RUTLAND — Change is brewing in one of Rutland City’s most innovative organizations.
Two longtime leaders of Rutland’s beloved Project VISION, chairperson Joe Kraus and executive director Matt Prouty, are going to retire.
December’s monthly meeting will mark Kraus’ last meeting as chairperson. His replacement will likely be announced later this month.
Prouty, who’s also a commander with the Rutland Police Department, will retire from both jobs in April.
Project VISION is a coalition of organizations, government, businesses and individuals; its goal is to build a brighter future for Rutland, and in the past eight years, it has found many different roads to that goal.
At the organization’s November meeting, Kraus and Prouty sat beside each other on the second floor of the police station, the organization’s designated space. Though the meeting’s virtual nature has marked a change in recent months, business proceeded as usual.
First-time attendees introduced themselves, the mayor and police chief made announcements, and then the group engaged in a discussion, this time centered on hunger. One Rutland County resident, who now works for an organization that helps address hunger, shared stories from her past.
“I have gone days without eating,” she said. “I have lied to my kids so that they don’t feel bad about taking the last bowl of macaroni.”
Responding to a tearful end to her presentation, faces popped up on Zoom. “You’re doing great,” one said. “Thank you for your bravery and courage.”
“You had everyone’s undivided attention,” Kraus told the speaker. “All of the challenges you’ve worked through, it’s just absolutely amazing. Whenever I go to bed at night, and I think of people who inspire me, I think of people like you.”
The group then spent an hour discussing ways to address hunger in Rutland County, taking tangible steps through partners like BROC Community Action and the Vermont Foodbank.
This action-based type of conversation is typical for Project VISION, which was born during a tumultuous time in Rutland history. The city, caught in the crosshairs of a regional drug trade, gained a reputation during the opioid epidemic. News outlets like The Boston Globe and The New York Times wrote about the small city in Vermont that had fallen victim to heroin.
Autumn of 2012 marked a tipping point for Rutland. Carly Ferro, 17, was walking out of Rutland’s Discount Food Store when she was struck by a car whose driver was unconscious; he had reportedly huffed Dust-Off from an aerosol can. Ferro died, crushed against the store’s brick wall. The runaway vehicle hit her father, too, who was waiting for her in his car in the parking lot. He was seriously injured.
“I think often people have pushed people with substance use disorders to the margins,” said Chris Ettori, a member of Rutland’s Board of Aldermen and a member of Project VISION. “And I think that was one where people recognized that it could impact everybody or anybody.”
Kraus had recently retired as chief operating officer at Central Vermont Public Service, which had merged with Green Mountain Power.
“At that time, there were some very successful professionals who were asked to retire,” said Scott Tucker, Project VISION’s first executive director and the police department’s second-in-command at the time. “Joe Kraus was one of those people. During that time period, we were talking to the thought leaders in Rutland, the decision makers, about a dozen or two dozen of them. Joe Kraus, his name came to the top.”
Invited by then-police chief Jim Baker and former mayor Chris Louras to attend, Kraus said he sat in the back of the room in Project VISION meetings held at the police department.
“This was all quite foreign to me,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about substance abuse or alcoholism, although it had affected my family, as it has in everyone’s family. I really knew very little about poverty. I knew so little about so many different things. It was a humbling experience.”
After Ferro’s death, Kraus took to the helm as hundreds of people, moved to action, turned up for meetings.
“Her death was really the spark that ignited everything,” Kraus said. “People couldn’t believe that such a thing could happen in our beautiful little town. It really was a transformative event.
“The challenge was that hundreds of people, all of whom were angry and upset, wanted to do something. We had everyone going in a hundred different directions.”
With the help of the Baker, Louras and Tucker, Project VISION began “breaking down silos” — an expression used by all of VISION’s leaders.
Soon, organizations with similar goals connected through the program, which is entirely volunteer-based and has no bylaws. Rutland Regional Medical Center, the Rutland City Police Department, Rutland City Public Schools, Rutland Regional Planning Commission, and the Southwest Council on Aging are some of the 300 social and health services now involved with the program.
Leaders of VISION worked to identify and address the roots of criminal activity. There are two rules: After national media attention soured locals’ pride in Rutland City, VISION strived to refocus on the positive, and collaborate for the greater good.
“We decided we would focus on areas where we thought we could create some advantage that wasn’t already there in the community,” Kraus said. “Everybody had very strategic plans and objectives.”
After what Kraus calls a “beautiful” strategic planning process, residents settled on three goals.
First, the group decided to restore neighborhoods whose houses had been blighted through the drug trade. With a $1.25 million grant from NeighborWorks, an organization that strives to create economically sustainable housing, VISION rehabilitated, renovated or demolished blighted houses in Rutland’s Northwest neighborhood, which had been particularly affected by the opioid epidemic.
Second, the organization placed an emphasis on community policing.
Third, VISION aimed to address addiction and substance abuse in the city. Using data to find problematic spots in the city, officers rode with social workers and victims’ advocates on calls with the intent to help, instead of arrest, people suffering from the sprawling impacts of addiction.
