The Burlington City Council has once again rejected raising the Burlington Police Department officer cap.
The resolution, brought forward at Monday night’s meeting by Councilors Joan Shannon, D-South District, and Mark Barlow, I-North District, was voted down in a vote with five supporting, five against and one abstention.
This is the second time the council has voted on whether to increase the maximum number of police officers, which is currently set at 74, following its decision to cut the force by 30% through attrition last summer. Councilors intended to use the savings from the move to invest in racial justice measures and social services. The question about whether to raise the officer staffing cap came to the council again following a vote by the citizen oversight Police Commission last week.
The commission voted in favor of a resolution requesting that at its next meeting, the council consider raising the officer cap to 82 officers as the police department continues to face dwindling staffing levels. At Monday’s meeting, acting Police Chief Jon Murad said the BPD currently has 75 officers, but the force is expected to reach 70 active officers by this fall.
Councilors Jack Hanson, P-East District; Jane Stromberg, P-Ward 8; Perri Freeman, P-Central District; Ali Dieng, I-Ward 7; and City Council President Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, voted against the resolution. Councilor Zoraya Hightower, P-Ward 1, did not attend the meeting.
A motion brought forward by Dieng to postpone a vote on raising the cap to September also failed. Dieng said while he thinks the council “failed” in reforming the department with the vote last summer to cut police staffing, he wants the results of the highly anticipated CNA Consulting assessment of the BPD’s resources before voting on raising the cap, which is expected this fall. That motion failed in a vote with four supporting and six against with one abstention.
The body did vote in favor of immediately adding two community service liaison positions to assist with some police calls in an 8-2 vote with one abstention.
Support to raise the officer cap largely fell along the council’s party lines. Democrats and independent Barlow supported the move to raise the cap, while the council’s Progressive members and independent Dieng voted against.
Councilor Joan Shannon, D-South District, said many members of the council did not expect officer attrition to happen as quickly as it did. Since last summer, the police department has lost 20 officers. She also pointed to recent Burlington Police Officer Association survey results, which found that 52% of BPD staff are actively looking for employment outside the force.
She said she understands that some members on the council want to wait for the CNA report before making a decision on staffing levels but that the council took action to cut police staffing without a resource assessment of the department last summer.
“This is not expected to increase our police department, the size of the force. This is really just a measure to stabilize it where it is until we get that assessment,” Shannon said. “We really do need to stop the bleeding.”
Hanson said that when councilors passed last summer’s resolution to reduce the size of Burlington’s police force through attrition, he did not expect officers to leave so quickly.
He said he wanted councilors to remember why they voted to approve cuts in the first place — to reallocate resources and reimagine policing in the city. He said he wanted to wait for the CNA assessment before voting to increase the officer cap.
“There are issues right now, but what we’re doing and why we did it was really to try to completely transform how we address public safety,” Hanson said. “And specifically, change a system that has for so long in Burlington, in this country, had disparate outcomes and really harms people who are already the most marginalized.”
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger urged councilors to pass the resolution. He said the number of officers who have left the force deeply concerns him and that if the trend continues the department would no longer be functional.
“Public Safety is the top responsibility of city government,” Weinberger said. “And we are approaching the point where we can no longer fulfill that responsibility.”
A group of about 20 people attended Monday night’s council meeting with signs in support of the police department and raising the officer cap. Some read “fund BPD,” “hire more cops” and “public safety over politics.”
Many of those in support of raising the officer cap spoke at the meeting’s public comment period of the uptick in violent crime that the City of Burlington has been experiencing over the past few weeks.
Jeff Nick, chair of the Church Street Marketplace Commission, told councilors that he thinks the city is experiencing an “emergency situation” based upon concerns he’s heard from those visiting and working downtown.
“I understand you have studies going on, but we cannot wait for the results of those studies,” Nick said. “Action has to happen now.”
Some members in the community encouraged the council to hold strong on their previous action to cut police staffing.
“I believe this so-called public safety crisis has been fabricated by our police chief,” Will Keeton told councilors. “It’s hard to have any trust in a system, the police force, as a racist institution, which evades any form of community accountability.”
Short-term rentals and CityPlace
The council also referred a package of new ordinance changes for short-term rentals back to the body’s ordinance committee for more discussion and hearings.
The new rules, as they currently stand, intend to crack down on off-site hosts for short-term rentals to preserve the city’s long-term housing stock, which has become increasingly scarce over the years. The city is thought to linger between a 1% and 2% rental vacancy rate.
The changes would also dictate that no more than 50% of a building’s units are permitted to be short-term rentals, and they’re not allowed in buildings with five or more units. If these thresholds are crossed, the owner of the units needs to operate under a lodging license. Only some off-site hosting will be permitted for multi-unit buildings and for those who have owned their residence for more than three years in one- or two-unit buildings.
An additional fee is also being considered for short-term rentals, based upon a host’s income, to fund the city’s housing trust. The fee would need to be initiated through a charter change, which needs the approval of the Legislature and the governor.
The council also approved a resolution that allows the city to resolve the latest legal issue to hold up the perpetually stalled CityPlace downtown development project.
The resolution formally resolves litigation brought by property management company Redstone against CityPlace developers. The company sued developers and the city, alleging that the land rights developers needed from the property were not being properly obtained. A $400,000 deal to obtain the rights was brokered through meditation, which will be paid for through tax increment financing.
The council also approved the appointment of Dan Richardson for the head city attorney position. Richardson was previously a partner in the Montpelier law firm Tarrant, Gillies, Richardson and Shems.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to include a statement from Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger issued Monday night in support of the resolution to raise the police officer cap.
