By Kolby LaMarche

The Burlington City Council on Monday night unanimously approved a resolution asking the state for immediate and short-term help addressing houselessness, mental illness, substance use disorder and criminal activity that councilors said are overwhelming the city and the rest of Vermont.

The measure, sponsored by a bipartisan group of councilors including Progressive CouThe Burlington City Council on Monday night unanimously approved a resolution asking the state for immediate and short-term help addressing houselessness, mental illness, substance use disorder and criminal activity that councilors said are overwhelming the city and the rest of Vermont.

The measure, sponsored by a bipartisan group of all but one Democrat councilor, Becca Brown-McKnight, directs Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak to take the request to Governor Phil Scott and report back. 

It lists 10 specific steps the governor and his administration can take right away. Among the many points, councilors are seeking to direct the Agency of Human Services to help the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity identify and secure a site for a 100-bed, low-barrier, year-round shelter somewhere in Chittenden County before winter, with staffing support and transportation; expanding daytime low-barrier spaces accessible by public transit.

Councilors also want to see an increase in resources for the Chittenden County court system, including continued funding for a Howard Center caseworker in Support Court and expansion of Treatment Court and Mental Health Court, as well as an potentially expanded role for local metal healthcare providers. 

The council additionally asked to build a better, more coordinated relationship with state law enforcement focused on drug trafficking, traffic enforcement and retail theft in coordination with Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke.

In their remarks, some councilors, like Progressive Laura Sanchez-Parkinson, pinned much of the mental health and crime crisis on a national trend and a federal Trump administration that “has specifically been targeting some of our most vulnerable people in our communities,” she said. Sanchez-Parkinson also pointed to cuts and the drawback of some investments, locally and nationally, in mental health and drug rehabilitation.  

But despite all the national trends, last night resolution followed a violent weekend involving knives and guns, where Burlington saw a string of incidents downtown, as covered by Burlington Daily News:

• Aug. 15, 2 a.m.: Vito Spano (19) was stabbed near St. Paul/Bank; Jason Anderson (50) was charged with aggravated assault.
• Aug. 15, 4 a.m.: Deng Dau (24) died from a stabbing near Main/Church; Hassan O. Haji (24) faces second-degree murder charges.
• Aug. 15, 3:19 a.m.: Shots were fired near King/Church; no injuries.
• Aug. 16 (Sunday): Hailey Peacock (21) was charged with reckless endangerment after an accidental handgun discharge.
• Aug. 14 (Friday): Three juveniles attacked a man at North Beach, causing minor injuries.
• Aug. 19 (Wednesday): Nicholas Hulbert (38) was held on $10,000 bail for an armed retail theft attempt at City Market.

Burlington police and the mayor’s office have said the weekend incidents do not appear connected and that officers already on foot patrol responded within minutes or seconds, a testament to a healing department, the mayor suggested last week. 

Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak described the events as deeply unsettling and pointed to preliminary 2026 data showing aggravated assaults and overall violent incidents down from 2025 and 2024 levels. 

Adolescents have featured in several recent cases, not just recently but increasingly for the past few years. The Friday bike path attack involved suspected juveniles, as did the stabbing death.

The resolution specifically asks the state to convene youth service providers, local designated agencies, schools and Agency of Human Services staff to examine trends among juveniles engaged in violence, drugs and gun possession and identify strategies to interrupt them. 

At Monday’s meeting, Mulvaney-Stanak addressed the issue directly, saying, “We also need to especially focus on adolescent boys and what our region can do to better support their development to move away from behaviors and patterns that lead to violence and inflicting harm to each other and their communities.”

Whether the state’s response will match the resolution’s urgency remains unclear. Vermont State Police troopers had been patrolling downtown Burlington under a directive from Scott that began in late July, initially without direct notice to the mayor’s office, to supplement local officers ahead of a governors’ conference and amid ongoing safety concerns. 

That deployment ended around Aug. 17-19 after roughly three weeks. Scott has said there are no immediate plans to resume the patrols but that the state has an obligation to help if the community requests it and conditions warrant. Burlington police remain understaffed, hovering around 65 to 70 officers.

At the same time, efforts to change how prosecutions work in Chittenden County through the ballot box fell short. Light echoings of the continuing repeat-offender problem were highlighted in the council’s resolution, but with State’s Attorney Sarah Fair George re-elected again on a “continuity” platform, the change that some councilors were hoping for isn’t going to come. 

Rather, it seems, Democrats – and some Progressives – are betting on their some-what troubled relationship with the state and the governor to get whatever change in prosecutions or transitional courts they can. 

As of this morning, there was no comment or reaction from Gov. Scott to the council.