The Classic Example of a Town That Goes Woke

Burlington, Vermont, the far left town of 43,777 that launched the political career of Bernie Sanders, is now begging to hire more police officers and admitting they made a mistake.

Today, CrimeGrade.Org rates the town a D- on their “Overall Crime Grade” score:

In 2020, the City Council removed over 30 police officers in their budget after the George Floyd incident.  They also declared racism a public health emergency. 

● Initially, they had funding for 105 officers but lowered it to 74. 

● Today, they only have 68 officers and are struggling to recruit. 

● The homeless and criminals are destroying the town. 

● Assault is up 40% and gun crime is up 300%. 

● In total there were 30,760 incidents recorded for 2023, that’s over the previous high of 29,684 in 2018 and 25,190 in 2022.

The police department’s wrap-up report for 2023 tells the story:

“Incidents in 2023 were up 22% compared to 2022. They were up 43% over 2021. BPD addressed more incidents than in 2018 with 50% fewer patrol officers than in 2018. Of the 30,760 incidents in 2023, the BPD ‘stacked’ 4,150, or 14%. Additionally, 3,872 were taken via online reporting, or 13%.”

It is notable that Vermont has the second highest per capita rate of homelessness in the country, according to the 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

In Burlington, many of the homeless have been ravaged by addiction, driven by drugs like fentanyl and xylazine, also known as “tranq.”

What did the city council use the taxpayer money for instead of paying for the police they terminated?

They installed (for over $3 million) and operated 30 small pods to house some of the homeless. Each pod was originally projected to cost about $133 per bed nightly, which comes out to nearly $4,000 a month.

The original eight-month budget allowed $740,000 for shelter operations, including $530,000 of staffing and security, and $210,000 for custodial, maintenance, utilities and other expenses. This was in addition to $120,000 for case management.

In the last three quarters (after the pods were opened) police experienced 1,131 crime calls in the immediate area.

Earlier this month the Burlington city council approved $100,000 for the Fletcher Free Library, a hot spot in the city for open drug use and loitering by homeless people, to hire additional staff.

How did they not know firing police would increase crime?

Former Mayor Miro Weinberger admitted just before he left office after 12 years this summer, “I can’t think of another issue where we had basically a two-year or 18-month debate over it. I can’t think of another issue when there were more significant consequences as a result [of a policy decision].”

“I knew when this came to the floor all of the sudden over a weekend, I knew it was trouble,” he added.

Proclaiming the program was not local-taxpayer funded, the city did spend over $1.4 million in  American Rescue Plan Act money (federal Covid-19 relief funds) and more than $600,000 of Vermont Office of Economic Opportunity grant money–both funded by American taxpayers.

After one year of operation, the average length of stay for guests at the Elmwood Avenue shelter was 232 days.

Evan Langfeldt,  CEO of O’Brien Brothers, the company that owns McKenzie House Apartments near the pods, said, “In my mind, it’s a dereliction of responsibility that the city has not put any resources towards what has clearly been a rise in bad behavior and criminal activity on all the adjacent properties.”

“I was a police officer in Vermont 20 years ago, and even back then we had to tread lightly because the ultra-liberals wanted social workers to handle everything while soft judges continually released re-offenders on the same conditions that they just violated,” David Manch, now living in Massachusetts said.

“I will say this. I worked on a project in Burlington about 14 years ago, I thought the town was beautiful,” observed Shannon of Texas. “I went back to work another project over the Thanksgiving Holiday and weekend last year for the first time since, the place was a complete Sh*&$#@)!!”

“Same logic that says banning firearms will cut down on gun violence.. these people can’t be serious,” replied Trevor Watson.

“I have relatives there,” Mark Luther indicated. “It was such a beautiful and fun city to visit back in the 1980’s. Scary and uncomfortable to wander around the formerly beautiful downtown now.”

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IN GOD WE TRUST

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Dodie & Jack Dennis are regular customers of Green Pasture. Highly recommended.

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