that. I presented to the city council in January of this year a public safety continuity plan that includes bringing aboard unsworn unarmed officers called community service officers to be able to address some of those priority three calls those quality of life type calls. And hopefully we're onboarding a number of those we've hired to we have another who is in the hiring process in background. And we have another great one that I just signed his background check for. I'm hopeful that we'll have at least five of those by the end of the year. Not necessarily solo on the road to will be solo on the road will have five hired by the end of the calendar year. And we will have the full 10 that the city council allotted us by the end of the fiscal year. We also created these positions through that public safety continuity plan that I put together called community support liaisons. And those are people who have expertise in mental health. They have expertise in substance use disorder in in houselessness and dealing with houseless populations. And they are an incredibly important resource. They've been an integral part of our outreach to the Sears Lane community. They fall under Lacey Smith who is now the community support outreach supervisor. And they are a really important part of where I see policing going in the city in the coming years with co-deployments of those kinds of positions with officers. And also with being able to divert more of our calls for service to those kinds of resources. Officers on the other hand we've also had good news there which is that the city council changed the headcount that had been created in the June 2020. You okay. I'm fine. The city council changed the headcount that had been authorized in the June 2020 racial justice resolution which was 74. That was a 30 percent cut that was made in a moment of great national passion and has raised it again to what effectively is 87. And so we are well below that 74. We currently have 69 total officers 65 of whom are effective and we are working now to be able to hire. We hired our very first new officer in almost two years. He's at the academy now. We are looking for additionals and fortunately stole him from Tammy because he was a street outreach team member. That's the kind of officer that we want though people with that kind of experience that kind of ethos. So we're hopeful to be bringing aboard more of those. I will lose more officers before I can hire more though. I have others that are going out the door looking for other opportunities. They don't feel supported in this community. I'm hoping that that's turning around and that we've reached the sort of apex of our pendulum. It's going to pull for a moment once we stabilize with numbers and then swing back towards the middle. But that's the long and the short of it. I could go on but I won't. Well I mean we'll come back to it. If you could just wait. Sorry go ahead. Did you have a question. I have a question. I live on self trust also. Yes. And I've read. Lately there's a lot of gun crimes. What's going on. So that's an entirely different issue. And I mean I definitely would want to get into that with you. I'd happy to talk to that after very briefly what I'll say is that. We track in Burlington gunfire incidents and we're lucky to be in Burlington where we can track gunfire incidents which are not shootings. Gunfire incidents are when a gun is discharged in the city limits in a way that is criminal. And we know that it's criminal hunting doesn't count a suicide by gunfire wouldn't count. But it is discharged. We have probable cause that it was discharged and reasonable suspicion that it was discharged at another person or in a reckless manner. In the past years from 2012 through 2019 we've had an average of two gunfire incidents per year. In 2020 something changed and it changed around the country. And we saw a dozen such incidents in the city in 2020. We've seen 13 so far this year in 2021. I'm hopeful we don't see any more. The country has seen this as well although in the country they track shootings and actual homicide. We're lucky in that respect of those 13 that have happened so far this year I believe three involved actual involved people getting struck. But nevertheless a gun to shoot out at the Simons at Winooski and and and bank is not something that we want in our community. And we're seeing more of it. What's driving it. I have my suspicions. I'm working on some efforts with federal partners with the state's attorney. And we've seen a little in that activity over the past two months which is not on wood good. So I can talk more about it afterwards but I don't know that that's the topic here tonight. Thank you. Thank you for the question. And you've touched on some issues there chief that I think we'd like to double back to like the community service liaisons and other alternative resources that may be available. And and you know like like the hiring of new officers but also keeping in mind that that's probably a multi year timeline there for and I suspect there's many people here in this room who are thinking more about sort of the here and now. But certainly appreciate that feedback. If I could continue on the question just get some different points of view from the lay of the land counselors Shannon Mason you've you've lived in. Well I see you raising your hand professor so well if I happy to turn to you or to them. It'll come to you I promise. But you know you've lived in and represented this community for many years and I suspect you have an interesting point of view on this. So chief mirad mentioned that he presented some data and you can find it on board docs. At our meeting on October 26 these summarizes these data. I want to just add a couple of things to what chief mirad said. One of the when we look at the priority one calls amongst priority one calls are mental health and overdoses. So they're not all crimes per se they're a lot of social problems. And just to give you an idea of the magnitude. The chief said correct me chief I'm wrong that it was a hundred and fifty nine burglaries. That's correct and mental health is not a priority one call. Okay I saw that on the. It's a priority to call okay I saw that on the sheet that look like it was priority one. In any case. There are something like eight hundred of those calls so far this year compared to let's say a hundred and fifty nine for burglary. So a lot of the issue with the burden on police officers has to do with these what I would call social problems. And so it's really welcome to have the CSO's and the CSL's. As we hopefully migrate now that we have the CNA report to alternative ways of offering public safety. But I did just want to underscore that when we talk about these calls for service they're not all many of them are related to social. Hills whether it's poverty or addiction or mental health issues. And they require services that I think we're all understanding need to be provided differently than they have been. Councilor Shannon Mason. Yeah I can't really I mean the chief I so appreciate your continued enthusiasm and commitment and that he gets fired up every day to do this job always impresses me. And I can't really add anything in terms of our crime statistics. But just wanted to share kind of what I hear from people. And it seems that we. Statistics are not foolproof in painting the picture of crime in our community. And what we're definitely hearing from people is that they aren't reporting crime the same way that they used to report crime. There's. Both a feeling that we shouldn't report crime in some cases and a feeling that the police are overburdened and we don't want to bother the police in the same way that we used to. So we're creating our own priorities as a community. And there are a lot of things I noticed walking around downtown. That are just going completely unaddressed by anybody where there used to be a presence of police in the downtown. Due to the lack of presence of police. There are things happening that would not have happened simply by the presence of police in the past. What I hear. A lot about the community is and it also is showing up in the statistics is the great increase in property crime. A lot of bicycle thefts. A lot of car thefts. We've always had some. But that's that's clearly up by any measure both anecdotally and demonstrated in the statistics I would say. And I also want to say. That as we you know this this discussion about defunding the police. I think that it is distressing that as Stephanie says a lot of this is. The failure of other systems. And I know in my own family. In the you know the middle of the last century. My family members were treated for their mental illness and that mental illness. Put other people's lives at risk. At times. And they got treatment. Inpatient treatment. And came out. Worked productively in the community they were positive contributors to the community. Things would happen maybe stress. They would need to go back in get treatment. And that is not available in our community today. And that is that is an utter failure of our system. And you know there's a lot of things that that are divisive. But there's also a lot that we can agree on including police officers I know. Don't want to be addressing a lot of the issue and going back to when the police officer was the chief. We were hearing about these issues. And this is not what police officers do best. So you know I certainly look forward to. All of the community supports that can be contributed. And we can debate you like. What the number of police should be. But aside from whatever that number is. We need all these other supports in the community and unfortunately. I think it's really just a matter of money. We don't have the trained professionals in our community to provide the services that our community needs. So we have a pretty low baseline we're working from. Thank you. I think we do want to. Turn the discussion back here over the course of the next hour to questions related. Root causes and you know what's what's really going on. But I think we're going to have a little bit of a discussion here. Chip, I'd like to turn to you. Tammy will then come to you and then I'd like to pivot to asking Steven a question. So. Chip, I would excuse me. I would echo what my colleagues have said on both side. I will say. I do somewhat I know statistics or statistics and it's hard, but anecdotally. I can also report you know based on vandalism on my street alone. You know, I'm pleading with my neighbors to report so that the data picks it up and people simply are not going and filling out the online incident reports. You know, there were over 30 incidents of vandalism on my street over the course of three weeks and other than me calling and telling the chief. Nothing was showing up on his system that there even was an incident. And I also work in garage with the substance abuse issue and a population and cars being rifled through broken windows. I'm hearing it every day. I happen. You know, I'm in my office and there's no simple fix. I mean, there's not and unfortunately