“If Matt sees they’re going to the same house six times a month for the last six months for, you know, domestic violence issues, let’s say,” Kraus said, “instead of continuing to go, they can bring HerStory (an organization whose emphasis is on domestic violence) to help address the issue there.”
Prouty said the police department now regularly relies on outside professionals, and is better able to address residents’ needs.
“It’s not just the police’s responsibility, public safety,” Prouty said. “There shouldn’t only be a police response to folks with mental health crisis, there shouldn’t just be a police response for folks with substance use disorder in neighborhoods.”
As the work proceeded, NeighborWorks surveyed residents of Rutland’s Northwest neighborhood.
The results of the first survey, Kraus said, “were as depressing as they could possibly be. No one felt safe, they didn’t trust the police, they wouldn’t recommend the neighborhood to their worst enemy.”
A replica of the survey, three years later, highlighted VISION’s progress.
“The results were just astounding,” Kraus said. “People said they felt safe in their neighborhood, they had a more trusting relationship with law enforcement, and, remarkably, a majority of the people said they would recommend the neighborhood to their friends and family.”
Crime levels decreased in the city, too. VISION exceeded its goal to reduce burglaries by 50%. Burglaries that involved force dropped by almost 60%, and burglaries without force decreased more than 80%.
This reduction of crime required push-pull and coordination across organizations throughout Rutland County’s system of government, and its private groups, too. While many players deserve credit for the work, Tucker said, Kraus was often pulling the strings.
“Joe is the consummate cheerleader, motivator,” Tucker said. “He’s the guy that will walk into a boardroom and challenge your organization to do something more for the community. And he was our secret weapon.”
New social justice committee
2020 brings new challenges to Rutland City, to Vermont, and to the country. In a routine strategic planning process completed this summer, Project VISION added two new committees: the Health Committee, which seeks to improve community engagement with health services, and the Community Building and Neighborhood Committee, which functions to improve neighborhoods in Rutland County. Each committee contains four subcommittees.
More recently, VISION announced that it will create yet another committee, this time with an objective that’s never been articulated in the organization: reforming systems that relate to social and racial justice.
When members of VISION learned that Tabitha Moore, former president of Rutland County’s NAACP, was moving from her home in Wallingford because of racial harassment, Kraus said the organization didn’t have a choice.
“We have not focused directly on race and social injustice issues. It’s a very hard conversation, particularly to have with a large group with diverse opinions,” Kraus said. “It’s brand new; I have no idea where it’s going to go. But I’m proud of the fact that we’re now talking about it, asking ourselves what it is we should be doing.”
Traffic stop data shows that, despite community policing efforts in Rutland City, police still stop Black and Hispanic drivers at a rate that’s disproportionately high relative to their population.
The report shows that, in 2019, Black drivers were overstopped by between 79% and 151%, and Hispanic drivers were overstopped by 36%, according to data analyzing eight police departments across the state. During stops in Rutland, Black drivers were almost five times more likely to be searched than white drivers.
Historically, VISION has remained steadfastly neutral on political issues. But issues of social injustice are not political, Prouty argues.
“It’s not going to be a political stance; it’s going to be a ‘what’s right’ stance,” he said. “I know in my time in VISION, there’s a lot of lenses that I’ve been able to put on, just because of the relationships where you get to see the world look different. And I think that’s probably the most important part.”
Next steps for Prouty and Kraus
While Prouty’s been implementing community and data-driven policing since VISION began, he took over as executive director after Scott Tucker retired in 2017. He isn’t sure what will come next after he retires in April.
“Who knows?” he said. “My wife and I have to have a long conversation about what’s next.”
In his leadership position, Prouty has tried to maintain a figurative open-door policy.
“I got two emails today from people who have nothing to do with VISION saying, ‘Hey, I heard that maybe VISION is the place for me to go to have a need met?’” Prouty said. “Well, let’s find out. We want to be a culture of ‘yes.’”
Kraus believes adamantly that nothing will change at Project VISION when he’s no longer in charge.
“My departure will have zero impact on Project VISION. None,” Kraus said. “Even if we officially disbanded it, it would still be out there, because everyone now works together. We have great relationships; we’re willing to partner to do new and different things. We have pride and confidence in our community.”
And he isn’t going away, he said. His friendly face, sweep of white hair and demonstrable charisma will remain a reliable presence at monthly meetings, just in a different capacity.
Ettori, on the City’s Board of Aldermen, said Kraus has earned respect from the community over the years, and a new leader will need to do the same.
“The person who’s leading VISION really needs to be able to build relationships, make connections, and use their own experiences to influence how we move forward,” Ettori said. “I think it’s important that the person wants to keep on pushing us forward as a community.”
Kraus said he sees the world differently after his eight-year tenure at VISION.
“Of the thousands of people who have walked through our doors in the last eight years, I don’t think anybody is more changed than I am,” Kraus said. “And I still have a long way to go.”
He believes the work will continue.
“The fundamental reasons that brought everyone together will remain,” he said. “And I’m very proud of that fact.”
