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By Guy Page
Another big scoop by Vermont News First reporter Mike Donoghue has prompted a pointed criticism of the Burlington Safe Injection Site and the Chittenden County senators who backed it – and one senator, in particular.
On his Facebook Page last night and now in the Burlington Daily News, Donoghue – who began reporting for the Burlington Free Press at its downtown offices on College Street in the mid-1970’s – published a draft letter from downtown businesses to Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. It is highly critical of city services and programs.
The letter, now being circulated for signers, demands clean, safe, and usable parking garages (including termination of free lunches there), a public nudity ordinance, removing discarded needles from public areas, less graffiti, and other changes to reduce the deterioration of the Queen City’s downtown area.
“We urge the City to explore restorative approaches,” the letter to the first-term Progressive mayor states. “Assigning offenders to community service—such as picking up needles, cleaning human waste, or removing graffiti—could provide a path toward accountability while addressing the visible impact of these harms.”
Commenting on this letter on Donoghue’s Facebook post, Sen. Russ Ingalls (R-Essex) points out one particular wrong-headed, expensive policy: spending $1 million per year on setting up and running a so-called ‘safe injection site.’ The 2024 Legislature passed the law and overrode Gov. Phil Scott’s veto.
“You reap what you sow,” Ingalls said. “Now they are putting in a drug house that allows anyone of any age to legally use drugs that are legal no where in the world. Not only that, but while you are in this area police are forbidden from arresting anyone who possesses. So dealers can sell at will to the people who are going to legally shoot up,” Ingalls said.
“This has worked no where in the world but the Burlington Senators and their majority friends overrode a veto by the Governor to open this hell hole,” Ingalls adds. “And to add insult to injury? Sen. Ginny Lyons [D-Chittenden] has appropriated nearly 2 million dollars of tax payer money for it,” Ingalls adds.
Developed by the Mayor’s Office and Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform (VCJR), the plan adheres to Vermont’s Act 178 (2024) and the Vermont Department of Health’s OPC Operating Guidelines. The initiative seeks to address the state’s overdose crisis by providing supervised drug consumption, reducing public drug use, and linking individuals to health and social services.
As noted in an April 30 Burlington Daily News article, City Councilors are concerned they may not be able to find a suitable location to build the safe injection site, nor build it with available funds.
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Categories: Burlington, Drugs and Crime, Public Safety
Don’t worry Russ, they are going to put kiosk on church street, probably for a mere million dollars and THAT will bring crime to halt. If they don’t see the results they will put up two more and Burlington will be crime and drug free!
That’s funny…having offenders pick up discarded needles. That would never happen. It’s like requiring dogs to pick up their own poo. Now the fun begins though, in siting such a facility. Some argue that it should be near other medical infrastructure and some argue to put it near where all the junkies are already hanging out…right downtown. Everything is controversial in Burlington, like cutting the old trees in City Hall Park, spending millions on it and installing a bathroom. That park has turned in to a vagrancy epicenter and no self-respecting human would ever use that toilet except in an emergency. City Hall Park is already essentially an injection facility, so it would make sense to just have the medical staff hang out there all day and wait for the inevitable overdoses to occur as they have for years.
I know huh? They can’t even keep things together on the front and back lawn of city hall, how the hell are the going do anything positive for the greater burlington? They don’t even have the sense to yell, “Get off my lawn!”
Mike Donoghue will remember Westward Ho….made national news waaaaay back when…re Church St. Ginny needs to go. O U T!
And the comment section is graced with occasion contributions from the founder of that beautiful program…Unfortunately, a lot of other places have engaged in the same idea and now Burlington has welcomed the vagrants from afar with open arms…Welcome Ho… to BTV.
I’ve lived in Burlingon seventy-four years, and just let me say what was the ” Queen City ” is nothing more than a ” Cesspool ” today, crime,drugs and homeless flopping on every street corner …………… yes, progressive leadership front & center…… Pathetic.
Burlington turned in the eighties when Bernard Sanders became Mayor, and brought his socialist agenda to town, what amazes me is that he is Vermonts Senior Senator but spends his time on his nation wide ” Oligarchy ” tour on your dime, I guess Vermonts concerns are a second thought…………. we deserve better!!
Then Bernie can fly in on a private jet, with AOC in tow, so he can show off the results of the seeds he planted in Burlington long ago, and what they grew into, so they can run for the highest country in the land, and leave the same havoc, and despair, in their wake…no thank you!!!
They they fly out again, avoiding the check in counter, at Burlington Airport, that is there for the common man, and not the oh so hand waving, progressive elites, like Bernie Sanders and AOC. Personally I think they should run for a spot in the newly revamped Alcatraz… once the public finds out about the bent money sent their way.
Stay tuned…it is going to get seriously interesting…as in they are toast, but just don’t know it yet.
Mark my words!
Bernie Sanders blew $221K on private jets during his “fight the oligarchy” tour—then mocked the idea of flying commercial: “You think I’m gonna wait in line at United?”
Then he was also recently spotted having breakfast in London at the Langham, a 5-Star hotel in London. Fighting the oligarchy has its perks. For the right people, that is.
Now, if Burlington does not build the safe injection site with available funds, what will happen to that one million dollars per year?????
A million dollars annually can purchase a lot of giveaway needles…from the needle “exchanges”.
Such is the fruit and heritage of a demonic Marxist worldview which, according to its twisted paradigm of purporting to help people, actually gravely denigrates and damages them by denying the inherent human dignity each of us possesses because we are created in God’s image.
When people are seen as merely poor victims of a bad society, there is never any personal accountability or responsibility, which alone begins the process of real inner transformation. If the way I am is always somebody else’s fault, there is never any incentive to change. However, it’s not the State who can redeem and transform us, but only Jesus.
Sen Ingalls is no fool, unlike the Dem-Progressive Groupthink. We need 21 senators like Russ and 101 reps like him.
Perhaps that money would be better spent on expanding rehab centers and staff!! What a concept! Help them get OFF the drugs, not stay on them!!!
The only study on the neighborhood effects of safe injection sites was in NYC, a comparison with neighborhoods that had free needle exchanges. The conclusion was that it was ‘ no worse’. And you’ll find that many of the ‘socially conscious’ legislation considered and passed in Montpelier rely on such inconclusive and extraordinarily singular studies, and other similar kinds of ‘straw grasping’.the fact is government can never replace civil society, remember Tom Paine? ‘We should not,’he says, ‘confuse society and government. “Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness . . . the one encourages intercourse, the other created distinctions. The first is a patron ( i.e. protector), the last a punisher.’ [. . . ]
Thank you Senator Ingalls for the common sense approaches you consistently exhibit for the citizens of Vermont. We desperately need to put more people like you in Montpelier.
Evidently nothing was learned from what has happened to Seattle, Portland Or, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The wonderful folks who are responsible for this mayhem and the deplorable conditions in Burlington will doubtlessly be residing elsewhere within the next few years. None of them are actually from Vermont. They moved here from cities that had become dangerous, dirty and livable only for those who don’t have the funds to move elsewhere. Those of us who are proud of our roots, who have made wonderful lives for countless generations are strictly against this invasion. We are proud of our communities, shared values, the feeling of belonging. Unfortunately, the time has come and gone for us to erect a wall around Burlington, not to keep the Progressives out, but to protect us outside of Chittenden County from the failed experiments and idiocy leaching into our pristine villages and rural areas.
Steve you and many others are mistaken, they did learn from those other cities, this is exactly what they want.
Know them by their actions, not what they say.
They are looking for these results, don’t be fooled.