we even we had a fatality recently in the garage. Someone overdosed. You know, the simple solution that was done is putting up plywood to stop people from going into that's I understand why the landlord did it, but that is not a long term fix. So anecdotally, despite what the data say on, you know, the lower priority, I mean, and Dan Roche today, I mean, we're hearing someone, you know, she left the back door unlocked for 10 minutes in the middle of the day, someone walked into the house and rifled through on Flynnev. That's not, I would say what we all expect of our neighborhoods, you know, I do look forward to the conversation because I am I have my own belief in terms of what's driving this, but I know none of us knows and I applaud also the police commission for sort of it will be a mental health summit coming up that will be discussing some of the intersection of these issues between crime and mental health. But I think a lot of us also recognize this is not an easy solution and it's often not something the city of Burlington City Council can solve, whether it's money or other, it does involve the state, social service agencies and others to also be involved. And it's hard to amass everyone, you know, into moving in the same direction and maybe the mental health summit is sort of the first step in doing that on at least one aspect of that. So thank you for the question. I see a question here. I do want to turn to Tammy and Steven. Yeah, go ahead. So you say the incident reports are down. I call the police department quite often when the dispatcher is so rude to you that it makes you feel like the criminal, how often are you going to call? Okay, it's a serious issue. My neighbor was hung up on by the dispatcher. Okay, I was treated like a criminal when I called in with a complaint. It's not acceptable. How long do you think I'm going to keep calling if I get treated like that? It's a question that came in from folks before the meeting as well and so it's certainly something I want to turn back to and it's not only with respect to folks that are calling into the police, but the question was also presented in the context of even with lower staffing members the police department has acknowledged a need to build bridges and to repair relationships with different segments of the community and so I do think we want to come back to the question of what efforts the police department is undertaking not only to answer this gentleman's comment, but also with different communities, but we'll come back to that. I do want to give Tammy and Steven an opportunity to speak here. Tammy, I'm curious from your perspective on street outreach, if you have a perspective to add to this sort of lay of the land question and in the context of that I don't know that everyone is familiar with street outreach or what it does and so if in the context of your answer, if you could speak to what street outreach is, its relationship with the Howard Center, how many folks you have on your team, it sounds like you're down one more for Chief Mira's discussion, but we'd be interested to hear about that. Two. We're actually down two. Yeah, we stole a CSL. Sorry, Tammy. We just hired a user and we have a board coming on and the new guy is great. He'll be up and running in no time and I'm really excited about the guy that's going to be coming on at the end of his turn. This is very promising as well, so I think we'll be up to steam pretty good. What street outreach does, we should be our normally and we'll be again soon a group of four outreach workers. We are looking to expand to be a group of six so that we can have increased evening and weekend outreach. We have kind of two primary, two main roles. One is to be available to folks who would typically be looking for social services or in need of social services, but perhaps not the sort of individual who would say well, I think I'll make a few phone calls today and see about treatment or, you know, so it's a more meeting people where they're at street level engagement. So to that end, we make sure that we are available and continuously present in the downtown area so that people have a question if they are interested in services, if they are escalated, that we can be available in that moment and to support people in their daily goal of managing their stress at the best possible level. When we are not doing that we, well actually, simultaneously we are available for phone calls from community members, family members, consumers and the police who when they encounter something that is more social work than police in nature or requires kind of systems coordination with particularly with mental health will give us a call for assistance. So that's kind of us in a quick nut shell and being cognizant of time and there's a lot of layers to it, but that's sort of us in a nut shell. So what we have seen I think that Chief Mirad's the data rang very true that really reflects what we have been seeing as a team. I also by speaking to Commissioner Segrino's notice of the mental health calls those have certainly I think spiked. We can see what kinds of calls come in. It's important to notice to note that any kind of call that is what a community member would think of like as odd behavior or they don't know what's driving it sometimes gets flagged as mental health. So you know the actual clinical mental health calls might not be that high but there are within those a lot of substitutes, a lot of homelessness and a lot of mental health or kind of co-occurring things going on. In terms of the crime and safety I mean I one of the reasons why I wanted to be present is that I've been told by many of the residents that we serve downtown in the community that they feel that things have become more dangerous for them to live on the street that their persons and their possessions are not as safe as they used to be in Burlington and they've asked me time and again how do we how do we get that, how do we get our feelings out there and I urge them to come to city council meetings but having this opportunity to kind of voice that for them I thought I should take it you know I think I don't know who said that they were seeing a lot of things downtown that they wouldn't normally see, hear about I see it myself and I hear about it as an issue from homeless people and other vulnerable populations who live in the downtown area and it makes them feel unsafe as well so I would say that like you kind of within some of the of the vulnerable populations there is also a perception of an uptick in crime and lack of safety Thanks Tammy and I actually think that's a great segue for us to turn to Steven and Steven before Turning to you I think it's important to know homelessness is not a crime it's a stigma that some wrongfully apply to those who are without a home and as Tammy mentioned I think folks in the homeless community are more often victims of crime because of their being in a more vulnerable population and so so I want to be careful I was concerned coming into this meeting I didn't want to perpetuate that wrong stigma by having you here in the greater context of a discussion on public safety but of course public safety issues have been arisen in the context of what's occurred with the Sears Lane community over here over the last couple weeks and wanted to provide you and others an opportunity to speak to that I suppose one of the questions I would have for you because I doubt or I don't know how many people have been down to the Sears Lane community and have been in there and have met with folks and I'm wondering if you can speak to how the lay of the land there not simply from a public safety standpoint but generally speaking has developed and changed over the last year and a half or so I'd be happy to first of all I would like to just express my gratitude for Jones expression failure of other systems that we know that the solutions to complex problems are themselves complex obviously mental health is a very significant issue throughout the community for the houseless and for lots of folks who are housed and a strong social services network is what we need even if it's difficult to accomplish I guess what I need to say about the homeless community and how it feels is that I have never met a homeless person who was talking about looking for a place to spend the night who wasn't worried about the police bothering them even when I came on as an advocate it was post-Sherling and all the reports of police cutting up my tent were unsubstantiated you could not say that it was the police and that kind of impressed me for a long time I was feeling like maybe there had been a change in any event the fact that I've had a professional relationship with Lacey Smith for these many years and I have a very deep respect for her but in our recent experience that respect has deteriorated a little bit or I have to say maybe she's under pressure that she can't resist and she can't be the person that I know her to be but in any event the people in the homeless community always feel unsafe with police when they show up at Sierra's Lane just a couple of days ago and I would like to address this to Mr. Murad who and Joan because you're both saying that there's a shortage of police power but two days ago 8 cruisers and a phalanx of police officers showed up parked in a line WCAX came filmed them, must have been talking to them we don't know what they were saying and then as soon as the cameras left the police left so I would like you to put yourselves in the position of people who are homeless in the camp when they see this huge phalanx of police cars show up and you think what are they here to bust us are they going to come in with the clubs to get rid of us watch, wait and let them disappear well first of all is that really a good use of police resources when you're complaining that you don't have enough cops to do the job as it is that's the first thing so the other question that came up was about the police officers feeling unsupported and I'm not sure I'm sympathetic to that issue because I'm not sure that all police officers are police officers we want if they're feeling unsupported maybe it's because we have a community a progressive community that doesn't want police violence I can't say that as a fact I don't know that's the suspicion that comes up in my mind but there might be a reason but my biggest complaint is that when the police officers show up at Sears Lane they don't come in and say hello and Liaison Lacey does, Lacey will Anthony does but the police officers they don't come in and say hello they walk in and I confronted an officer one time and she said this is public property we get to be here and do whatever we want well I'm sorry this is our home we don't want police officers just barging in and acting like we don't it's our living room to be treated like that is so degrading you could be a human being and walk over to somebody and say hi I'm Officer Blank how are you today? I'd like to do an investigation do you mind if I poke around a little bit there could be so much more respect okay that's the beginning