Public Safety Community Forums

Community Forum Part 1: Drug Trafficking and Gun Crime  

Thursday, December 14 at 6:00 pm  
Contois Auditorium, City Hall    

• Chief Jon Murad and Lieutenant Mike Beliveau, Burlington Police Department  
• US Attorney Nikolas Kerest  
• Special Agent Alex Schmidt, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives  

Community Forum Part 2: Substance Use Disorder and Property Crime  

Tuesday, December 19 at 6:00 pm  
Contois Auditorium, City Hall    

• Jess Kirby, Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform  
• Commissioner Mark Levine, Vermont Department of Health  
• Chief Jon Murad, Burlington Police Department 
• Mayor Miro Weinberger 
• State’s Attorney Sarah George  
• Rachel Jolly, Community Justice Center  

Town Meeting TV will also live stream both events on their YouTube page.

In October 2023, the City Council passed a resolution declaring the unprecedented increase in substance use a public health crisis and together with drug activity in our city, to be Burlington’s top public health and safety priority. The resolution called for these two community forums to discuss these issues.  

Summary of City's Recent Public Safety Actions

Across the country cities have been facing numerous public safety challenges since the pandemic.  

In 2022 and 2023 Burlington and the entire state has seen much higher levels of gun violence, property crime and retail theft than we have experienced in the past. The changing and deepening drug crisis is clearly a driver of this crime and violence.

Fentanyl is now the dominant drug in the region, and it is much cheaper, harder to treat, and more deadly than prior opioids. A historic shortage of homes has also resulted in a huge increase in the number of unsheltered individuals in Burlington and made the drug crises far more visible and impactful on our public spaces than in the past.   

Our ability to respond to these historic challenges has been compromised by the dramatic loss of police officers we experienced in 2020 and 2021. Nonetheless, addressing public safety, gun violence and the drug crisis have been my top priority throughout this challenging period.

Our approach has included rebuilding the department and strengthening enforcement, making new investments in our treatment harm reduction system, and dramatically expanding our shelter capacity. 

In advance of these community discussions, I hope it will be useful to provide a summary of the work the City has done to tackle these issues.  

Rebuilding the Police Department and Adding City Personnel

• Implemented the Burlington Police Officer Rebuilding Plan that includes the most competitive police contract in the state, $15,000 Recruitment Bonuses for new police officers, and other initiatives to restore officers. 
   
• Expanded Community Service Officer Program to respond to quality of life complaints, like noise violations, and other ordinance violations. 
   
• Created Community Support Liaisons, who are social workers embedded within the Police Department to respond to calls for services related to mental health, and substance disorder, and homelessness. 
   
• Created the Crisis Response Team in the Burlington Fire Department to respond to overdose calls and carry out proactive outreach to people within our community suffering from substance use disorder.  
   
• Established the Chittenden County Gun Violence Task Force to to address the rapid and concerning increase in firearm-related violent crime in Chittenden County. The Chittenden County Gun Violence Task Force is a team of investigators from several partner agencies who use various investigative techniques and leverage their collective resources, including Crime Gun Intelligence, to target individuals who are actively involved in, or associated with, firearm related violence in Chittenden County. 

Additional Security Downtown

• