Former residents of the Sears Lane encampment have been dealt another blow in their lawsuit against the Burlington city government: A Superior Court judge denied their request for a second hearing in the case.
The hearing would have been another chance for the campers, Alexus Grundy and Grey Barreda, to produce evidence that Burlington officials violated the duo’s rights by barring them from camping on a city-owned lot in late October.
But Judge Samuel Hoar in Chittenden Superior Court rejected the campers’ request, saying in a ruling made public Wednesday that Grundy and Barreda had a “full and fair opportunity” to demonstrate their legal standing to block the encampment’s removal during the first hearing Oct. 28.
Grundy and Barreda allege that, by removing campers from Sears Lane, Burlington violated its policy on disbanding encampments. In response, officials argue that, even if the city violated its policy — and it maintains it did not — campers don’t have a legal right to stop the city from disbanding encampments.
At the Oct. 28 hearing, the campers — who are representing themselves without the aid of a lawyer — seemed unprepared to answer questions from Hoar about why they had legal standing.
In their Nov. 12 motion for a new hearing, the campers said another day in court would “account for our lack of understanding of what evidence was required, which was remedied by reading the decision issued by the court.”
A second hearing would also give them more time to gather evidence, they argued, which would be appropriate in “a lawsuit involving displaced persons.”
But Hoar said those arguments did not change his opinion that the campers’ underlying lawsuit was unlikely to succeed, and declined to schedule another hearing.
With Hoar’s decision, two city-led motions remain at large in the lawsuit. One asks the judge to block a barrage of records requests the campers made, while the other asks Hoar to dismiss the suit.
The city’s motion to dismiss argued that the lawsuit’s initial goal — to halt the camp’s disbandment — is moot, since the city has already removed campers from the premises.
Yet Mayor Miro Weinberger acknowledged at an unrelated press conference Wednesday that six campers are still staying at Sears Lane.
“We are continuing to work with those individuals through our social workers and through our partnership” with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, Weinberger said. “At some point, we will take further enforcement actions beyond the ones that we have taken to address the public health issues that are there.”
In an interview, Barreda said the campers at Sears Lane feel a higher “level of sanctuary” at the site than in a government-provided hotel room.
“How would you feel if you had to get rid of your pet and get rid of your tools to move into a hotel just to run the risk of being kicked out at any moment?” Barreda told VTDigger. “Trying to make a hotel work has resulted in people losing thousands of dollars” worth of possessions.
City Attorney Dan Richardson told VTDigger that the presence of some campers at Sears Lane does not contradict the city’s mootness argument, since the city has already taken multiple steps to clear the encampment and hasn’t indicated it will reverse that course.
The campers still have another avenue to get a day in court, by requesting hearings on the city’s two motions.
Hoar left open that possibility in his ruling, saying that, while the court can no longer stop the city from closing down the camp, it can still rule on whether the campers “are entitled to any final remedy.”
Until then, however, the campers will continue to shelter in the place they consider home, Barreda said.
“A hotel is like a 250-square-foot room,” Barreda said. “Their lives are down at camp.”
Correction: A typographical error in the final quote has been corrected to “a 250-square-foot room.”