of it I'd like to invite Julie to make a comment for a minute and Graeme take a minute to make a comment hi I'm Julie Misuga I won't take up too much of your time I just wanted to speak I was potentially going to be on this panel and things got complicated just bringing this perspective of police abolition and mutual aid to the discussion what I wanted to stress is that houseless residents are constituents they are neighbors they are part of the ward they are not some outside force they are people the city initially promised the people of Sears Lane electricity water coordinated management of the site and instead the mayor gave residents five days to leave initially arguing that things were unsafe because of one person's action I've spent a lot of time down there as a young queer woman alone at Sears Lane and have taken refuge in the camp several times I never felt unsafe when officer Joseph Coro barged into my home after responding to a call for an ambulance for someone in mental health distress Coro who should have been removed from the force I also just want to point out that Police Chief Mirad continues to have sole authority over the investigation and discipline of police officers in Burlington so our community has no way to hold violent officers accountable and these are the same police officers that show up to places like Sears Lane often without giving explanation as Steven said and I can't imagine something more terrifying or more dangerous if we're talking about safety something more dangerous than forcing people to leave their homes in the middle of winter in a pandemic and giving them okay you've got 30 days in a hotel that we had to beg for the city to give them and the city doesn't offer to everybody else who is houseless in the city it's just because they want these people to leave where they are so that they can clear out the camp so I just these are people these are friends and I'm scared for them Craig would you like to add something Thank you Julie Actually kind of to go off Julie what Julie said What are you telling the city of Burlington the people of the city of Burlington who are potentially losing their homes what are you trying to say to their position as a human if they lose their house and they end up living on the street the distinct the distinction that seems to be that seems to be happening with what an unhoused person is is I think maybe considering that considering that message to what unhoused equals and how that perspective is taken regarding bikes I just want to have a quick note that Julie Betty's bikes has been going down to Sears Lane for years getting bike parts picking up frames and in the years that she's gone there and she was ready to testify in court about this she hasn't encountered a single stolen bike and this is years of collecting bikes on a regular basis so Chief when I spoke to you down at Sears Lane you said well there's all these stolen bikes here I didn't see an officer picking up any bikes I didn't see any anyone even looking at these there was a broad statement that every bike there is a stolen bike was kind of indicative of the perspective of unhoused equals criminal and there's nothing but criminal activity there so that's a misrepresentation of our discussion can I rebut it or is that part of this I want to be careful not getting too much of a back and forth I certainly do want to give you an opportunity to respond first of all Julie and Steve and I appreciate you being here and your points of view so thank you very much for contributing Chief Mayor I do want to give you an opportunity to respond but I also want to sort of move the discussion in and Steve mentioned sort of an acknowledgement in response to something Councillor Shannon mentioned about sort of failure of our systems other resources so in addition to responding I guess from your perspective if you could speak to and you've mentioned it in your first comments as well about CSOs and CSL sort of what efforts not just within the police department I know that might be what you're able to speak to but to the other panelists as well right what are the resources that are available the alternative resources what's in the cards to address some of the issues that we've talked about thus far so that's probably a more productive avenue than rebutting inaccuracies but I think that there is an opportunity in front of us to see a different way of dealing with these kinds of situations and we have not enforced we have not had a single citation issued at the encampment since the trespass notices were issued enforcement is not the avenue that we have chosen to explore we're using the community support liaisons and working with CDOEO in order to find alternatives for the people there the fact of the matter is that code enforcement the fire department and the police department went through the site and found it to be utterly parlous it is not a safe location period there are structures there that are not up to code there are multiple generators running there was a situation that was ultimately going to lead in everyone who has a professional expertise in the subject to a potentially a death and the fire chief would characterize that as a likely outcome should winter descend we've seen that before in encampments in Burlington we've seen violence in encampments we've seen deaths in encampments no one wants a repeat of that but we also don't want the sense of people being moved out in a way that does not make them safer and we also don't want enforcement in a way that is either appears to be unfair or is unnecessary when there are other alternatives available that's why we're building these so the CSL alternative is one of being able to work with folks to be able to talk with them I'm sorry to hear that you think your relationship with Lacey has deteriorated I think incredibly highly of her she is one of the best employees that this city has and that's why I created the community support liaison position to basically clone Lacey I've been saying it for quite some time that that's what I wanted to do those positions are able to do that now there are some things that we need to do next and that brings us to what council Shannon was talking about which is frankly we do not have a custodial mental health care capacity when we have individuals who say you know have mental health conditions that cause them to terrorize landlords or to become problems to the community and we don't have a way of addressing that through the courts because they're ruled to be incompetent by the courts or because they are in one way or another not able to be held accountable by our criminal judicial system we do need to have some kind of custodial capacity so that people can get care that they need and can be put in a position not to be threatening their neighbors not to be you know harassing or stalking people or causing problems for themselves or others that are endangering themselves or others we want to avoid that that's a rarity but we don't have any real capacity for it and we need some so those are things that I think we need to work on next because some of the things that I think the commissioner Saguino is going to talk about in this mental health care summit are about addressing the street level behavior in order to interrupt it stop it see if we can find alternatives but the next step for many of these individuals is what do we do with them in a way to help them next and right now allowing that encampment to maintain and perpetuate was not a helpful situation they are attempted to find a solution for it was unable to do that we had a lot of people who came in after the fact suddenly volunteering but that was not present when these decisions were made and we've had significant criminality out of there stolen property drug use drug sales a lot of cars have been recovered there it is a known location for other municipalities to come when a car is missing and they have recovered stolen cars from the site so these are issues that we really have to deal with I was going to ask professor Saguino and then happy to turn to you Joan just because you mentioned that the mental health summit that the police commission is putting together and I'm wondering if we could just sort of go to that and ask you what's coming up are you able to publicize any information about it to this group here and sort of what was the impetus behind the commission putting this together the impetus really was the data that we've seen on mental health issues and we have commissioners who are social workers and have a lot of expertise in this area and we'll say that we passed the resolution to hopefully urge the mayor and the city council to mount this we don't have the capacity as the commission to do that but we are able to see with the reports that we get from the police with our conversations with distressed people and just my own background as an economist what Joan was mentioning is that we've severely defunded social services we have extraordinary inequality in this country and we have the effects of the COVID crisis that have worsened people's economic status and we have declining life expectancy because of drug overdoses so we have a structural problem in the United States as a whole and we have to deal with it here at the local level and it means that I think that the the city council in America can be the conveners of the parties that can actually help us develop a system of care rather than putting it on the shoulders of the police department which doesn't have the capacity to not have the training by their own acknowledgement so that's the idea and I personally am a optimistic and can do person Chip is right you know there are some things we can't do but we can do better than we have done and I keep seeing this can kick down the road and my goal as a commissioner and I think us as a commission to really is to highlight these issues and to the extent we can to publicize them and to get the parties that can do something but one of the things I will say is that and perhaps the city councilors can say something about this my understanding is that there was an RFP or is an RFP going out for social service agencies to develop a cahoots type of model that Eugene Oregon has in which there is far less reliance on the police and rather social workers responding to many different kinds of events that occur that is important it doesn't substitute for the fact that we don't have a system of care a continuum of care in the city and that has to be dealt with so I hope that answers your question that's great Councillor Shannon happy to hear the comment that you had but also would like to turn to you and Councillor Mason in the context of what can the city do obviously the city doesn't have infinite resources no doubt the state and other partners play a role in this as well but what is the council looking at the city looking at to provide additional references before how we've defunded some of these resources and I guess to follow up to that I mean I know a lot of municipalities Burlington included have federal monies coming in through ARPA is that