by Guy Page
Blaming pandemic-related challenges, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said Tuesday he wants state funding for the city’s new high school and technical center, public safety including hiring more cops, reducing homelessness, substance misuse and mental health problems, subsidizing public transportation, and more.
No specific dollar amount was attached to the request.
He also wants statewide legislation on firearms restrictions and climate change.
Burlington city government is already spending big on these problems, but more help is needed, he said.
“Like communities across Vermont and our nation, Burlington is facing numerous, serious challenges that have been exacerbated by the pandemic,” said Mayor Weinberger. “Our city is facing these challenges head-on with unprecedented investments, including creating a Special Assistant to End Homelessness, devoting millions of dollars of ARPA funds to housing and homelessness, adding numerous social workers to the police department, and by innovating a public health approach to homelessness with the Elmwood Emergency Shelter that is about to open. Burlington and other Vermont cities need similar, urgent action at the State level to address housing, public safety, homelessness, substance misuse, and mental health crises in our communities.”
The Mayor’s agenda also prioritizes funding for the new Burlington high school and technical center, climate action, and several public safety initiatives including several reforms to the state’s gun safety laws.
Weinberger added, “If the State will not give cities the ability to create gun safety regulations at the local level, it is long past time for statewide action. Burlington voters overwhelmingly approved measures to ban guns from bars and to require the safe storage of firearms. I will be advocating for these policies and more to keep Vermonters safe from the unique, American scourge of gun violence.”
Mayor Weinberger will be advocating for action in Montpelier on the following initiatives:
· State assistance for PCB remediation and regional technical center funding.
· State support for local efforts to address substantial statewide increases in violent crime and property crime, including; support for the recruitment and retention of police officers, modernization of shoplifting statutes, and increased funding of the Victims Compensation Fund.
It is unclear if Weinberger wants the Victims Compensation Fund to reimburse business owners for shoplifting losses, as suggested by Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George this summer.
· Statewide gun safety laws, including; requiring the safe storage of firearms, prohibiting guns in bars, restaurants, and other sensitive spaces, making reckless endangerment with a gun a felony, and funding gun violence research.
· State support for local efforts to address the housing shortage, including an Act 250 exemption for municipalities with robust local zoning controls that meet state standards.
· State funding for initiatives to end homelessness, including a plan for the end of the motel voucher program, new funding for permanent (non-time-limited) supportive housing services, and funding additional case management services for housing navigators.
· State action to address fentanyl and meth misuse and mental health needs, including providing specialized care for violent individuals, improving access to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD), accelerating responses to growing methamphetamine use, expanding re-entry support for justice-involved individuals with substance use disorder, expanding residential treatment opportunities, including both long-term treatment and short-term treatment for fentanyl-addicted users entering MOUD, and removing barriers at the State level to the creation of Overdose Prevention Sites.
· State Action on Climate and Electrification by extending Act 151, strengthening the Renewable Energy Standard (RES), ensuring that any changes to the RES are analyzed fully and determined to be cost-effective for ratepayers, and by protecting Burlington’s authority to regulate thermal systems.
· Continued State funding for Green Mountain Transit and public transportation.
A complete agenda of the Mayor’s legislative priorities is available online here.
Much of the content above was sourced from a Burlington Mayor’s Office press release released today.
Categories: Burlington
If Mayor Miro wants to be the Governor of Vermont he should run for the job. In the mean time don’t try to tax Vermont for your cities needs or special projects.
Almost all of the gun violence happens in his city due to his (and the progressive city council’s) policies and he expects us to fix it for him. How Progressive of him?
You know what the best part of Burlington is?
It’s so close to Vermont!!!!
It being so close to VT? That’s kinda the worst part of it too.
Ha! Also true.
I live in the NEK, so tell me why I should be paying to put more cops on the streets of Burlington that will have no affect on my safety?? Sounds like the City of Burlington has to raise their taxes, not the state taxpayers. Sucks to be a Burlington taxpayer huh!
I hope Burlington proper never gets a single new police officer for their force. Residents now need even more so to carry in order to be able to protect themselves.
I cannot even address the remainder of his nutzo requests for people in Pownal, VT, as but one example, to pay for Burlington City’s necessities prior to him & his Council destroying everything there which was once nice, once safe. Just: N-O-P-E!
DEFUND BURLINGTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boy, it sure looks like Burlington is a mess. I’d want the state to look into how it got that way before it allocates the tax dollars collected from other towns to fix Mayor Weinberger’s problems. I don’t go to Burlington anymore – it’s just not safe. (Guess that happens when you defund the police) A real shame too – it used to be a great place to shop & and have a meal. But something has gone seriously wrong in Burlington and it could set a dangerous precedent to allow state tax money bail them out without a review of how the city is being managed.
