Ain't That Some Shh: Introduction to Burlington City Affairs

Thank you for having me, Town Meeting TV, and greetings to my Burlington neighbors and anyone outside of Burlington watching this. My name is Milo Grant. I'm the city counselor for the central district of Burlington, which uh encompasses wards two and three. Um this is next to some areas in Wooki. We are the most diverse area in the entire state of Vermont. Uh the wards are comprised of the old north end, the downtown core, the waterfront area, and since redistricting, more of the King Maple area. So, it's really a very diverse ward with a wide variety of different types of individuals and families. Um we I represent a lot of people in marginalized groups. I represent a lot of renters, a lot of working families. Um I represent people who would consider themselves to be middle um to to upper middle class. Uh we definitely have some wealthy individuals. We also have a large number of students and we bear uh the brunt of our homeless crisis as well and um our drug crisis. I'll be talking about that. I will be talking about other um issues that I believe are important to not only my constituents but the people of Burlington. When I first ran for city council, it was really important to me um especially as the drug crisis was increasing and really affecting um the old northning old northn increase in packages being stolen, increase in car thefts and other types of crime. All of this started to move in ways that was not being fully acknowledged by um people in city hall. I as a police commissioner interacted a lot with uh the former mayor Mayor Weinberger and the former police chief John Murad and um I sincerely believe that if we weren't dealing with the area of the city that didn't have a lot of economic power and also wasn't voting democratic. Right? it was just there wasn't a recognition of the fact that people weren't voting Democratic because the Democratic Party wasn't addressing the issues um that we we needed uh help with. So I after almost three years as a police commissioner, I did run for council because I felt I needed to take the next step to get loud. I mean I sometimes when people said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to get louder." uh because literally people were not listening to us. Um and only did the the conversation start to elevate was when our downtown business core was affected. Um even though other businesses in our uh district were also being affected. So I want to talk about things that I'm not allowed to expand upon um in committees or in council. Uh in committees you can have more in-depth conversations, but uh in council it's really regulated in terms of the times that you're allowed to speak. Um I get called point of order a lot. I was, as many people know, I was on the public safety committee. I still serve on the public safety committee, but they took the chair position away from me. Um I was not businessminded enough. Um a fellow counselor said you cannot question police. Um that was tough. That was really really tough. Uh fellow counselor told a reporter um that I was prone to violence [sighs] and that still really upsets me. Um, I want to be able to talk about the things that are going on in our city and provide more information. I really don't want it to be all about politics. I want it to be about the truth. And the truth matters no matter how difficult the truth is at times. I want to be able to provide direct links to meetings, direct links to reports and data, um, links to the mayor's updates, uh, information about the mayor's updates. The rhetoric that's been going on in the city right now would lead people to think that nothing is happening. Do we have problems? Absolutely. myself, the mayor, and others, and many people working in service uh agencies and working for mutual aid groups. We have so many volunteers in our community, and thank you. Thank you so much for the time that you give. We know people are out here trying to work, but we have a situation where we have no leadership from the state. We bear the brunt of the number of people who are homeless who come to our city because we're known for having shelters and we're known for having uh certain services. We need more towns and other municipalities to do their part and we need direction from the governor uh with regards to that. Um so I'll be talking about that as well how we can unify as a city as a council uh to really have a strategy and a strategy with our legislative representatives. Right? our Chittenin delegation isn't fully unified with regards to what we need from the governor and um even though there was definitely an improvement this year, we are still left empty-handed with things like our charter chains like no guns in uh bars that continue to languish because they can't get the votes from the um other statewide representatives. So there's a lot that goes on and I am hoping to present some of that information in a way that will help people to understand, help people to get uh curious. Uh borrowing a slogan from uh our states attorney Sarah George, let's get curious. And uh just to deal with some stuff that's not okay. Hence the name of the program. Ain't that some because that's what we're going to be talking about. We're going to be talking about some stuff that you may not realize. Um we're going to be talking about some stuff uh that is that is very difficult and quite frankly ain't that some sh