a part of this as well first I just want to say I have personally recovered three stolen bicycles at Sears Lane and been contacted by another person who recovered their bicycle at Sears Lane so I don't think the picture being painted is accurate of what is happening there at the same time I want to recognize that within the community at Sears Lane there's actually a lot of talent and hardworking people people who had to work very hard to construct what they have constructed at Sears Lane and who have skills to contribute to our community and I hope that that is something that we're able to lift up you know the good that everybody has within them and the skills that people have to contribute to the community with regards to CAHOOTS I also want to clarify that CAHOOTS was not a program that defunded the police to give resources to mental health and other things it was a program completely supported by the police recognizing as our police have for a very long time that police are increasingly being asked to provide social services that they're ill-equipped to provide and so those resources were added to the police resources with full support of the police and working together to address community needs and I know that the chief can speak far better than I can to you know what's developing here in Burlington but also I want to say that it was not the city of Burlington that defunded any of these resources these were resources provided by the state and the federal government and if you think about I think chief Murad I'm sorry not chief Murad chief Shirling going all the way back to chief Shirling he came to this NPA and he asked us in 1970 how many beds did we have for mental health care and I don't know, beautiful throughout all kinds of numbers I think the number if I remember it correctly was like 2,000 beds and he said how many beds do you think we have today for mental health care nobody guessed 40 40 was the number of beds we had at that time we've lost beds since that time and I also don't think that it's accurate to say that we're talking about always custodial care as you referenced chief people who are seeking health care I mean mental health care which is health care voluntarily in this community cannot access it when you go into the hospital and I have been there when you go into the hospital and you say I am at risk of hurting myself or others you may be there you go in there voluntarily and you may be there for weeks in the emergency room because there's no bed for you and you know you need help and at some point you're probably going to say I am not a risk to myself or others because I need to get out of here because I had anxiety when I came in and after only a few hours that anxiety is much much higher so that's the deep funding of other resources has not happened by the city and I don't think that the city we're funded by property tax dollars which is not a great way to fund anything so the idea that the city can pick up these pieces I don't think is realistic I do think as the police commission is helping to facilitate this conversation and I think that we can do that but we can't fund mental health care statewide on property tax payer dollars which is how the city gets money so maybe the chief could talk more about the cahoots let me just sort of fill in some of the details on the questions that yes we did pass the mental health summit I don't have a specific date but that will be happening we did the RFP for cahoots is going forward ARPA funds are abandoned I mean it's not a long-term solution ARPA funds are being used to deal with some of the issues that's here's lane but I'll be honest every week we get another resolution and the funds are being thrown around and that is not a long-term solution to the issues that are going in terms of other resources Ben you asked a question I will say something that I've seen that a positive that has come out of this here's lane crisis is a level of attention at the state level but I think we have not seen just based on emails that I've been copying on without putting anyone on the room on the spot you know I know our state reps have really come together to sort of start a conversation groups I've seen you know secretary level people commented I don't know the status of those conversations but I will admit it's at least at a level of a conversation that I've never been copied on you know beyond just city councilors and administration so I don't know what will come of that but I am encouraged at least that that conversation appears to have been started I saw that we had some Q&A on the screen Joe I don't know have you been monitoring those is there a question from there or I do want to we have about an hour or 45 minutes left here if there's folks in the room who have a question yes over there yes yes thank you can you hear me now sorry hello zoom okay I had a question for the council members in the room just process wise I'm curious when you're thinking about your who your constituents are when you're making your canvassing maps or your phone banking lists or thinking about the demographics in your constituency or what your constituents want in terms of policies do you calculate the unhoused community members who live within your ward in those calculations consider everybody on the voter voter list I mean the population as we all know it's ebbed and flowed over the course of the last four years I stood for election two years ago I couldn't tell you the population was a fraction of what it was prior to recent action are there any Joe I don't know if there's any questions from the Q&A that would be appropriate at this point time happy for you to take a look at that I can't see them up on the screen so yeah there was just a couple mentions that came up in the room already so I'm just kind of struggling to see anything that's brand new here I'm just free to raise it again we have about 45 minutes and do want to make sure that if any folks here have questions yeah Sam I was happy to hear you bring to light this potential conflation of the Sears Lane encampment with public safety which is something that I've heard a lot on from porch forum of the vandalism that shipwreck referencing and I guess it's good that you brought it up because it does sound like some people are conflating those two things I just want to say I don't necessarily believe that and I want folks to understand that that's not a shared opinion amongst the group so I think that we all have to understand that vandalism could be happening from outside forces it doesn't necessarily mean that because there's a homeless encampment down the block that everybody is doing these bad things so that's just my point of view I don't have a question but I just wanted to make it clear that not everyone feels that there's a conflation there thanks Sam I appreciate that point of view yeah right here I guess along those lines I am Alex I also live just down the street here there seems to also be kind of a potential conflation of the fact that we have less police officers and now more I guess category one crimes or something like that and it sounds like the problem is a bit more complicated than that it's not just that we have less police officers so now everyone's going out in the street and committing crimes it sounds like there's larger systemic things happening there's more people in difficult situations right now and so yeah I just also wanted to speak to that point as well like we can't necessarily assume that I think it's a interesting thing to look at and maybe gather more data around but I don't know that we can just assume the relationship between those two things is causal yeah it's uh thank you both for those points and chief I guess I would follow up with you on this point uh yeah Steven yeah please if you have a comment go ahead yeah so I just want to say to each other I'm really glad that Alex back I've lived in downtown and I had three bikes stolen and I didn't know where to go to get them so you're really lucky you're not my bikes you're lucky you knew where to go um there's no denial that there's there is crime but as Alex just said we we cannot automatically attribute it to a particular homeless encampment the fact that there were 25 people living there might have brought um a focus point I mean the fact that Joan knew where to go to get her bikes made it easier for to to attribute the crime to the Sears Lane camp but that doesn't mean that it's more uh concentrated than if you took those 25 people and put them in the community and other places it just makes it easier to say well this camp is the problem well camp is not the problem it's the lack of structure four years ago I told the mayor you have to regulate this you need to have a plan this is a perfect place for homeless folks and if you regulate this if you set it up with the management plan people will be able to come here live here peacefully and within the law the problem with the Sears Lane camp is that it's outside the law the law does not acknowledge it it does not exist as a place where people are sanctioned to go if there was a management plan if there had been it never would have grown in the cancerous way that it did would not have exploded with trash and crime it it's completely the failure of the vision of the administration of the city of Burlington to recognize their opportunity to do the right thing and create Sears Lane as a place for homeless folks to go he said I don't want to promote homelessness in the camp well sorry bud it's kind of like saying I don't want to promote drugs by handing out needles drugs promote themselves you don't have to hand out needles to promote drugs and if you're going to have a perfect place for homeless folks to go to go there and it's not going to matter whether you promote it or not so you might as well step forward and give it a structure okay here's an area for you here's an area for you here's and by the way we'll give you some water and we'll give you Porta Johns and we'll try to set up a shower so that you can stay clean and we'll bring in social services people and we'll create an environment for a community self-regulated community but that wasn't done that could have been done but what you need to know is that since people were allowed to move in there and do whatever it is that they wanted without being within the law naturally you're going to get something that is offensive to the law that's how it works so take responsibility step up to the plate and work with us to create a viable, meaningful self-regulated community thanks Steven I do want to thank you for your comments I felt the same way I didn't think that we would be in agreement but that's been my observation is that this year's land encampment is there's no housing that's permitted in this part of the city whether it's market rate housing or housing for the homeless I don't know how it's been allowed to continue but it's on public property and it's unsupervised and you're right it's outside of the law and there's been a lot of lawlessness that's been exhibited there and unfortunately that has dominated