Tensions emerging in the Burlington business community were struck on Monday evening when the municipal council, after hours of deliberation, voted to order the mayor to move a free lunch program located in a downtown car park.
The mutual aid program, Food Not COPS – The local chapter of Food Not Bombs – operated the Garage of the market off Cherry Street for five years. There, volunteers and organizers distribute homemade meals to people who find it difficult to find a shelter or anyone who needs a meal.
The mayor of Burlington, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, said on Monday that she had been in discussion with the group for months on a potential resettlement. But earlier this month, a letter signed by more than 100 companies in the city asked the city officials to find a new location for the program.
Its operation outside the parking garage “had a negative impact on the region”, and the signatories suggested that “some participants have repeatedly stolen from companies or caused damage,” said the letter. “We respectfully ask that this program be moved in a more appropriate and secure framework – not eliminated.”
The letterSent directly to Mulvaney-Stanak, came a few days after Nectar’s, the famous bar and the place of music, announced that he would close for the summer.
Signed by dozens of local businesses, restaurants and other owners, the letter highlighted feelings of uncertainty of many members of the community on the future of the city center. The business owners said that the city center was beacked by the consumption of drugs and the small flight, which contributed to a deterioration in pedestrian traffic and business.
Meanwhile, in progress construction On Street Main further aggravated the problem. City officials claim that raw revenue tax revenues are down around 10% in the past year.
“Companies close, the long-term employees appreciated leave and residents are choosing more and more to avoid the city center. Those of us who remain neglected and more and more dangerous, ”says the letter. “Our expectations are not for an inaccessible ideal, but for effective leadership, authentic support and the fundamental resources necessary to exploit safe, welcoming and sustainable businesses.”
A resolutionWritten and sponsored by the Democratic advisor Becca Brown McKnight and presented on Monday to the Council, offered a boost to the business community by attacking in a frank manner.
The resolution called on the city’s public works department to carry out an assessment and a feasibility calendar to reopen Street Main to one-way traffic, and urged the business development agency and the city’s workforce to lead “coordinated and more effective public relations marketing efforts that promote the city center and restore it as a dynamic, safe and inclusive space”.
But the arrangement of the resolution to find a new permanent location for the meal program caused a few backlash.
A counteractSigned by dozens of organizations and businesses, expressed support for the meal exchange program, while dozens of people protested outside the town hall on Monday before the council meeting.
During the public council forum, Gabriel Nelson, a Burlington resident, described the resolution of “baseless scapegoat”. Leif Taranta, a former North End resident, said the program met many survival needs in the community.
Sam Bliss, organizer and spokesperson for food and not cops, challenged that there was a security problem in the garage.
“Business owners want to move our lunch so that the buyers of Church Street do not have to look at the poor, suffering from people on their promenade from their vehicles from the stores in which they will buy,” said Bliss. “And I understand, I do not like to see my neighbors and my friends without danger or desperate, but it is not a security problem, it is a problem of discomfort. Is the solution to avoid our gaze? To push the poor and suffer from people out of sight, out of mind, so this affair as usual can simply continue?”
However, other people who spoke at the meeting supported the resolution.
“Being a pro-Downtown and Pro-Business does not mean that we are against those who are without housing,” said Megan Meinen, a resident in the city center of Burlington who works at home and Garden Vermont on College Street. “We are not against these people.
Progressive and democratic municipal councilors deliberated on Monday at night on the provisions concerning the meal exchange program, progressive advisor Marek Broderick organizing a motion to relaunch her relocation of the resolution.
Progressive advisers said the mayor needed more time to discuss resettlement with the group. Advisor Gene Bergman at some point asked the colleagues Democrats to join them to remove the language, so that they “can get closer to a unanimous vote on this subject as absolutely possible, because there are a certain number of good things here on which we should all be united.”
The two parties finally concluded an agreement, some democratic advisers joining the progressives in a vote of 8-4 to remove a provision which would have forced the program to find a new location by June 14.
He first seemed to be a rare compromise between the progressive advisers and democrats of the city. But later in the meeting, the Democratic advisor Allie Schachter presented an amendment to the resolution establishing a later deadline – July 14 instead of June 14 – so that the mayor finds another long -term location for the program.
Progressive advisers accused Democrats of withdrawing from a compromise, while Mulvaney-Stanak accused the Democrats of “legislating on the fly”.
Schachter said that the amendment “establishes an intentionality” around the conversation, while McKnight later added that “the public deserves to know that the choice to allow him to continue is a choice of policy and an application choice”.
“We must be honest about the choices we make here,” she said.
The resolution was finally adopted, the Carter Neubieser advisor joining the Democratic majority to adopt the resolution during a vote of 8-4. Mulvaney-Stanak now has a deadline of July 14 to find a long-term location for the lunch service.