Peter Elwell, retired as Brattleboro town manager and now the board president of Groundworks Collaborative, sent this email (submitted at our request and lightly adapted for print) to all Representative Town Meeting members solely on his own behalf, as he explains in the piece.
BRATTLEBORO-Members of Representative Town Meeting: Please vote to reject the Acceptable Community Conduct ordinance on Dec. 12. It is unnecessary and it is flawed.
Before explaining my deep concerns about the ordinance, I need to say that I really had hoped never to write such a piece as this. Other than serving on the Town's Charter Revision Commission and having occasional and limited conversations with town officials, I have kept my distance from town government since retiring in 2021 after seven years as Brattleboro's Town Manager.
I believe it is ethically and practically important for retired municipal leaders to step away and leave room for their successors to do town business without the potentially confusing or distracting involvement of those of us who once held significant authority but are no longer involved in the details of town issues and actions.
However, after almost three years of keeping that distance, I feel compelled to speak out now about this ordinance and about the context in which it was adopted.
I also need to be clear that I am not speaking for anyone but myself. During the past two years, I have served on both the staff and board of Groundworks Collaborative and currently I am the board president. I also serve on the board of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont (HHAV).
I disclose those connections because my work with Groundworks and the HHAV has informed my opinions about the ordinance, but I am not speaking on behalf of either Groundworks or the HHAV.
* * *
At best, this ordinance constitutes the paternalistic othering of an entire class of people who are financially distressed and already marginalized by failed systems in our community, state, and country. At worst, it criminalizes poverty in Brattleboro.
Much of the ordinance is too vague. One exception is the clearly worded clause that prohibits the essential bodily functions of urination and defecation, despite the town's refusal to install portable toilets downtown or even allow them to be installed on town property.
While the waiver provisions of the ordinance give the appearance of compassion and support, they lack detail and may not work. They concentrate in individual town administrators the power to judge someone's intentions or willingness to receive help, without due process or checks and balances. The ordinance's restorative process "off ramps" depend on overloaded systems (for drug treatment and/or mental health support) that are beyond the town's control, thereby diluting or defeating their effectiveness as alternatives to punishment.
I have heard some people say things like "What harm can there be in just trying the ordinance to see if it works?"
In addition to the obvious harm to some individuals, here's a broader collective harm: Portions of the ordinance appear to be unconstitutional, so we should expect lawsuits that will consume precious resources and take our attention away from implementing collaborative community solutions.
The Selectboard's adoption of this ordinance was too rushed back in September, resulting in a flawed and segregated action.
Some who opposed the ordinance at that time were willing to work with the town to improve it or to have community-based supports accompany it. The Selectboard rejected this integrated approach and pushed ahead.
* * *
Compounding the problems inherent in the ordinance itself is that the ordinance was paired with approval of unprecedented unbudgeted expenditures - almost $700,000 for this year and tentatively almost $1 million for next year - primarily to fund nine additional employees in the police department.
I acknowledge that the Selectboard felt significant community pressure to "do something" and that not everyone believes the priorities expressed in this expenditure are misplaced.
However, regardless of one's feelings about these new positions, it is unequivocally true that this decision violated one of the most basic principles of managing public finances: You never use a nonrecurring revenue (e.g., fund balance) to pay for a recurring expense (e.g., employees).
Adhering to this principle promotes financial stability and allows for future flexibility in decision making. Violating this principle leads to financial instability and forces unpleasant choices (e.g., higher taxes versus unwelcome service cuts).
We are painfully experiencing this reality in the current self-created budget crisis. Substantial cuts in all other areas of town government are now being considered in order to pay for these rushed police staffing decisions. It will take months or even years to correct that budget mistake.
But, on Dec. 12, Town Meeting members can overturn the ordinance and prevent the numerous and varied harms that implementing it would otherwise cause to individual people and to our community as a whole.
The actual question for RTM will be whether or not to "disapprove" the ordinance. Please vote to disapprove.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at [email protected].