and become the primary characteristic of that and that's the reason why any of the social service agencies I think that were approached with an RFP to manage it it was too late I think they saw a high risk assessment and a low probability of success because the population that was there excuse me really didn't want to be managed oh that's not true that's what you were just saying it's just like I'm not too sure if it's public property it's we all should be welcomed by your own law excuse me and if this is going to be I also agree with your statement that the city council advocated its responsibility but what's done is done if moving forward any sort of homeless encampment on public property it has to be a managed one so that the unsocial and antisocial behaviors that was exhibited by some of the campers on Sears Lane is just not allowed to happen at all but I think that does the community have I think a moral obligation to respond to homeless in a community I don't believe that but I I just condemn what has gone on at Sears Lane and been allowed to continue at Sears Lane and I'm thankful that it's no longer there somebody on the screen asked for you to identify yourself I'm sorry someone asked for you to identify yourself I'm John Colle I live in the adjoining lakeside neighborhood so thanks John we're still now that we're in these hybrid formats we're getting used to sort of hybrid etiquette and so for folks up on the screen if folks in the room are talking if we could identify ourselves beforehand just so they know who's chatting I do want to I want to give our panelists an opportunity to respond to Stephen's comments if they'd like and then we'll take questions or comments we will go to other folks who haven't had an opportunity to speak yet first at one point I would be very brief sure it is not actually true that nobody wanted to manage Sears Lane Camp step forward the plan that was offered by CBOEO wasn't found to be the plan the city wanted because CBOEO wanted to work with the campers to actually manage their community together with CBOEO the city turned that plan down because the city wanted control over the camp and wanted to evict the people in the camp well that is our surmise but what is true is the city turned down the offer Stephen I'm sorry but I wish you would not put forth facts that you don't know as fact I mean that is completely inconsistent with the facts as they've been presented to me and it really unfortunately cats us in a well that's great I want to hear what you have to say Chip I just wish that the city could step forward and talk to us instead of having to learn about it in the news tell us what you know first of all I'm not the administration I'm not going to stand here and defend nor am I in possession of all the facts but what you just described is completely inconsistent with the facts as presented to us and you qualified that by saying I don't know it to be true so my only request is if you don't know it to be true please don't say something out that you know is going to be inflammatory looking forward which is where I would like to look the model you're envisioning is something that is under very serious discussion I don't believe the administration or the council are prepared to come forward with it but what you've just described in terms of a managed encampment is I think there is agreement on that and that is at least under discussion whether it comes to fruition I'm not I'm not in that loop to say yes it's going to happen by a certain no date or not but I think we are in agreement in terms of that I also I respectfully disagree in terms of what went on at the site and efforts that were made you know on by the administration in order to not have to shut it down and another point to make clear although there was a very there was a resolution that was hotly you know debated before the full city council just for the benefit of those listening the way our policy is structured the decision is the mayors and the mayors alone so some of what you saw at the council was a little bit performative because at the end of the day what we said didn't matter other than potentially influencing the mayor in his decision if I could just follow up on just one question with the chief to follow up on the points made by Sam and by Alex you know we've talked some about sort of uptick and from porch forum posts and community discussion I know that in the addition neighborhood for example there's been a number of posts recently about tire slashings and the like and other property crimes I believe if I'm not mistaken please correct me if I'm right chief that departments identified perhaps one individual who was largely responsible for a number or at least allegedly responsible for a number of those reports that were made on from porch forum and to the point raised by some of the folks here we've had vandalism like that in the neighborhood that's caused a lot of discussion on from porch forum thinking about the BB gun incident where windows were being shot out from a few years ago of course before we were even discussing issues related to defunding or the police cap or what have you so I suppose again continuing the discussion on on root causes I'm wondering if you can speak to and respond to some of those points that were made of not only this issue of sort of conflating the Sears Lane community with crime in the neighborhood but but also the question of conflating the decrease in staff on the police force with crime issues and just hoping you could address that point that was made by a couple folks so there are a couple of things there with regard to Sears Lane specifically I don't necessarily think that the crime emanates out from it my concern is the crime that we know occurs within it and the recovery of stolen property within it many of the things that you actually sort of I think stipulated to Steven you talked about the situation there with regard to finding items with regard to the idea that because there's no management that's what's allowed crime to fester but there is crime there period and a significant amount of it so that's one issue I think that I hear what you said about the fact that it's these we don't believe those vandalisms are actually associated with the encampment we did arrest an individual who is committing those kinds of vandalisms he's the same individual who smashed a car near City Hall and also then smashed City Hall broke through the windows of Contois Auditorium an individual who is a good example of what I think is a person who needs custodial mental health care is not appropriate for jail but also is not appropriate for being out in the community because of his behavior and conditions we're not 100% sure that that is the person who is responsible for all of those vandalisms the MO is a little different his MO was really one of great brazenness and daylight and the others were committed at night so I'm not 100% sure that's our person we haven't seen any with regard to what you talked about with the previous examples of vandalism the way in which we were able to handle that was about a staffing issue it was the fact that we had a far more robust staffing we put a street crime team on that case they spent a lot of time doing patrols they also did a lot of work on trying to get people to understand that they wanted tips and what they ended up getting was a tip from somebody who said we know who these guys are, they watch WWE on Monday nights and then they go out and shoot cars and so they then patrolled on Monday nights and were able to apprehend those two gentlemen who were committing those acts of vandalism it was a resource issue and it's one that we don't currently have I've talked about how I would handle this south end issue before we made that apprehension and we don't have the same number of people that we can dedicate to that issue and that is a component but I think all of that comes back to sort of I don't think that the neighborhood itself was causing great amounts of crime elsewhere necessarily people in the neighborhood feel a certain amount of pressure and they are definitely affected by the quality of life issues that come out of that place with regard to noise, with regard to activity and those are important as well they are as important as crime and so one other question I would then like to follow up on and happy to turn back to the room and Tammy perhaps I would turn to you on this as well I apologize for not coming to you in some time there but to answer a question that was raised earlier by the gentleman here as well as by Steven to a certain extent which is the relationship that different communities and folks have with police this gentleman raised the fact of of calling up 911 and feeling that he was treated in a particular way Steven in a very different capacity speaks to the relationship with a member of your force and feeling like that relationship has changed I suspect that regardless of how you feel about the cap or defund or whatever you want to call it that members in your force are feeling overworked and under staffed and I suppose the question I have for you given that we're some time away from addressing even from your perspective I would think that some of your recruitment and retention challenges what is the department doing now to train its staff and to work in building and repairing relationships not only with folks who are using your services and having to call up 911 but also folks like Steven or obviously many different communities that are out there so happy to turn to you and then Tammy would be interested to hear from your perspective because you all are really the face of the city and the face of the services in these contexts and so would be interested to hear that so the short answer and I'll try to keep it at a short answer because I want others to speak it's incredibly big challenge right now officers are overworked they are working more overtime hours than they ever have they're not picking up overtime details the Halloween bike ride for example which was a great overtime detail did not get an officer escort I had to come in on Sunday and I drove the cruiser to do the officer escort for it because no one would sign up for it and the reason they won't sign up is because they're being routinely held on regular shifts or being asked to come in early in order to paper over gaps that we have in service and is that affecting customer service I believe that it is and I don't like hearing sir the way in which you feel treated by dispatch I've heard it, I know that it is an issue we are working on that our dispatch is short as well not because of defunding but it's been an ongoing issue and how you get officers to remain engaged is way beyond mere sort of utilitarian functions of saying I do this this way and I'm not being rude and I'm not actually mistreating people but this is how I'm going through my day as opposed to the kind of customer service that you're envisioning with regard to coming in and greeting that's certainly how I do it but I'm also not out on the road every day I spend most of my time