By Kolby LaMarche

The Church Street Marketplace Commission voted yesterday to table sending a letter to Governor Phil Scott reinforcing Burlington’s August request for urgent help addressing conditions downtown.

The letter, according to commission records, was borne out of the raw and informative meeting businesses and residents had with Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak in August. Commissioner Linda Magoon drafted the letter after being approached by several people asking for recourse. 

The letter described downtown as “essentially in a state of emergency”. Business owners, their employees, and property owners, the letter states, have made clear that some operations may have only months left before closing. 

The letter also notes that Chittenden County accounts for about 25 percent of the state’s tax income and that Burlington ranks as the top tourism destination in Vermont, so a crisis in the city is a crisis for the state, the commission said. 

The letter lists four requests: continued deployment of State Troopers in Burlington; active support of and participation in CVOEO’s effort to launch a 100-bed, year-round, low-barrier emergency shelter by this winter; the return of the Accountability Court to Burlington; and development by the Agency of Human Services of a plan to establish a state mental-health facility that would replace or enhance services once provided by the Waterbury Hospital, closed 15 years ago. 

The commission’s disagreements, which led to the tabling, were concentrated on the asks, specifically the 100-bed shelter, and broader discussions on if the State of Vermont as a whole is responsible for the unhoused in Burlington.  

One Commissioner Christopher Haessly said that over the summer he tapped the pulse of surrounding towns in Chittenden County, telling fellow commissioners a lot of people feel that “a lot of Burlington’s problems were self-inflicted.” Haessly added he thought it was important for the commission to, in some way, recognize this. 

Other commissioners wanted the letter to draw more accountability from Gov. Scott, with multiple citing the deployment of state troopers downtown without the consultation of Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak, one saying “I was offended”. 

The commission, however, made clear before tabling that most of them have a desire to send a letter to the governor, they just aren’t quite sure of what it should say yet. 

The letter comes after a formal request the Burlington City Council advanced in late August. On August 24 the council unanimously approved a 10-point resolution, backed by Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, directing the mayor to seek more state help on homelessness, substance use, mental health, and public safety. 

The resolution asked the Agency of Human Services to help secure a location and staff for a 100-bed low-barrier emergency shelter in Chittenden County before winter. It also sought support for daytime resource spaces, changes related to the hotel-motel housing program, expanded mental-health capacity, stronger partnership with the Vermont Department of Health on syringe-service programs, and more state law-enforcement assistance aimed at drug trafficking and retail theft. 

Councilors described the items as short-term and specific measures that could relieve pressure the city cannot handle alone.

Gov. Scott responded within two days. On August 25 he said he was disappointed after a brief review of the resolution. He noted that the state had already done a lot for Burlington and that people in other parts of Vermont might wonder why more resources should go to one of the more affluent areas when similar problems exist elsewhere. 

The next day he addressed the shelter proposal directly, saying a single 100-bed facility in one location was a bad idea. He preferred creating 100 available beds through smaller sites spread across the county. Scott said the Agency of Human Services had been working with the city and would continue to do so. 

No meeting date was set at the time.

As of mid-September, no public announcements have confirmed new concrete steps matching the full list in either the August resolution or the Church Street letter. 

As of now, as mentioned before, the letter has yet to be sent. If the letter is sent, it will mark a second, powerful message sent to Gov. Scott regarding the situation(s) in Burlington. Whether he responds to that one will remain to be seen and the saga of pleas from the Queen City may continue.