BRATTLEBORO — Residents expressed shock last spring when the town’s selectboard voted with little public notice or debate to cancel the contract with its nearly 60-year emergency medical service provider, Rescue Inc., in favor of a yet-to-be-studied proposal for a fire department takeover.
Not a single constituent voiced support at that meeting or any one since, recordings show. Instead, many have raised questions in person, through the press and on social media. But that hasn’t stopped the board from continuing to pursue a plan that could as much as double yearly ambulance costs.
At the same time, downtown merchants, the Boys & Girls Club and 50 other local individuals and institutions have asked the board for help fighting drug dealing and related crime. As a start, they’ve requested surveillance cameras for public places.
Nearly a year later, the board has yet to approve anything.
Several residents who cast ballots in last week’s municipal election said a disconnect between taxpayers and town government was their reason for voting in new members Peter “Fish” Case and Franz Reichsman and nearly removing incumbent Elizabeth McLoughlin, who retained her seat by 85 votes.
They cited similar concerns in rejecting a call for a “just cause” residential rental eviction rule, even though voters in Essex and Winooski approved similar measures.
“The results of an election are not simply a judgment on candidates, but a commentary on the moment in which the electorate finds itself,” board member Jessica Gelter posted on Facebook after her own defeat. “The voters of Brattleboro stated tonight that a clear change in leadership was needed to help them feel more sure-footed.”
Gelter noted “this has been a difficult year for our beloved town, a time of uncertainty and anxiety.” But residents who shared their views with VTDigger believe local leaders are responsible for much of that turmoil.
Brattleboro started 2022 by welcoming a new town manager, former New Jersey administrator Octavian “Yoshi” Manale. Within weeks, Manale was working behind closed doors to replace Rescue with the fire department — a plan the board revealed to the public just a week before the vote.
Local leaders still haven’t shared any of the facts or figures that caused them to approve the switch, which they said would reap up to $700,000 in insurance revenue but actually could cost taxpayers almost that much annually, according to a feasibility study commissioned after the change.
Manale abruptly resigned a month after the EMS decision sparked headlines, and officials have since acknowledged his initial memo on the issue was “flawed.” But local leaders nonetheless have continued to pursue the plan, angering residents who stood outside the polls with such signs as “Resuscitate Rescue — Select New Board.”
Local lawyer William Kraham is one of many vocal opponents to the change. In a May 2022 letter to the editor titled “With Rescue vote, our elected officers have failed us,” he credited Rescue with saving him from sudden cardiac arrest when minutes count. He then noted that firefighters’ EMS plan when busy is to seek backup from Keene, New Hampshire, or Greenfield, Massachusetts — each a half-hour away.
“This is not a choice between using Uber or Lyft for your ride to the hospital,” Kraham wrote. “I have a sense of foreboding that our elected officers have chosen to gamble with people’s lives.”
Nearly a year later, Kraham said his wife, seeking to run for Town Meeting representative, recently sought petition signatures from many of their neighbors.
“Every single one of them wants Rescue back,” he said.
Kraham added that last week’s election came just after the statewide news outlet Seven Days published a cover story on ambulances headlined “Vermont’s Emergency Medical Services System Is Struggling to Survive. Can It Be Saved?” Its conclusion: “The regional model on display at Rescue Inc. could be Vermont’s best chance at ensuring there’s always an ambulance around when you need one.”
“What struck me is that they were holding up Rescue as a paradigm program,” Kraham said of a service local leaders nonetheless dropped.
Voters who spoke to VTDigger also expressed concerns about crime. Representatives of downtown businesses and organizations have complained to the selectboard almost monthly since last May about burglaries, vandalism, public alcohol and drug use and dealing, littering and loitering, and public urination and defecation.
Last fall, the Boys & Girls Club reported its van’s catalytic converter was stolen from a $1,000-a-year parking space in the municipal Transportation Center, leaving the vehicle undrivable until administrators came up with a $2,400 replacement. This winter, people outside the facility encountered a dead body in an incident authorities would only say wasn’t suspicious.
Leaders of several downtown businesses and organizations said they aren’t faulting the local police department, which is budgeted for 27 officers but has only 18 because of a nationwide staffing shortage. Instead, they question why the selectboard has yet to approve their call for other monitoring measures, starting with surveillance cameras first requested last spring.
“For some reason the past year, the selectboard just wouldn’t take action,” said Michelle Simpson, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club. “I do think that people obviously are hungry for a new approach. Inaction is a disservice to everyone, especially the people who are suffering from addiction and homelessness.”
That latter point is one reason Brattleboro voters said they rejected a call to restrict tenant evictions to such “just cause” reasons as nonpayment of rent, breach of a lease or violation of state law. Many residents expressed worry it’s already too challenging to remove renters suspected of drug dealing or other disruptive behavior.
“In my opinion, it would make our current local landlords less willing to continue being owners in Brattleboro — let alone develop badly needed new units,” resident Michael Bosworth wrote in one letter to the editor.
This month’s results came nearly a year after outgoing selectboard member Tim Wessel posed one last question before he and his colleagues voted unanimously to replace Rescue.
“What’s the remedy for those people in the public who are not happy?” Wessel asked at the time.
Answered municipal attorney Bob Fisher: Cast a ballot for someone else in the 2023 election.
The two new selectboard members won’t be sworn in until after Town Meeting on March 25. But the agenda for this week’s regular board meeting reports that new Town Manager John Potter will recommend his staff investigate all EMS options this spring and summer for consideration this fall.
As for community safety, local leaders have yet to reveal any next steps. But Simpson attended a Downtown Brattleboro Alliance meeting after the election and felt a collective hope that a reconstituted town government might finally take action.
“With any team or organization, you have to have the right people in the right seats at the right time,” Simpson said. “This is a wonderful opportunity.”