[S]T. ALBANS — In the wake of recent allegations that a state senator sexually assaulted multiple women, advocacy groups in northwestern Vermont are stepping up efforts to combat sexual and domestic violence.
About three-dozen people showed up at Taylor Park in downtown St. Albans on Wednesday evening for a rally organized by local advocacy group Voices Against Violence and others.
The rally came less than a month after Sen. Norm McAllister, R-Franklin, was arrested and charged with three counts of sexual assault and prohibited acts.
McAllister, a 63-year-old dairy farmer, is alleged to have repeatedly assaulted two women nearly 100 times, exchanging sex for work and lodging. One of his alleged victims worked as his intern at the Statehouse.
McAllister has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Now, weeks after the headlines broke, some communities are trying to raise awareness about sexual and domestic violence Franklin County.
“There was quite an uproar at the beginning and I don’t want people to forget that this wasn’t just something that we have to be worried about for a week,” Tammy Colburn Consejo, a local mental health counselor, said after Wednesday’s rally. “We have to be worried about it always.”
Consejo has worked professionally with domestic violence victims for more than two decades. In that time, she said, not much has changed.
Ed Ballantyne, a resident of nearby Georgia, stopped by the rally after work. Ballantyne said that he has been concerned that some community members aren’t more outraged by the allegations against McAllister.
“The fact that there are people who are just kind of glossing over it just points out how important it is to raise awareness,” Ballantyne said.
One local, Denise Smith, addressed the small crowd, noting that the allegations against McAllister hit the community like a “lead balloon.” She circulated a petition at the rally to get residents to pledge to get involved in actions to reduce domestic violence.
Former Gov. Madeleine Kunin, headlining a roster of local and state advocates at the event, reflected on laws that changed during her tenure in the Legislature and the governor’s chair, but she said reducing instances of sexual violence requires more than changes in statute.
“We have to dig deeper than the laws,” Kunin said. “We have to have a society that respects women and men as equals, that respects mediation and negotiation, that respects being soft instead of always tough.”
After her speech, Kunin said that while the McAllister case has yet to go through judicial process, the allegations prompt wider scrutiny of the greater public.
“It’s not just the victims, it’s not just the prosecutors, it’s a reflection of our society,” Kunin said.
Kris Lukens, who heads the St. Albans-based Voices Against Violence, said that the organization will be brainstorming ways to continue to raise awareness in the coming weeks.
The organization provides a multitude of services to victims of domestic violence in Franklin and Grand Isle counties, ranging from legal help, to an emergency shelter and transitional housing.
Lukens did not know if calls from victims have increased or decreased in the wake of the McAllister allegations — she fears that the media spotlight on high-profile cases can deter other victims who are conscious of the attention — but the organization has seen a boost of support, she said.
“There’s more community involvement for sure, there’s more talk,” Lukens said.
Retired Judge Ben Joseph, who sat on the courts in Grand Isle and Franklin counties, spoke at the event about the role of the judiciary in reducing domestic violence. He said later that in his experience, domestic violence cases were matched only by driving while intoxicated cases in their frequency.
Vanessa Kittell, an attorney based in St. Albans, said that the rally helped to shift the community’s focus to wider issues of sexual violence in the region.
“The real story is about revealing issues of poverty and injustice that are right here in Franklin County,” Kittell said.
