Editor’s note: This article is by Julia Bailey-Wells, a reporter with the Community News Service, a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
Hinesburg selectboard member Jeff Tobrocke resigned Monday after sending a sharply worded email to town administrator Renae Marshall, challenging her intentions during racial equity discussions in the town.
Tobrocke resigned via email about an hour before Monday’s selectboard meeting, where board members planned to discuss censuring Tobrocke over his message to Marshall.
While conceding that the tone of his email to Marshall raised some concerns, Tobrocke, a design and technology teacher at Champlain Valley Union High School, said discomfort is an essential element in challenging systems of oppression and supporting marginalized community members.
“I probably didn’t adequately communicate my feelings in a way that was productive. I’m really sorry that these people felt uncomfortable and challenged, but they need to feel that more frequently in order for us to really create a community that is responsive and accepting,” Tobrocke said.
On Sept. 17, at a town racial equity working group meeting to discuss community-police relations, a Black CVU student talked about personal experiences with the Hinesburg police. The student explained that fear of being pulled over by the Hinesburg police had led to a decision to take the bus to school from Williston every day, rather than drive.
After the meeting, Mike Loner, another selectboard member, shared a document with a list of organizations and resources about student resource officers in a group Dropbox folder. The organizations listed were suggestions for collaborators with the state’s Ethnic and Racial Disparities Committee, which is examining the role of police in schools, according to Loner.
Committee member Christina Deely responded to Loner’s Dropbox inclusions with concern, saying Loner shared only pro-police materials and offered no dissenting information critical of student resource officer programs.
“Research and history show that police in schools are ineffective in regards to safety improvements and also harmful to BIPOC students and families,” Deeley wrote, using an acronym for Black, Indigenous and people of color. “That info is given no voice in your list of invited guests.”
Loner said he intended the materials as a starting point for the committee to learn more about issues surrounding school resource officers and explaining his inclusion of two specific items: the Strategies for Youth Program and the Mirror Project.
“The Strategies for Youth Program is more about training police on the juvenile brain and how to improve their approach to youthful offenders,” Loner wrote. “The same for The Mirror Project, which is again about improving police training and youth interactions.”
Marshall thanked both Loner and Deeley for sharing their views and clarifying the objective of the committee’s shared Dropbox.
“The reason I created this portal (Dropbox folder) is to provide a place for each of us to share information and resources with the group,” Marshall wrote. “One entry in that portal doesn’t exclusively guide our work, but it is important to understand all different perspectives and directions that other organizations are approaching this in order to gather ideas that may work for Hinesburg.”
Tobrocke rips town administrator
Tobrocke emailed Marshall directly three days later, accusing her of ignorance about systemic racism and the current movement to prevent police violence against Black people across the country.
“You have no clue about the issues and your insensitivity is an indicator of your white privilege,” Tobrocke wrote. “Clearly you don’t GET the issues at hand and will fail in Colchetser [sic] as Town Manager with your racist viewpoint.”
“Do you know the definition of Daft? Because you are Daft,” he continued. “Your continued support of Mike Loner in this environment is appalling in this environment to curb police violence and move toward a more fair and just society. You are a pariah in our work to make this country based on democracy.”
He signed off with, “I AM DISGUSTED.”
Marshall shared Tobrocke’s email with the rest of the selectboard, prompting board Chair Phil Pouech to consult the town attorney and draft a censure resolution.
The censure called for no specific disciplinary action against Tobrocke, but condemned his behavior and stated the expectation that “destructive behavior end immediately, thereby allowing this board to conduct our town’s business in an honest and constructive way.”
An hour before the meeting, Tobrocke emailed his resignation to the selectboard, clarifying his intentions. Tobrocke wrote that the materials Loner shared amounted to a dismissal of the concerns that students and residents had raised at the recent committee meeting.
“The article that [Loner shared], on police SROs in schools and how there are programs for police to come into schools and help students understand their role in the community. That, for me, really undermined the risk that these kids took to share their lived experience,” Tobrocke said.
Tobrocke said selectboard ambivalence to students’ stories about fear and discomfort around local police was his central rationale for resigning.
“I will not stand by while the lived experiences of our BIPOC community are ignored by our town leaders,” Tobroke wrote. “I cannot continue to represent a town that attempts to diminish the voices of the marginalized and promotes increased policing over policy reform.”
Police grant spurred a debate
The debate over policing in Hinesburg emerged in July, when the board accepted a federal grant to subsidize the salary of a new town police officer for three years. Tobrocke was the sole dissenter in accepting the grant, and in his resignation letter he said he remains opposed to the hire.
The discussion came amid national conversations about white supremacy, police brutality and the role and cost of law enforcement in communities across the country. A June report from UVM’s Legislative Policy Center on local police spending in Vermont found that Hinesburg has among the 40 highest local police budgets in the state, spending hundreds of thousands more dollars than some smaller neighboring towns.
A known white supremacist group, Patriot Front, placed stickers around town in early June, promping the board to issue an official statement.
“We, the selectboard, as the governing body of the town of Hinesburg, Vermont, denounce all messages of hate and intolerance,” the board statement said. “We stand with Black and brown people in our community and across our country fighting for racial justice. We hear you. We see you. Black lives matter.”
The board also promised to establish a long-term action plan to confront discrimination in Hinesburg.
At Monday’s meeting, board members expressed dismay at the tone of Tobrocke’s email to Marshall.
“I was very surprised when I saw that email directed at our town administrator, for someone who’s doing this work, and then to come at an individual — and, I will say, a woman, and a leader of our town — with abuse and threatening language, to even threaten her next position because he’s a tax owner in a town she’ll be working in, kind of beyond words,” Loner said.
Marshall, too, expressed surprise at Tobrocke’s email.
“I was rather taken aback by the response. I feel like, as selectboard members, the public has put the trust in you to represent the town and I think it’s very important how you conduct yourself at meetings and through the community,” Marshall said.
All four board members voted unanimously in favor of the censure, and then to accept Tobrocke’s resignation.
The selectboard plans to get started next week on finding a fifth board member. It’s too close to the November election to add a selectboard selection, and a special election might be a logistical challenge for the town, given the Covid-19 pandemic. So, the board will likely appoint someone to serve until town elections in March, said Pouech, the chair.
Going forward, Tobrocke said that, while he’s no longer a selectboard member, he intends to work on racial justice issues, remain in the racial and social equity working group, and focus on collaborating with CVU students in the newly formed Social Justice Alliance.
“I think that there is going to be a greater impact on society if we could really get our youth engaged and begin to push policy from that side.” Tobrocke said. “I think I’m going to have a greater impact here, working with 14- to 18-year-olds at making change, systemic change, at an early age.”
