This commentary is by Kolby LaMarche, a Democrat from Burlington.
On a humid day in the month of June 2020, the Burlington City Council adopted a resolution, spearheaded by council Progressives, which capped the Burlington Police Department’s officer count at 74, rendering a 30% reduction.
What followed was not unforetold — rather, the damning repercussions of this stunt were loudly warned to the city.
Typically, when Vermont makes a feature in national news outlets, Sen. Bernie Sanders is the highlight. However, recently our city’s police crisis has garnered their interest. NBC’s segment titled “Burlington decided to cut its police force 30 percent. Here’s what happened next” offered fair coverage of Burlington’s strife.
As the segment covered, the Burlington City Council recently reversed course, upgrading the head-count of the police department. Vital to this vote were Progressive Councilors Zoraya Hightower and Jane Stromberg.
While I applaud Hightower and Stromberg for their change of heart and openness to bipartisanship, I am afraid the damage of their, and of their colleagues, previous decisions have created a difficult storm, one that will, unfortunately, shadow Burlington for years to come.
Believe me, honestly, when I say that I appreciate the passions and hard-work ethics of our Progressive councilors. Though, after watching their council majority attempt, and horribly fail, to govern, it seems all they are capable of is emitting incipient verbal nonsense and empty platitudes filled with dodgy solidarity.
Progressives are quick to discount the claims surrounding Burlington’s police crisis by asserting that the events of crime in the city are simply “hyped-up” to push forward a pro-police agenda. Let’s be abundantly clear: Never before in Burlington history has a sitting mayor had their car vandalized and smashed, their partner and children be chased by ill-intended protesters, or had their house broken into.
This is not hyped-up. This is their lived experience and I would hasten to remind my Progressive neighbors that they ought not to deny the real anxiety that Burlingtonians are having over this crisis. And as a political faction who preaches that the lived experience of others must be heard — and I agree they should — outright rejecting the lived experiences of Burlington’s victims of crime is disgraceful.
This leads to a larger theme, which I believe has been of great import and national interest not only in the media but in the minds of those Americans suffering similar crises: impulsive governance. The nation continues, I pray, to mourn all those lost to police brutality and to renew our commitments to work diligently to solve the disappointing failures of our justice and policing institutions.
The question of whether we desperately need police reform is not debatable. However, if we wish to create concrete, proactive and meaningful change, we mustn’t rush headstrong into impulsively legislating our problems away.
The damages of inaction stain our nation’s history, from civil rights to a woman’s right to vote and health care access, but it was with facts, process and great care that these injustices were finally remedied — and some continue to require action today. Delicate issues like this must be dealt with both alacrity and a respect for process. However, also equally important to the process of change is taking corrective action, in a timely manner, where such processes were blown-over or ignored.
What compounds the harm that these sensitive policies have had is not just their impulsive enactment, but the failures of government — in this case the council — to take immediate responsibility and swift corrective action at the first sight of crisis. A separate, written portion of NBC’s coverage featured Councilor Ali Dieng, an independent. In the piece, Dieng was framed as someone who took a stand against impulsive governance and called for process and civility.
However, even though Dieng originally voted against the Racial Justice Resolution, Dieng knew there was a crisis coming, and he — as guilty as his Progressive counterparts — not only sat idly by but served as a petulant hindrance for taking responsibility and corrective action, I argue to score political points for his failed mayoral bid.
In the face of a safety crisis, Dieng voted no on a proposal by Murad to restore some officers to avert crisis. Dieng voted no on the Police Commission’s unanimously passed recommendation to increase officer count. Instead of being the voters’ hero, which he no doubt thought of himself, Dieng was an obstructionist, preventing the corrective action that was so desperately needed.
There is plenty of blame to be tossed around the Burlington City Council, but the glaring fact still remains: Burlington is in crisis. Not only can we learn from the events which have proceeded over the past year, but we can take notes in leadership from those like Democratic Councilor Joan Shannon, who not only attempted to halt the impulsive governance of the Progressive majority but was quick to call for corrective action.
It doesn’t matter if you are Democrat, Progressive, Republican, independent or otherwise, long-lasting change comes from process, building consensus, and listening to the diverse opinions and lived experiences of the public, not by ramming through untested and unvetted policy that creates an unsafe community.