because I found myself saying that a lot in my personal life. Want to deal with misinformation, disinformation, people out and out lying at times. Going to talk about data and we're going to talk about uh meeting updates. So today I want to concentrate on um information about Burlington Forward. Uh this was presented to the council on August 3rd. I do recommend people watch that meeting. It is a long meeting. We had over three hours of public forum. People really came out to talk about why they were supporting it and why they were not supporting it. Um just because people are not supporting it doesn't mean they don't care or recognize the problems that we have across our community uh safety system. Um and also there are people who talked about how they recognized the different things that were going on and I will get into that um in a minute. I am on record as saying as I do think it's a political stunt. Um, BTVF FWD was something in the last several years that the it's had two different incarnations uh to be used to educate people about civics and some other goals, but it was basically a a political arm. Um, and now we're coming we're just, you know, spelling it out. Burlington forward. To me, it looks like more of the same. This is a very vague document. I am encouraging people who just heard about it and be like, "Oh, this is a good idea." Actually read it. I think it's important. It is very vague. What specifics do you see other than an acknowledgment of some of the issues? it there is no there was no attempt to reach out to stakeholders in the community. That's deeply problematic. That would include social service agencies, mutual um aid groups, department heads, city employees. We have city employees doing amazing work. Many of you may have read the article in seven days a few months ago about our urban park rangers and how they work with the homeless population that are camping um in and around our city. Uh, you know, there are many examples of city employees putting themselves forward to help deal with uh these circumstances of of of what's happening and of individuals who are homeless and are in crisis and how that's affecting the rest of us. Um, so not to talk to the employees, not to talk to department heads, not to talk to the mayor, not to talk to fellow counselors. um councelor Laura Park uh Sanchez Parkinson, she is the ward 3 counselor. We were sitting a Thursday night in a public safety committee while this document was being uh emailed and uploaded and while a press conference had been planned for the following day and we're literally sitting in a public safety committee meeting and we weren't told anything. That is profoundly disrespectful and that is not the way you build collaboration. Uh time and time again we hear, "Oh, we're collaborating." We're not collaborating. That's just a myth. So let's until we collaborate. We can say we're collaborating, but collaboration is not what's happening. It got voted on. Uh we only have five votes, progressives, and the vote just sends this document to committees where it should have started. So nothing's happening. Nothing new is happening other than um giving people hope in a way that I find to be inappropriate because we've seen these resolutions before. Remember the resolution that was supposed to clean up City Hall Park by making sure it was closed at midnight even though there was only about 5% of the incidents that occur in the city overnight actually happened in City Hall Park. The rest happened in other parts of the city, but we said police had to get there and close down the park, which pushes people away from the only public bathroom that's available 247, and it just moved the incidents right across the street. The data was very clear. Nothing came of that, but there was much to do made of it. So, that's my concern about this. Now, having said that, I will be participating in the process because it is important to participate in the process. the um racial equity inclusion belonging uh council subcommittee uh REIB for short. We met last night that uh depending on when you watch that that date was um Tuesday, August 18th. We had a conversation uh our first conversation about the document. We had feedback from members of the public. It was a really great conversation. Um and we put forth a plan. Uh Laura Sanchez Parkinson is the chair of that committee. We have upcoming meetings. Uh there will be a special meeting on Tuesday the 25th of August. We are going to be looking at highlevel feedback from the stakeholders that I mentioned earlier. We are going to review a memo process. Uh we're going to have a a memo that we want to put together that's going to review the process the process of bringing this document together. um and the equity impacts when developing policy. Um we're going to be focused on community and strategy and um having a real discussion again with a health equity lens and an equity lens period. And I'll get more into that in a moment. Um then we plan uh to have a counselor discussion at the end of that meeting for the next steps and how we go about with a proposal. There will be another special REIB meeting on September 1st uh where we'll be finalizing and approving feedback doc uh documents or memos that will be sent to the council uh on September 14th. The public safety committee is going to have a regularly scheduled meeting on August 27th which is a Thursday night. Um and I expect this will be on the uh