Timothy Belknap describes himself as a "downtown resident and Brattleboro lover."
BRATTLEBORO-The yes vote to overturn the Acceptable Community Conduct Ordinance at the Brattleboro Special Representative Town Meeting of Dec. 12 was highly organized and effective.
Some very good points were made, to which pro-ordinance responses were lacking.
Point: An unhoused individual will not be able to pay a fine.
Response: In New York City, similar fines are waived if accompanied by a letter of support. Brattleboro could do the same.
Points: The enforcement areas are either too wide or too narrow, and the ordinance has not been reviewed by third party legal.
Response: Let us have it reviewed by a third party.
Point: A civil infraction will prevent an individual from being eligible for assistance at a given program.
Response: Modify the requisites for the program.
Point: People believe that the police are part of the problem.
Response: Watch Planet Hank's videos to see how humane and professional the Brattleboro police actually are.
Point: The administrative cost is unknown.
Response: The cost of not responding to these problems is also unknown and even more frightening.
Point: Individuals living in high-response properties may not be willing to call the police when they need them, lest the landlord evict them.
Response: This point presumes that neither the police nor the town will have empathy when tallying calls and misses the point of the ordinance, which is to signal to landlords that tenants are openly dealing drugs.
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Let's have a third party review the ordinance. Let's rework it so that it will apply to the entire town. Then let's put it to a town-wide ballot vote.
People will quickly see that the vast majority of people appreciate that the Selectboard is trying to do something.
People who either live downtown or wish to shop downtown have absolutely had it. Some say that seeing the unhoused makes us uncomfortable. The real issue here is that we have a well-founded fear based on firsthand experience.
We live downtown so that we can walk to all of the commerce that makes Brattleboro Brattleboro. Our private drive has become rife with uninvited visitors - including one armed with a machete - testing both our car and house doors in the middle of the afternoon.
Needless to say, it is not safe for our daughter to walk to the Co-op for her afternoon snack, especially when she stumbles upon two individuals, whose arms show evidence of drug use, snorting drugs in the restroom there. We tell her not to wash her hands or touch anything lest she fall upon fentanyl residue.
Instead of going to the Co-op, should she play in the park littered with syringes?
Meanwhile, we suffer a 14% property tax increase, knowing that 20 individuals have caused 6% of police calls.
Why are we paying for these 20 individuals who have clearly made their decisions? We should be supporting the hard-working teachers, librarians, police officers, and firefighters of this town.
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Imagine a downtown Brattleboro all boarded up. What would be the attraction for residents and tourists alike? That is the direction this is going, with businesses tired of broken windows, of overt drug dealing and consumption, and their shoppers and residents understandably frightened.
This ordinance is not aimed at the unhoused but at those individuals willing to betray the public trust and use violence against the rest of us. It gives us some additional tools to take back our town.
I, for one, fully support any legal means - including the Selectboard's initiative - to make the town safe again. We will then see that for the majority of the residents, their empathy is worn out and that they actually wish to take much-more-radical action than that of the moderate Selectboard.
The real issues here are making our town safe and making sure it has a future.
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