BURLINGTON — Formation of a new Community Control Board overseeing the Burlington Police department would be “problematic,” Mayor Miro Weinberger said during a press conference on Thursday.
Weinberger and other city officials held the event to outline a series of initiatives aimed at addressing public safety following what Acting Police Chief Jon Murad called “a really tough year” in 2022 that included five homicides.
Murad, Weinberger and City Councilor Ben Traverse, D-Ward 5, all called on voters to reject the control board ballot initiative.
The ballot item is a proposed charter change that would establish a control board with expanded disciplinary powers over police officers and the police chief. It would also exclude the chief from the discipline process.
The proposal achieved the required signatures of 5% of registered voters to earn a spot on the Burlington ballot on Town Meeting Day in March.
“I am urging the public to reject this ballot petition,” Weinberger said, which he said is similar to a City Council initiative that he vetoed in 2020. “I was very concerned about this proposal then because I believed we were just starting to see a real exodus of police officers and I believe the passage of this community control board would deeply exacerbate those issues.”
Murad said he thought the proposal would create “unreasonable levels of citizen oversight” that would hinder plans to rebuild the police department.
“The fact of the matter is that this proposes a system that is unfair to the city. It is a model that wouldn’t be fair to any department in the city,” Murad said.
Traverse said he respected the work of those who organized the ballot initiative and wants to see “robust, transparent community review of our police department. I believe the ballot initiative that will be on the ballot for voters in March, though, takes it a step way too far.”
City Councilor Joe Magee, P-Ward 2, who supports the proposal, responded in an interview after the press conference.
“I do not think this is something that goes too far,” Magee said. “I think, you know, we have to look at the history of policing in the United States. We have to look at the history of high levels of municipal government covering up instances of police misconduct, and uses of force, particularly against people of color.”
The pitch to reject the community control board was discussed Thursday as part of a plan to rebuild the police department, one of four public safety priorities outlined at the press conference. Others were to end the recent spike in gun violence and prevent future violence, to improve the downtown climate, and to make progress on police reforms.
Weinberger, calling public safety “the top responsibility of city government,” outlined 16 initiatives to address his four priorities. They include formation of a new city task force on gun violence, legislative priorities, a new senior-level position at the police department to oversee its social services work, reforms at the police department, and police retention efforts.
After the press conference on Thursday afternoon, Magee sent a statement on behalf of City Council Progressives that said they will be unveiling their own public safety priorities during a press conference next week.
“While we appreciate the administration’s dedication to engaging community stakeholders in gun violence prevention, releasing use-of-force body camera footage, and training law enforcement on the realities of racism, we feel the Mayor’s public safety priorities ultimately continue to fall short of a vision to effectively reduce violence and other harms in our community,” Magee’s statement said. “Without a stronger commitment to rebuilding trust in police that includes community oversight, even the best of these proposals will struggle to succeed.”
Among Weinberger’s new initiatives was the task force on gun violence, which will be led by Kimberly Carson, the city’s newly appointed director of racial equity, inclusion and belonging. The task force will be asked to define the violence problem and engage with community partners and experts, community leaders, the school district, youth groups and others. The task force is expected to convene for the first time in March, according to a printed handout of Weinberger’s plan.
“We want to really come from a collective approach and to truly look at public safety and to address public safety, from the mayor’s perspective and our perspective, that we want to move past reactive and really think about being preventative and thinking about how health and all those things impact how we make decisions,” Carson said during the press conference.
To help address the downtown climate, Weinberger said the administration plans to create a new position at the police department for a civilian to oversee its crisis and social work. That work is expected to expand this year with the hiring of a new crisis team. Burlington officials expect Vermont State Police and other Chittenden County police agencies to continue to sign up for overtime shifts in the city, as well.
The remaining priorities center on the police department itself. Under the plan, a new project manager would be hired to assist the police chief in implementing reforms, including recommendations a consultant made in 2021.
Murad also announced that the department will implement a new body camera policy, under which footage will be released within 30 days of certain types of incidents, including use of force. Murad noted the police commission agreed to the policy in 2021, but it had not been rolled out because of the need for a redaction specialist at the department. That role is now filled, but the policy will not be retroactive, applying only to incidents from this year on.
Murad also announced that the police department will get training on institutional and structural racism from the Center for Policing Equity.