doing other kinds of things and so when I do get on the road it's easier for me to be a little bit more friendly and happy in that way all of the officers to behave in that way certainly when they're overt deficiencies we address them and I hold people accountable for those but the kinds that we're talking about are challenges for me and I don't have a great answer about what to do yet but it is something that occupies me a lot and I'm working on Tammy are you able to speak to that from your perspective with street outreach so can you just clarify a little bit more about the question we heard I can't speak to how police is handling in terms of burnout or support I can't speak to you know I think one of the things that I keep hearing here is that or I keep reading in the chat is that you know regardless of anything that anyone in this room tries to do or even a people who are seeking social services might try to do there are not a lot of options for people who need acute inpatient and I kind of feel like a lot of the things that we are seeing that you know people want to say well that's because they're criminal well that's because they're homeless well that's because they're mentally ill well that's because they have substance abuse issues I mean I think it's in my perspective it's because there are no options for people to get treatment to transition to a different space in their life I mean we've spent this week has been for my team kind of frustrating because we've had people who are crying and begging to get into inpatient treatment we've had the people that are the sort of gate holders of those facilities wanting to get them into it and then there are either not being space or there's a insurance issue or that simply isn't offered in this state so just a real lack of of mobility whether it be for people who need to move forward where they are in terms of their mental health or their substance use or for unhoused people to move forward to housing and I'm just about to lose service here my battery's going to die but there is nowhere for people to move forward to and that just ends up being a lack of hope so there's on the one hand no consequences that might disincentivize people to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do but there's more importantly not really a lot of anything to motivate people to move forward and I think what the city did in Sears Lane is nice I think we know the efforts that they've made to help people move along in the variety of things that were offered but in the end none of them are going to be solutions that are going to be useful to that person in the next two years and those people will be right back to where they were today so that's what we are seeing is just lack of real mobility for people that people are very aware of and it's wearing them heavily thanks Tammy we have an interesting question here online from Amanda but yes I'd like to change gears if I may city council and the developmental review board authorized the largest indoor concert arena on the south end for 1,500 people there's only two ways to get into that venue one is down Queen City Parkway with a one lane bridge does that put our city at risk the other is going down home avenue according to Vermont Digger the last year that higher ground was in operation in south Burlington they had 137 police calls in one year now they are increasing the capacity by 33% so we're probably seeing more police calls let's say call it three calls per week how is our police department going to be able to do that when I just hear you talk about you can't even get officers to do the Halloween bike ride and I live on Southcrest Drive and it's right next to my neighborhood and if I could just turn it back to them it aligns with the number of questions we received before tonight I can't hear you it aligns with the number of questions we received before which is to use the chief's terminology here a lot of items that are lower priority at least on the priority 1, 2, 3 scale from the police department's perspective are a very high priority to some neighbors in their day to day life we received a lot of questions before this about traffic not only with respect to a potential concert venue down the line but in the here and now as well 137 calls in one year right so we received a number of questions about speeding traffic particularly at nighttime tweaked mufflers and the like folks seeing some sort of uptick there and I know we don't have all the folks here in the room DPW has a lot to say about traffic as well and so on but I guess we have a question here from Amanda as well online which is if there are fewer police to patrol and I don't know that community service officers and CSLs are going to be the folks to address some of these issues related to traffic and so on so what are the solutions to neighbors with respect to issues like those raised here and those raised by some other folks who ask me questions here is that a yeah I think you're probably in the best position to mention actually so thanks for that question I wish John were still here John actually I had long meetings with John and with others involved in the Burton project and with Sean Burke in South Burlington so I grew up in Underhill my dad taught at UVM my dad was there for about 35 years I remember when higher ground was still Merrill's they had a very good relationship with South Burlington PD with regard to the way in which they maintain their own security there and the promises that were made to me with regard to the departments signing off on the various permits and things was that they envisioned having that same relationship they're actually going to really make it more robust with regard to their security posture and their traffic control posture but yeah it is I think going to be a challenge I think it's going to be something that we're going to have to figure out how we split our attention between the downtown but they also end earlier so one of the good things is that facility will be their plan is 1130 closed versus a 2 o'clock downtown bar closed and as a result we are able to have resources in this area before bringing them back to church in Maine usually we put resources at church in Maine around 12 31 o'clock in order to be there for bar closing so that's one answer and then I think the other is about quality of life issues right so I when I was I got my master's degree at the Kennedy School and when I was at the Kennedy School team there we were talking about quality of life issues you know traffic was one the fact of the matter is that the traffic the best methods for addressing traffic are not enforcement based they are a wider range of options that come largely from engineering we have as I mentioned earlier in the evening really reduced our traffic stops by well over 80 percent at this point and the rationale for that is that we saw real disparities in those traffic stops real racial disparities we've eliminated those disparities when we account for driving population as measured by crash data and we are very I'm very proud of that I want to continue that now are we seeing crashes uptick we are seeing crashes increase a little bit but I think what we're describing here again it comes back to sort of what the counselor was saying it's we're back in line with previous years much higher than 2020 but 2020 had very few traffic deaths in Burlington in cities you saw huge deaths on the highways because the highways were open season there's a real cannonball run like that silly movie with Burt Reynolds and Don Delouise and they do it and they last March at the beginning of the pandemic they reset the record four times in March and April of 2020 because there was no one on the road and so they said you know people who went a lot of time souping up their cars went out and on the highways highway deaths rose city deaths did not our crash data dropped a lot in 2020 it's picked up again this year but only to normal levels so what we're not seeing is a commensurate increase in traffic crash that is related to our drastic decrease in stops and as a result I'm not in a place to ask officers to increase their traffic enforcement I think that what we need however is a sense of where neighborhoods feel they're getting response with regard to stop signs with regard to other things like that and that's a good question it's a big question and those are not things that our CSOs or CSLs would do and addressing those kinds of calls there's other kinds of quality of life that they would so I don't want to be the only one talking and we're looking at 250 to 750 cars per night going down two roads and one of the roads is a one lane bridge would the city and me as a taxpayer be at risk if someone gets hurt on a one lane road one lane bridge I do want to come back and see if any of the other panelists have ideas as to solutions here Andy I see you had a question sir I know you had a question before I don't know if you still have it or not Andy I guess I want to step back a little bit from the we're talking a lot about whether the police will be able to do this whether the social services will be able to do that thank you you know I feel like the whole society and Burlington is no exception is under a lot of stress and is going to continue to be under a lot of stress for a variety of things the pandemic is one, climate change is another, the sort of the coarseness of the political discourse overall is another and how that impacts how we talk to each other and I think that kind of disintegration and that kind of fraying is going to continue but I think that really we I want to think about together not just tonight but other times how we address issues of public safety as a community other than relying on street outreach, the police how we how we address that I mean I think in the south end in particular we have very strong neighborhoods we have very strong communities my visits to Sears Lane have shown me that that's a very strong community and whenever I've been there it's an example of people helping each other Steven was talking about mutual aid it's an example of people depending on each other and for lots of material problems but also like emotional support and I think that within our neighborhoods and within our community we have to depend on that as a way of buttressing not only our sense of well-being but our sense of safety and I'm not advocating you know, vigilante justice within Burlington I am saying that mutual aid mutual support community work together is going to be the basis of any kind of real public safety and whether we have 88 police officers or 73 police officers or more CSOs and more people like Lacey and Tammy out there you know that's what we need to depend on and I think just to follow up on that Andy but happy to turn to the panelists and happy to come to you sir is sort of reframing this is a question as well and you touched on it right which is that there's some concern among folks here in the chat about vigilante justice setting up folks feeling they would need to set up neighborhood watch programs or what have you