He defunds the Burlington police and now expects us to pick up the tab? You reap what you sow. Burlington is a has-been. We now shop, dine, and socialize in towns/cities that still provide a comfortable environment for visitors.
Well bless his heart, but you’d think he’d want to keep his delusion network under wraps, wouldn’t you? But then again, considering the crew we’ve put together in Montpelier, they just might do this to us.
Burlington, the bastian of wokeness, the hive-mind social justice warriror hub, and ground zero for Vermont’s steady decline. Milo, simply change Burlington’s gender, identify as one of the approved ethnic types, then apply for an interest free loan with BIPOC subsidized through NEFCU. Problem solved.
This is a surprise to anyone? weinberger in true democrat party form is demanding state tax dollars to pour into the problems the socialist/communist majority city council and mayors created over the last 4 decades. Every liberal cause, experiment, policy and demand has been tried in Burlington and failed, despite the tens of millions of dollars squandered on funding these leftist goals. These policies failed in the 1980’s under sander’s elitist rule and they continue to fail now, under weinbergers watch.
Burlington is a vivid example of Margret Thatcher’s quote: The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.
No, no, no, no, no and NO.
No, no, no, no, no and NO. Let the Citadel of Vermont Woke-dom bail its own petard out of the pit it has made for itself with its absurd and nonsensical attitudes and policies of the past ten years.
Sure, I’m in, as long as everyone in the state can vote in Burlington’s local elections.
Burlington and it’s mayor created their issues and can pay for them. No mercy!
Liberal is as Liberal does
Vermont taxpayers should not help locales that want to spend money they do not have on their own pet projects. self defense should be one of the first rights. can never support climate change. amount of CO2 is less than .1 per cent of atmosphere. always feel whatever time frame warmers want to use is a drop in the bucket for a planet that has been here for billions of years
Absolutely NOT!! You decided that the high school wasn’t good enough so you decided to put a $165 bond issue on the ballot. Turns out that the PCB issue is one building. NOW you are going to tear down the high school, build it on the same spot. Yet they are suing Monsanto for the same amt!! But hang on because as Monsanto says tearing down the school destroys the evidence!!
People in Burlington had their taxes raisef exponentially. Plus the pods…. Plus the hole in the ground where the mall was, plus the businesses moving out or closing their doors…..why should the rest of VT foot the progressive bull????
Another progressive idiot who thinks everyone is equal. He are the council made a mess of the city so let them fix it.
You’re never going to end homelessness when you attract homelessness. When the cost of living is sky high and the state just keeps handing out more aid, the homeless are going to come.
Amazing isn’t it? The Mayor just cannot get that connection into his head. Keep giving out free stuff and more indigents will beat feet to Burlington. Soon, Burlington will be nothing but pods, crime-ridden neighborhoods and vacant buildings where stores and restaurants used to be. It is well on it’s way. Crime and drug use (that seem to arrive on the heels of the indigents) are out of control. Why? Bad decisions – that’s why. The people who can – are leaving. Stores are leaving. Burlington is woefully mismanaged and now the Mayor wants money from the state so he can continue making bad decisions. Um…that would be a hard no.
Let me get this straight. It’s a good mayor and his Dem-Prog Groupthink run the city into the ground, guarding the police department, inviting, prostitutes, pimps, druggies, and the violent into his Queen City. Then he wants taxpayers from around the state to contribute their hard earned dollars to correct the inept management of the city resources. Of course, the taxpayers funding the Burlington bail out would have no voice in Correct in the city’s mismanagement.
That seems like a fairytale that not even the brothers Grimm could write!
WHAT THE!!! Why should I pay for rehab for Burlington when they drank the drink and smoked the smoke and let crime run rampant all in the name of what? This is pathetic. Where are all the good people in Burlington and why have they not voted out the reckless mgmt at all levels. Burlington is/was so beautiful, can the city be saved?
All good points above. Taxes all over Vermont are crazy high. Elder community members are forced to sell and move from homes they spent their lives working for. Obviously Burlington is mismanaged and living far above their means. Leave our tax dollars alone… I also wont go there for any reason.. .if my locale doesnt have it i dont need it.
So this BS gets rolled out once the progressive legislature is in session. I bet they vote and pass state funding for this garbage because they know they can.
Umm, no. We don’t live in Burligrad for a reason so, no we won’t be funding your mismanagement and fallout from your Marxist policies. Thats all on you Miro.