schedule. We are going to hold a second meeting on August 31st and we are holding September 10th for a third possible meeting. I don't understand how the public safety committee doesn't have at least three meetings. I am no longer the chair of that committee. So I'm very limited with regards to how I can direct this meeting uh to move. But I would expect that we should have just as expansive as a conversation especially when we are going to be talking about things like enforcement, right? That is something that a lot of people are concerned about. What can we enforce, what can't we enforce um and what is legal and what is not uh legal is also part of the conversation. CDNR is meeting um a meeting tonight which we are filming on August 19th. Um this is not on their agenda. We really do need all the committees that are going to be looking at this to get their agendas posted immediately on civic clerk which is the area where you can see when meetings are scheduled. You can see the agenda. you can see the related documents and you can see the recordings of the meetings as well um because not all the meetings are recorded by Town Meeting TV. So you can be on Town Meeting TV's website or YouTube page and for the meetings that aren't um on Town Meeting TV, you can uh just pull them right on Civic Clerk. Uh quick detour. How do you get to Civic Clerk? You go to the city of Burlington's website. There is a little circle a button that says agenda in the lower left hand side of the homepage. When you click on that, that takes you to a calendar. And on that calendar, you can click on the different days to see the different meetings. Click on the meetings and that gives you the the links to the information and the documentation as well as the recordings. I think it's really important for people to um be willing to put themselves out there more. Uh I hear the most misinformation and disinformation from people who actually don't watch meetings and don't follow data. Uh there was a front porch forum post. We had a very very difficult uh weekend. No question. A lot of things happened all in the same night. and someone posted and said that stabbings and shootings happen every day in Burlington. That is not true. That is not true. I fully acknowledge the difficulties of that one night. Um but to say that things like that happen every day is simply not true. Um there are some investigations that are still going on. Uh I mourn the loss of life as we all should. One of the gunfire incidents was related to someone who uh fumbled their own firearm. Remember, we live in Vermont. We have very lax gun laws. We have open carry. Uh this individual had a gun and mishandled it and dropped it and it went off. Of course, there's always the danger of a a stray bullet hurting someone. We can't discount that. But this was not uh during a crime uh per se. Uh this was not aimed at anyone in particular. This was negligence, but because it involved a firearm, it does count as a gunfire incident. The other incident is under investigation by our police department. Burlington uh police officers were in the area and on the scene immediately um with these incidents. We do have another incident where regretfully we have um people in our city that harass homeless people and threaten homeless people. So, one of the incidents involving a knife um this was not the one where the uh death occurred, but it sounds like there's something deeper that went on there uh with regards to the loss of life. Uh that is still under investigation. So, it'll be important to follow those. Um, you can find press releases from the Burlington Police Department online and um I will be asking for updates as more of of updates are available. Um, obviously officers cannot talk the department cannot talk about an open investigation because they don't want to compromise that investigation and that does need to be um respected. I want to say about Burlington forward um the language of it is very very concerning and and has a lot of people concerned. It reads at times like a Trump executive order and that language is very very different. And so for some of us that are going to be reviewing it and for members of the public that have already spoken out uh the language that's used is of grave concern. It's just throwing out all these kind of rightwing platitudes that aren't fully reflective of what our problems are or how to solve them. We should not have a document that constantly equates homelessness with crimes. It is not illegal to be homeless. Do we have individuals that are homeless that commit crime? Yes, that is true. In fact, interimm chief Burke in his examination of the data looking at it in a different way saying we're seeing the same people over and over and over again. Let's really deep dive these individuals. So, at one point we had a meeting where he presented, okay, here are the top 21 individuals. It was done anonymously, of course. These are the number of open incidents that they have. It was huge. and we're like, what's causing that? Well, 19 of the 21 were homeless, so that is a problem. Um, this idea of catch and release, you know, a lot of people uh criticize our state's attorney, Sarah George. Catch and release, there is no such thing. If you are released on conditions and you violate those conditions, then you get another case. That's one of the reasons why so many of these individuals had high open high number of open dockets. Um especially for