and feeling leery of that as an answer and so I guess I'm curious to hear from our panelists just from a solutions-based discussion what other than that to the extent neighbors are looking for a way to address some of these issues that they see in their neighborhoods what are the answers in the here and now we've touched on some of it but I'm just curious to hear if any of you have any additional feedback do you have a comment on it or yes mutual respect okay I've lived next to this encampment longer and closer than anybody in this city I get woken up at 11 12 1 o'clock 3 o'clock 5 o'clock in the morning okay I worked during the day but I gotta listen to that motorcycle revving its engine any hour of the day or night okay I gotta listen to fireworks I gotta listen to thumping music I gotta listen to all this stuff when I gotta sleep because I gotta go to work in the morning okay mutual respect is you respect your neighbors okay I've lived next to this for 10 years okay not once have I ever gone over there to harass them but I gotta deal with this day in and day out 7 days a week 365 days and nights a year okay that's what I see everyday so when you talk about we have strong communities and they're a strong community but they don't respect their neighbors okay and without respect for your neighbors you're not going to get respect back so you have to have some mutual respect for everyone that's the way it goes without that you got nothing yeah well and in the interest of not just making this about Sears Lane I think that there's folks throughout the neighborhood who would also argue that even folks who live well away from the Sears Lane community that they as well are dealing with in motorcycles and revving engines and loud mufflers and fireworks and thumping music as folks pull up to stop signs and some of the main thoroughfares and I guess I think the question that folks are seeking answers to is what when you're in this situation or if you're living at the corner of another main thoroughfare and that's what you're dealing with and you're sensing some uptick in this and I'll certainly come back to you Stephen on this as well but what are the solutions to that and I know that one of the answers that some folks may say is well we more police officers to patrol and so on but cold comfort perhaps given recruitment retention issues at this point time and how far off we may be from that being the answer assuming that is the answer right I know there's folks who have different viewpoints on that so to any of our panelists here have any thoughts on what are the solutions in the here and now for folks who are feeling some of the stresses that Andy's talked about we want to acknowledge that having been in place just within our families our families haven't been able to get together to take care of each other the way we once did and that there are a lot of people in our community who are less fortunate and maybe never had a family that could help them and I know that when my grandmother came here as an immigrant she came into an immigrant community where there was a sense of belonging because ethnic groups tended to come into the same community and there was a there was a sense of brethren and family because of that and so as as an immigrant and a single mother of three children she would still take somebody in from the street she would have boundaries you could not come if you were not sober if he had been drinking and this wasn't randomly this is a person that she had created a relationship with that she trusted but at the same time knew that um that he couldn't be trusted if he was drinking she had her girls to worry about and so while creating boundaries she still was willing to take somebody into her home having lived on the other side of extreme poverty of having nothing of not having enough food to eat and being able to relate to that and one of the things that we've become more reliant on a government social safety net and I think we sometimes abdicate that responsibility as individuals because we rely on the government social safety net I believe the government should provide a social safety net but I also think that what the mutual aid systems do is bring that personal accountability back as well so that is a good thing but there's always two sides to every coin and the side of that that I think is the support side is really wonderful but when you run into problems and you start dealing with the problems without bringing in the police that's when we're going over to vigilanteism and so that's where I think that there's a feeling both on the left and the right of taking matters into our own hands in terms of protecting ourselves and that's why I value a professionally trained police force it may be flawed but it's better than vigilanteism and I don't have the answer I guess I just want to raise awareness that there are things we can do as individuals we need to get back to our I'm really glad everybody came in the room tonight you know a lot of people came in this room tonight and I think we all need that it's part of humanizing one another and maybe we can all work towards that but I don't know a more perfect system I think that we are really trying we're acknowledging and we're speaking to the facts that we need other resources other than police resources we're working on it we have such a long way to go to building that system that has completely broken down as Brian Cina put in the chat this started breaking down in 1963 so it's not going to be rebuilt in a day or a year probably two or it's a long term effort that just needs to be recognized and supported I think largely by the community I'm going to turn to you now it is a couple minutes after 9 o'clock and so I think we need to start wrapping this up it's been great Stephen and Julie since we turned to you all so I'd like to turn to you for any final remarks you may have but I think as we go around to our different panelists I think in making any final remarks you may have I know that you all have also been advocates for folks in the serious land community as well as others in the unhoused community and so the question that I would ask of you all in any final remarks you have as well as other panelists here is to the extent there are other folks who want to reach out to you either for your advocacy efforts or even to continue this discussion that we started tonight I appreciate it if you could speak to how people may be able to reach you if you're open to that so again happy to turn to you for any final remarks but then also would be happy to hear how folks can continue to engage I'm grateful for Joan mentioning support and also the gentleman pointing it at me when talking about where the problem is and that I think there's I'd like to just give you a scenario that sort of illustrates how how things are going in this conversation I was I was at the camp moments after the the fence that was very expensive to build was put up around the camp it's been useful people can let their dogs walk in there now without and let without them running out a matter of hours after the fence went up there was an individual from outside of the camp who came into the camp and was dragging a cart full of brand new tools that they had acquired they went up to I was standing at the entrance at the gate so was Lacey and this person came up to Lacey had a nice conversation when I tried to engage this individual Lacey said stop gray you have no part in this conversation go right ahead and this person who I stated was not from inside the camp walked out of the camp with expensive equipment that had been purchased by one of our members who works every day to earn that money and so I tried to figure out what to do about this I talked to the other campers and there was no vigilante justice one of our members went over had a conversation with this person who by the way is also a person from outside the camp who was responsible for the fireworks and who several times I've had to put out fires inside the camp because those fireworks have landed inside the camp so I think that that has a few examples of something that's repeatedly happened in this camp where I've seen community come together say we're not going to we're not going to do vigilante justice we're not going to do carceral justice we're going to talk to this person and the tools came back and peace was made and that's how community works you sir have chief have said you present yourself I've seen you twice at the camp I've had to introduce myself and the last time we spoke you said I'm just walking through city land that's why I just came to you I had to come over to you to ask what was the purpose and you couldn't turn it even to look at me I'm starting to see I'm not I'm not a politician I don't work in this political realm but how there's a presentation of here's this liaison who long before I came to Sears Lane I've been warned about and within the Bifehawk community I've been warned about and how they've acted and now I've seen how Lacey has acted and yet here's this whole presentation well the world's going to be better once we have more Lacey's and once we have Lacey doing these things and I've just seen gaslighting and deflating of of autonomy agency coming from this person and I'm seeing the praise and it's it's honestly it's it's what I expect in the political realm but I see that I see these opportunities just getting less and less where the optimism being degraded by this person and by this type of talk so thank you appreciate the perspectives you put forward um I'm just sort of mindful of the time I don't want to certainly cut people off but I do also want to if folks do want to follow up with you all or I've got a very short gentleman sir can you tell me your name John I feel like you issued us an invitation and I certainly would welcome a chance for us to talk more about look you know I agree that yes there's no mental health facilities that's a big issue I also agree that not having affordable housing in the city is a huge issue okay there's a lot of things that we agree on but you don't live at 24-7 okay I do okay me and my neighbor live it today seven days a week okay so it seems to me that respect is a mutual exchange exactly and if you're looking for respect and we're looking for respect why don't we get together and talk that's a great idea I've lived next to this for ten years I've never bothered them but I get bothered all the time we would like to have that conversation with you yeah no I'll just say something as briefly as I can just responding to a couple of things that were said that together with houseless friends I've done de-escalation mutual aid, run an emergency housing network and done extensive mental health support for community members and all of those were only effective when police were not involved because that's the only way that people felt safe and I also just wanted to say something on behalf of my friend Serino who couldn't be here that he has the determination to make a community without criminal activity and where people respect rules and where people have chances