BRATTLEBORO — The robbery was fast: A woman was parking last week in the downtown Transportation Center, she told authorities, when a man with a knife took her keys and, seconds later, her car.
But the town government’s response has been slow, people at neighboring businesses and organizations say.
Locals have thanked police for quickly probing and publicizing the theft. But they’re questioning why the selectboard hasn’t addressed their calls to broaden municipal security measures, even as property crimes have risen this year to as many as 55 a month, according to town figures.
Brattleboro Police say reports of assaults were up 15% and sexual crimes up 26% from 2021 to 2022. But the number of burglaries — of everything from cash register drawers to catalytic converters — nearly doubled from 59 to 108 in the same period, their statistics show.
“We have a lot of crime in our community,” Dick DeGray, a former selectboard member who cares for Main Street’s flower planters, told municipal leaders a year ago on May 3, 2022. “I think it is extremely important for the town to look at starting to get cameras in strategic places.”
DeGray, who says he has seen an ongoing series of “smash-and-grab” robberies that have made local and state headlines, continued to ask the board for more security measures last June 7 and 21, July 5, Sept. 20, Nov. 1, Dec. 13, Jan. 10 and 17, May 2 and, most recently, last week, meeting minutes and recordings show.
“Nothing has happened — not one thing has changed,” DeGray told the board after the May 14 car robbery. “How disappointing is it when people in the community are asking for your help and it doesn’t happen?”
In response, municipal leaders said they recently signed a $75,000 contract to replace the Transportation Center’s broken camera system. But the rest of the solution, they said, required time.
Take the police department. It is budgeted for 27 officers but has only 17 — just two-thirds its full complement — because of a nationwide staffing shortage. Facing as many as 900 calls a month, police are prioritizing crimes against people over those against property.
“We do try to have as many patrols as we can,” Police Chief Norma Hardy told the board last week. “But I’ve been short-staffed so much I am only starting to be able to fill some of our empty ranks.”
The department is aiming to enroll six to eight new recruits from the Vermont Police Academy this year, but the subsequent training requirements will take months to fulfill before graduates can actually join the force.
In the meantime, new Town Manager John Potter said he was set to propose hiring private security guards for the Transportation Center — a plan endorsed by the police chief.
“The idea for the added security is another tool for us to utilize — not instead of police, in addition to,” Hardy said. “We are still answering calls all over Brattleboro, not just downtown.”
The board, hearing most residents’ complaints under its “public participation” meeting item, has placed the topic of crime on its agenda at least twice in the past year. The first time came last July, when members listened to the police and public for almost an hour and a half.
“It was a really long Brattleboro Selectboard meeting with not much getting done,” the online community forum ibrattleboro.com summed up the session in a post titled “Much Nothing About Ado.” “They heard about downtown safety issues, but took no action.”
The second time came last December when the board reviewed the annual police budget. After the chief reported the high burglary statistics, several board members appeared to take the numbers personally.
“It’s hard for me to not come off defensive,” member Daniel Quipp said at the time, “but it kind of looks like, whoa, the Brattleboro selectboard has said we’re not going to fund this police department; we don’t care to give them enough resources.”
The board has fully funded the police budget, records show — but taken no action on any public requests to broaden current municipal security measures.
One of the Transportation Center’s still-working cameras photographed the recent car robber, a “white male, average height and build” wearing sunglasses, a hat and hoodie, police said. That wasn’t the case when neighbors at the Boys & Girls Club found their van vandalized — and put out of commission — last fall while parked in a $1,000-a-year municipally leased space.
“We can attest to ongoing public alcohol and drug use and sales, intoxication, littering and loitering,” Boys & Girls Club officials have written the board when not complaining at meetings in June, July, September, November and January, according to meeting minutes and recordings.
Representatives of the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance and area Chamber of Commerce, for their part, have appeared before the board several times to report numerous “smash-and-grab” break-ins.
Everyone’s Books, for example, reported its first robbery a year ago. The store installed shatterproof glass and “no cash at night” signs. But that hasn’t stopped would-be thieves from continuing to take aim with bricks and rocks.
“We had never been broken into, and then all of a sudden, an explosion,” owner Nancy Braus said. “It’s expensive, it’s scary, it’s upsetting. It just feels like it’s going to keep happening.”
Residents now are concerned that the imminent closure of the state motel voucher program could bring more problems, as some 270 local people are set to lose their living space in the next month.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, town government had to spend $1,000 a month in 2019 for portable restrooms after hearing complaints about “significant amounts of human waste” in parks where people without shelter were camping, local leaders said at the time.
“I’m a supporter of the selectboard, but it’s hard to support you when there’s so much inactivity,” DeGray told its members this month. “There’s a lot of damage and mayhem going on in our downtown that we need to address.”