Elizabeth McLoughlin is vice chair of the Brattleboro Selectboard. The views expressed herein are her own and do not reflect the views of the Selectboard.
BRATTLEBORO-I was surprised and disappointed to read former Town Manager Peter Elwell's letter to Representative Town Meeting members about the recently passed Community Conduct Ordinance. As my colleague on the Selectboard, Peter Case, commented, Mr. Elwell didn't call us first to discuss it.
The making of this ordinance was an open process with a first and a second reading. There were significant changes in the drafting process which improved the ordinance at second reading.
As a courtesy, Mr. Elwell could have entered the conversation then, in the drafting process, but instead, he chose to criticize the ordinance after the fact, from the same base of disinformation that others have been spreading: that the ordinance is criminalizing poverty.
This is a false narrative.
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I hoped that Mr. Elwell would appreciate the innovative nature of this ordinance and the opportunity for this ordinance to serve as a means to help get people the social services that they need. I further hoped that he would applaud the current Selectboard and town manager for this work and the fact that we are taking steps to alleviate the crisis downtown that we are all living through.
Mr. Elwell and the social service agency he helps lead could join with us to bring people coordinated services, to help the people on the street and in the community. This is a shared goal.
I'm surprised he doesn't see that this ordinance is a vehicle by which people acting out and in need, whether in poverty or not in poverty, can access assistance.
It is a measure intended to address the lawlessness of a small percentage of people with civil, not criminal, penalties. And those penalties can be erased by seeking aid from the many social services offered in Brattleboro.
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The crime and civil disorder in Brattleboro are real. Don't be led to believe that there is no crime here, or that people fear merely the perception of it.
There are burglaries, deaths (including six recent homicides), assaults, sex crimes, thefts, and reports of disturbing levels of trespassing. This is in conjunction with consistent, visible crime and disorder in our downtown area due to open-air drug markets and related illegal actions.
Do we wish to maintain the existing status quo? What we are doing now - with a broken and circular criminal justice response and pleas from outreach teams to access help on a purely voluntary basis - is not working.
Criminal gangs are at work in Brattleboro. They are victimizing the most vulnerable. They are creating drug users and preying upon existing drug users, and they are coopting people's apartments and houses. This small percentage of people are creating an outsized proportion of chaos, disorder, and victimization.
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We are attempting to assist the people who are being victimized (especially people experiencing poverty) by the drug dealers, pimps, and those who steal to buy drugs.
We are not "othering" people. Those in poverty who are not engaged in illegal activity are helped by this ordinance, as it protects both people in poverty and the general public from the chaos we are all living with at present.
We are not "paternalistic," we are realistic, and we know that we all need to work together to get people to the social services they need to address their circumstances. Our actions are the opposite of paternalistic: We endeavor to treat people like adults and ask for mutual respect, responsibility, and accountability for their actions.
We have not been "hasty." This solution emerged two years ago from the need to protect children from the disorder and chaos on Flat Street and the need for two nonprofit child-centered institutions, the Boys and Girls Club and the New England Youth Theatre, to protect children as they walk to and from these facilities.
This action has been on the Selectboard agenda for the past two years. It was a priority goal to address for this year by a unanimous vote. Many in the downtown and in our residential neighborhoods have been clamoring for help with what they see as our deteriorating civil society.
There were Selectboard meetings to present, discuss, and suggest changes to this ordinance. The board appreciated this public input, and changes and modifications can still be made to improve upon the ordinance as we gain experience with its implementation.
We also know that providing public restrooms 24/7 is an attractive nuisance, as drug use and prostitution in them were problems identified when the town provided portable toilets under Mr. Elwell's leadership. We now have a plan for creating both daytime restrooms and 24/7 access restrooms, associated with the new police substation in the Brattleboro Transportation Center.
We are not "vague," we are flexible and reasonable with many off ramps for people to seek help and account for their illegal actions.
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Where does the Community Conduct Ordinance focus attention? Areas that are visited often by young people and where people are handling money in a public space.
What illegal activity does the ordinance prohibit? Selling illicit drugs, fighting, directing a threat of physical harm, engaging in sexual conduct, and being intoxicated, among other things. People engaged in the most serious offenses will be charged criminally; others would benefit from the step down to civil penalties as set forth in the ordinance.
How is the ordinance enforced? By first engaging in a conversation with the person engaged in illegal activity in a public space, asking them to stop or move to another location, issuing an order against trespass if the behavior continues or repeats, and fining them if they are not getting the message that their illegal acts are impacting others.
What are the off ramps? Stop the illegal acts when asked by a member of the Brattleboro Resource Assistance Team (BRAT), respect the trespass order for 30 days, appeal the trespass order within seven days, or ask that it be waived at any time for purposes of work, access to services, or for engaging in a restoration activity like visiting with a drug addiction counselor or picking up trash around town.
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The ordinance can best be seen as a tool within the context of a coordinated set of actions the town manager, the Selectboard, and the police department have initiated to address public safety: the BRAT team, the Data Project, and One Brattleboro. Here's how it all comes together:
• The BRAT team works with its own community resource specialist (whose job is to leverage his lived experience to connect people with social services) and HCRS's police-department-embedded mental-health social workers, all of whom can direct a person to the appropriate social service organization to address their specific needs. All of these personnel have de-escalation training.
• Brattleboro has also benefitted from enhanced data analysis in concert with the state data experts. Through this analysis, the police department can track the top locations of police calls, the type of crime or call for assistance, and even the repeated calls from key individuals who are causing harm or in need of assistance.
The BPD offers confidential data sharing with social service agencies to break down barriers to information and allow greater collaboration and understanding of a person's specific need for assistance.
• The One Brattleboro team was organized to create an association of state and local government leaders together with those at social service agencies with one goal - to work together to identify and assist members of the public who are in need.
This triage of those individuals who are frequently before the BRAT team will concentrate services and help to address a person's needs. This process seeks to create enhanced linkage with social services, for both the perpetrators of crimes and the victims of crimes.
These measures and people - Community Conduct Ordinance, the police department's BRAT team and its substation, the Data Project, and One Brattleboro - are what we can do at the local level to help our community in crisis.
Let's see how it can work while we continue to ask for more help from the governor, the Legislature, and the Judiciary to address crime, drug addiction, mental health, and housing the unhoused.
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