WEST BRATTLEBORO-We look to the Brattleboro Selectboard for leadership, not for them to get bogged down in the weeds.
Ironically, it is because of their leadership efforts - in using emergency powers to hire nine new Police Department personnel to address community safety issues - that they ended up bumping up against another emergency: the astronomical rise in property taxes that Vermont property owners are experiencing.
The Selectboard knows that the 22% increase in municipal taxes originally arrived at in the budget process is untenable. Since then, the board has chosen to follow a process of reviewing staff-proposed cuts of 5% and 10% in various line items.
Will this process eventually result in a palatable property tax increase, i.e., one in the 5%-or-less range? I personally doubt it, though time will tell.
The more important question to ask is whether this 5%-or-10%, bit-by-bit process is really needed.
The two big drivers that pushed things to the 22% level are the new solid waste contract and the nine new police personnel that are part of the Community Safety Plan. If we consider the solid waste cost necessary, that leaves the one-third increase in P.D. personnel as the other major factor.
Can the community safety situation be considered an emergency?
We have some of our youth and other nonprofit organizations located in a Flat Street/Main Street area that make their clientele vulnerable to bad actors. We have neighborhoods not far from downtown where drug houses draw customers from far and wide and operate too regularly. We have had a number of homicides. Many downtown businesses have had their windows broken at night. So, yes, we have real needs.
Personally, as a regular (four-times-a-week) visitor to my downtown office, I do not believe panhandling to be a community safety issue. Nor do I believe shopping in downtown Brattleboro to be unsafe. Also, it is my understanding that one person, already apprehended, was responsible for most if not all of the window break-ins.
Can the real community safety issues be addressed with fewer than nine new Police Department members? I certainly think so. We start with a substantial plus with the quality of the department's leadership. Then, just opening a police substation in the Transportation Center should have a real effect, given its strategic location. While the Brattleboro Resource Action Team seems already to be making a difference, however, do we really need the additional four more team members and three more police officers the Selectboard has approved?
Other changes don't, in my opinion, depend on more Brattleboro staff. Making progress on housing the unhoused will have some effect but is a process that will just take time. Additionally, if we can have swifter justice through a state court system with more resources and through appropriate changes in our state laws, then we - the southern entrance to Vermont for drug pushers coming up the interstate - just might become a less-inviting place to conduct crime.
Meanwhile, the many private homeowners and private apartment owners and business owners should not have to deal with a property tax rise of emergency proportions, which would give them more incentive to abandon our downtown.
Michael Bosworth
West Brattleboro
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