During a meeting of the Burlington City Council’s Public Safety Committee and the Police Commission, it was said that removing Green, an individual who is black, and appointing Springer, an individual who is white, was, in the words of police commissioner Melo Grant, “really beyond the pale.” Oh, if George Orwell were still alive.
As Town Meeting Day approaches, the Burlington GOP has released a statement making clear to voters that ballot initiatives that push green energy in homes will raise the cost of heating, and new eviction bans will mean fewer rentals while wealthy homebuyers benefit.
The climate activists have found a new target for their mandates, restrictions, and taxes: the city of Burlington. They’re pushing a resolution that would lead quickly to a ban on burners, boilers, furnaces, stoves, fireplaces and dryers that use natural gas.
Among the initiatives that Burlington residents will be voting on this Town Meeting Day include two climate-themed goals: letting the city regulate residential and thermal energy systems, and doing so with “climate justice” in mind.
Moving McNeil’s primary electrical source to natural gas from wood would reduce CO2 emissions. Yet proposals 3 and 7 would disallow this. This is counter-productive.
The Burlington City Council on Monday night will consider a Public Safety Continuity Plan developed by Mayor Miro Weinberger. The plan places the blame for a looming shortfall in police coverage squarely on the “defund the police” vote held last June.
Once the envy of many towns and cities, the city’s police department is now in shambles. The race to the bottom in morale, police coverage and expectations has been devastating: three police chiefs in one year, personnel departures, and lawsuits have only exacerbated the downward spiral.
Burlington is down from 29,000 calls to about 23,000 due to the pandemic. But the serious crime calls are up 6 percent, Murad said.
As the Burlington Police Department mulls cutting its night shift, leaving residents to seek out state police during late hours, the head of the Vermont Police Coalition says City Council was too hasty in its decision to cut police personnel earlier in the year.
Last week the Burlington City Council voted to identify the city’s investments in fossil fuel companies and to divest those by April 2021.
Wallethub ranked Burlington as the No. 152 best small city in the U.S. The city placed better than 82% of the 1,269 contestants which have a population between 25,000 and 100,000.
Here’s an interesting news item from last Friday. The Burlington City Council has banned backyard wood burning fire pits due to concerns about air pollution. They’re addicted to virtue signaling instead of dealing with their own CO2 emitter problem.