BARRE CITY — Barre City leaders reached an unusual compromise last year over how to reckon with a nationwide push for racial justice. In December, they raised a Black Lives Matter flag in front of City Hall. A month later, they replaced it with the “thin blue line” flag, a pro-police banner commonly used as a counter to racial justice advocacy.
The debate over which flag to fly has prompted contentious discussions about systemic racism in this central Vermont city. It has led some residents of color to speak out about the animosity they have faced in the mostly white city. Others have insisted that systemic racism doesn’t exist there at all.
Now, voters are being asked to settle the flag issue once and for all. On Town Meeting Day this week, they will vote on a proposal to prohibit any “special” flag from flying in City Hall Park.
Voters will also decide a pair of Barre City Council races that have revolved, to a certain degree, around the BLM flag’s place in the city: One candidate has faced criticism for comments that some residents called transphobic, and another has denied that systemic racism is present in Barre.
Aided by pandemic protocols that expanded mail-in voting for Town Meeting Day, turnout promises to be high. At least 1,300 residents have already requested mail-in ballots — more than the 900 who show up in a typical year, said City Clerk Carol Dawes.
Flag debate heads to the ballot
The ballot article involving flags asks residents to choose whether to prohibit raising any banner besides the U.S., Vermont, Barre City and POW/MIA flags in City Hall Park.
City Councilor Michael Boutin said he brought the issue to the ballot as a way to finally move the city past the contentious flag debate — and to give voters a say in doing so. Boutin thinks the answer to the flag argument is to keep special flags out of City Hall Park entirely.
“If somebody wants to raise a specific flag, they are allowed to do that on their property,” Boutin said. “But people don’t want the City Council to be forcing their opinions on the flag issue on them.”
Some residents disagree.
Raising a flag that represents marginalized people, and doing it on public property, makes those people feel more welcome, countered Councilor Ericka Riel, who led the initial effort to raise the BLM flag last spring. “A lot of my constituents are saying that it’s really nice to see a flag saying what Barre’s celebrating, what we’re honoring,” Riel said. “That can be powerful.”
Ellen Kaye, a member of Barre’s diversity and equity committee, worries that disallowing special flags turns a blind eye to racial justice in the city.
“I would say that Councilor Boutin’s proposal to only fly four flags is very much in the spirit of saying, ‘We don’t want to discuss racism, and all these things are outside issues,’” Kaye said. “I know that doesn’t feel good for people of color here.”
Issues of prejudice and representation have emerged in Barre City Council races, too.
Criticism over comments about transgender students
Timothy Boltin, a school board member running for the council, drew attention for comments he made at a January school board meeting about a policy to accommodate transgender students.
“I really do applaud the accommodation of these students,” Boltin said during the meeting. But, he asked, “how do we accommodate the students that wouldn’t feel comfortable — a girl who’s in a bathroom, say, and a boy walks in who feels like he’s a girl?”
“Or,” he continued, “a locker room full of girls where a boy walks in who feels like he’s a girl. … I don’t know about anybody else, but I think my daughters would be mortified if a boy was in there telling everybody he was a girl.”
Kaye found the statement “chilling.”
“This is a man who is a public servant making derogatory comments about a very vulnerable population,” she said. “I can tell you that the trans kid who walks into the locker room that represents their gender is more at risk than anyone in that locker room.”
Boltin ultimately voted in favor of the proposal to accommodate transgender students. His comments, he said, came from a place of concern for protecting the privacy of children with disabilities.
“Girl or boy, I don’t care,” he told VTDigger. “But I want to make sure that we’re taking all the steps we need to protect the privacy of kids that need help. And that has blossomed into, ‘You hate all transgender people.’ I never said that.”
Boutin, who is not up for re-election Tuesday, is a friend of Boltin’s and a supporter of his campaign. He speculated that Boltin made the comments in an effort to advocate for his constituents.
Boltin’s opponent in the council race, Emel Cambel, did not respond to VTDigger’s request for comment.
Another candidate suggests systemic racism doesn’t exist
In Ward 2, Teddy Waszazak, a self-described progressive who worked for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, is running against Brian Judd. Judd is a longtime California resident who was born in Barre and moved back from the West Coast in 2019.
Judd has denied the existence of systemic racism, largely in response to testimony by Marichel Vaught, an Asian-American member of the diversity and equity committee who has spoken up about facing prejudice in Barre.
Vaught spoke at the council’s Nov. 10 meeting about being fearful of walking down Barre’s Main Street without her white husband present. Judd was apparently listening, and chimed in a week later on his Facebook page, ahead of a council meeting to decide the flag issue.
“Some of these council members think Barre is suffering from systemic racism,” Judd wrote on his Facebook page on Nov. 17, according to screenshots obtained by VTDigger. “They think about half of us are racists. Supposedly several minorities in Barre think this. Supposedly some of those several minorities are afraid to walk down the street in Barre. One of these several minorities said the only time she isn’t afraid is when she’s with her white husband. I call bullshit.
“I don’t see it. I’m out in this city every day and every night. … I don’t see white people fighting with minorities. I don’t see white people calling minorities offensive names. I don’t see it.
“This is propaganda,” Judd continued. “Contact our council members and tell them you do not want a Black Lives Matter Flag flying anywhere in the city of Barre!”
Afterward, Vaught wrote a letter in Front Porch Forum, voicing her support for Waszazak on the basis of how he “sees and hears” the discrimination that people of color experience in the city.
“Quite frankly, that somebody like Brian Judd who would dismiss me and doubt my experience could potentially become a leader in the community — if somebody like that were to win a council seat, that would just be frightening to me,” Vaught told VTDigger, “especially when he claims to want to represent all of Barre.”
Judd told VTDigger he was simply voicing what he’d seen in his own experience. He doubled down in Facebook comments on the Barre City Community Fanpage, a popular city forum.
“I respect her opinion, to say what she said,” he told VTDigger. “But I think I should have the same respect for my own opinion.”
City looks for a way forward
Months of debate over the flag issue, and the contentious city council races, have left Barre City looking for a way forward as Town Meeting Day nears.
With Riel currently the only female-identifying person on the six-member council, some residents are excited about the prospect of having three women councilors — half the membership.
Enough women are running to make that a possibility: Community College of Vermont professor Samn Stockwell is running against longtime resident Sherry Prindall in Ward 3, and Cambel faces Boltin in Ward 2.
“I would love a city council that had three women on it,” Kaye said. “If that happens, I think we’re gonna see a really different process with different ideas, and different ways of doing things.”
In looking back, Waszazak believes the months of debate over the flag has distracted from some of the city council’s other work.
“How much time did it take for the city council? One portion out of five or six meetings,” Waszazak said of the flag debate. “The rest of those times we were purchasing sidewalk plows. We were looking at the way that we administer public safety.”
Vaught said it has felt difficult recently to find common ground with other residents. She’d like to see people work harder to understand each other.
“I really do wish that people could stop and listen to understand everybody’s lived experiences,” she said. “I think if we can understand that, that is a start. But we need to stop and listen. It feels like that’s missing right now.”