to come back again and that yeah he just he lives there and he has an intention of making a community that truly works and thrives and cares and loves for each other um thanks so I guess my last word is my last word is a chip and it's Joan Mr. Murad we want to be in conversation with you do not have negotiations and discussions on the second floor of the City Hall about us without us call us get us in the room let's devise a plan let's make something that will work that maximizes freedom and minimizes danger and illegal behavior thank you for being here I greatly appreciate that willingness and to the extent our NPA can distance and facilitate in discussions I think I can offer that up on behalf of our steering committee if there's a brief comment right there I'm happy to take it I'm just what I have to say is if the motorcycle noise and the all night noise was happening on my street I also live in Lakeside I'd be calling the police and I'd probably get a response when John calls they just won't put him through so there is a difference and he's been living this I haven't would you say feeling like a criminal when you call the police I didn't say feel like I said if the noise was on my street I'd be calling the police because they have laws that say the noise is supposed to stop by 10 o'clock and I'll come around to the chief to ask that question I do want to just go around for some final remarks here we know it's been some time since we came do you greatly appreciate your being here to the extent if you have any final remarks if we could keep them brief and as well in your role as the police commission if folks want to engage with the commission I should mention of course there's not like the city council one commissioner for each ward but we do have two members on the police commission Jabu and Susie Cumberford who wanted to be here tonight but could not Susie the professor at UVM and had a class to teach Jabu is working tonight so I appreciate your being here but if folks want to be engaged with the commission if you could mention that as well in your remarks first of all I just want to speak to the heart that I saw with people speaking tonight and listening and it has been deeply informative for me and I hope we have more of this you asked Ben the important question about what we do what can we do and I want to suggest a few things we recently had the Talitha report that described what the community is looking for in terms of public safety we've had the CNA report that has given us a host of recommendations that have not yet been processed I really urge the powers that be to engage with that report and take the action to change the policies to put the systems in place but I would like to see this enormous amount of talent intelligence in the city and caring in the city amongst economists we don't call it vigilanteism we call it solidarity economics and I think then there are ways to build solidarity I can't sit here and define to you what other communities have done or what research has been done on this but we have the University of Vermont of the road many of us do this work we are in touch with other communities and we are being focused on these issues and a path forward and that has to be that has to be done obviously the state should take a responsibility but we can't control that but it has to be the city and city government and city council so I think there are solutions I just want to be very optimistic about this I have seen transformations here not only in the United States but in other countries that have taken on these issues we have the resources and we have the values to do this and what it requires is a sustained effort we have a housing summit a mental health summit there needs to be a sustained focus I recently was listening to a program in which the discussion was around poverty and the statement was made that resonates with me it does work on this that poverty is a policy choice in some ways the chaos that we are experiencing is a choice and we can make a choice to focus our incredible intellectual and social resources on solving this and what it needs is a sustained focus and it needs the leadership to be the convener and the bully pulpit to move us all together and I think we can do that thank you I will be more brief than commissioners thank you first for the invitation but to follow up the conversation will continue the CNA report was 100 plus recommendations very focused on one which is the authorized CAF but the council did refer the remainder of the recommendations in the CNA report to the public safety commission and I expect there will be a report back on like how do we manage 100 recommendations with a proposed timeline so I expect this conversation to be ongoing for the indefinite future on many of these issues and I have a process question how will we be able to see the chat and the Q&A even focused on the room I haven't been able to track what's keep it open so we can see if we can copy and paste the chat I'm just because I'm sure there are some questions in there where people might like answers that some of us may be able to provide I was actually thinking that before we log out try to copy and paste it and put in a document and happy to share it with the panelists thank you very much I think I've really said everything that I need to say and I'm grateful for you coordinating this meeting and creating the opportunity for everybody to come in the room together so thank you for that thank you, couldn't have done that without my NPA colleagues so happy for them as well particularly Andy thanks very much for your help in putting this together thank you very much for a very balanced meeting of what's your role moderator, very balanced moderation I'll go to the chief Tiff I saw you raise your hand Representative Bloomley thank you very much for being here yeah I totally agree this was really helpful to hear and I think a really important process I guess I just want to say Commissioner Sagrino that I think the state has a lot we have a responsibility to provide the resources that communities need that we have not invested in for a long time and I know that there are a lot of discussions right now pre-session that relate to mental health care reform and that's not my jurisdiction I'm on a housing committee and that's been a big source of conversation and working with Representative Tina and Kalaki and Pew to really try to explore exactly what you all were talking about Steven and Gray so at any rate I just want to make sure that we're not off the hook in fact we have some shoring up to do that we have not done and Chief Mayor we've gone as we usually do but but any further remarks I guess another question I would have is I think one of the things we've heard and some of the questions we've got before then is that folks unsure because of the discussion that's been out there with respect to staffing levels and the ability of the police department to respond or not to some unsureness of folks if there's something going on in my community do I even call 911 who do I call, who is the resource that's available and so I guess if you could in your remarks touch on that briefly from your perspective and again I think we need to own that's not the answer for everyone but for those folks who are seeking the services of the police department do you have an answer for them as to who to call I do I live in the city too I live in the new north end and we have certain quality of life issues that we deal with in our neighborhood not like the ones that you're describing but there are nevertheless issues that everyone feels quality of life is one of the most important things we can do my definition of what police are is that police exist to keep people safe by preventing and responding to crime and disorder with and for their neighbors and there are times right now because of staffing where response to disorder is going to be delayed or not possible even but we have to know that those things are still happening or else we end up with a phenomena that both the counselors are speaking of which is that the data does not really reflect how people feel now some degree of that lack of reflection is driven by problems with the police driven by problems with the data other parts are driven by the fact that the feelings that people have right now are challenged by the pandemic as counselor Shannon said by things that are happening just to all of us as Andy said there's a lot of fear in this country right now there is fear of the pandemic of whether or not we are getting along with one another there is fear of unrest there's fear of how the political divide is worsening people have fear of crime and see it happening in different places for me I want people to call when they experience these things because we can't address what we don't know and even if we can't address certain things we still need to know about them so that we can try to prioritize what we do encounter and ultimately try to handle and getting our number is the first piece a census whether it's a census of people or a census of data that's what it's in one of the first parts of our constitution the idea of our numbers and counting our numbers and knowing what we are and who we are and a component of that is also knowing what's happening I really beg that people report what counselor Mason talked about with regard to some of these crimes in the south end not getting reported is frustrating to us because we can't determine where our resources are and we don't have that data and I'm imploring both to the folks there and to the folks there that we want to hear these things and we will do our utmost to respond Austin Texas which is down 17% in its head count we are down 32% Austin Texas has unilaterally said they will not respond to what we would call priority three calls we are not doing that we are not unilaterally saying that we are not going to do it the CNA report said we should stop responding to priority threes just out of hand I'm not willing to do that yet there are times where we can't because of resources but I don't want to give up on quality of life because quality of life is the key to good policing it is the key to a safe community when you have a handle on that you have a handle on the big stuff too and I am hurt that we can't always get the same handle on it that we have before I want to get us back to a place where we can and part of that is working with neighbors it's not just about the police it's about so many other parts but we can't do it if we don't know it so I beg people to report the things that they encounter and I will do my best to make certain that when reported they get a better kind of reaction that's an arrow in the building well thank you chief thank you chief, thank you Joan, Chip, Stephanie thank you as well to Steven, Gray and Julie for being here look forward to the opportunity for some folks to continue the conversation offline and for us as an NPA to continue the conversation here and as a community I am really glad we were able to do this and I appreciate your participation thank you