trespass people trespass is a tool. people violate their trespass, then they get another trespass and that leads to these open cases, but they don't get held for such low-level crimes. And that is another um issue that we have to contend with that I want to deeper dive. Um, I'm hoping to have um I will be extending an invitation to uh Sarah George to come in and talk to us about uh the level of crimes, what the Vermont statutes say. Uh people accuse our state's attorney of making up progressive laws. There are no progressive laws, right? There are just the laws of the state of Vermont that we have to operate under. And in the state of Vermont, we did not keep up with all the changes that went on after the COVID um pandemic. We uh are under siege with fentanyl and fentanyl is everywhere. It's everywhere. It's not just in Burlington. It's everywhere. I recently shared um a Reddit post that was it came from Portland, Maine. They are literally having the same issues. And uh Portland, Maine is um in a lot of ways very similar to Burlington. I have personally seen those issues. I like to go to Portland periodically, spend a couple of days, maybe see a show. I have personally been into areas of their downtown where I see the exact same thing. Harm reduction. People are saying we have too much harm reduction. First and foremost, harm reduction is for everyone. It's for people who are in crisis and it is for all the residents in our city because harm reduction is meant to make things better. I want to be absolutely clear about something. There is not too much harm reduction. There is not enough. You will not The city does not have enough money. Period. Full stop. Social service agencies do not have enough money. Period. Full stop. their people don't get paid as well as say police officers. Period. Full stop. It takes nine months to get a housing advocate. If you're homeless and you need someone who acts as a housing advocate, housing manager to help you navigate the system, that waiting period now is up to nine months. Ain't that some? So, we don't have beds. When we start talking about involuntarily committing people, which I'm not going to deny may be appropriate for some individuals, but how are we going to start talking about that when we don't even have recovery on demand now where in the last weeks we have further reduced mental health beds? Where's the department of mental health and what they need to be doing? Right? The state's attorney has talked about that as a failure on their part. If someone is not fit to to uh stand trial, they can only be held for something up to 21 days. But I will get uh that information from the state's attorney so that we are exact about it. But there's all these other things going on in the background that the average person doesn't realize. We have a shortage of true affordable housing. We have a shortage of wraparound services. We have a shortage of um sober living situations. Someone goes to jail because of issues around substance use disorder. They come out if they don't have support. What's going to happen? These patterns repeat themselves because we don't have enough resources. So again, we need a statewide strategy. We need all the representation from local to federal level to be applying pressure. The federal level, you know, cutting back uh housing vouchers out of nowhere is destabilizing people. It's gravely um concerning. We will when we look at uh the lack of capacity uh CVOE has the resources to open a 100 bed shelter. A 100 bed shelter would be so impactful, but where where can it be? This is what we talk about when we need help from the the state. You can't tell me Governor Scott can't pick up the phone and find a location for this shelter, be it in Burlington or be it somewhere else in Chittening County where we can help some of these people. So these are the things that are kind of like a block log that a backlog or or blocking um what we need. We need to increase our capacity. We need um to help more families with children. Uh the the numbers uh it's like 600 children are part of our homeless count in our state. That's that's very deeply deeply concerning. I think I will leave it there for our first program. Ain't that some sh there's going to be a lot to talk about. I really look forward to having a number of guests, fellow counselors, department heads, um mutual aid groups. The cleanup crew is a mutual aid group. They are a social services that are unpermitted, right, as are referred to in this resolution. They not only clean, they leave sharps containers in education about recovery. We want to limit their work. So, these are the things I really want people to think about. Um, please feel free to email me burlingtonvt.gov. That's megrant burlingtonvt.gov. In the past, I've mainly used my um website as a campaign website. I am actually going to be refreshing it and adding a lot of direct links so that you will be able to go to milogrant.com and just click on the links of the things that we're talking to and it'll take you straight uh to the documents to the meetings. um so you don't have to search on the on the website because that can be um it can be confusing and especially time consuming. Adopt a meeting, adopt a committee meeting even if you can't watch all of it but just try to be more engaged and involved and that is ultimately the goal of this programming that's so that we're be getting more engaged, involved and informed. Thank you so much.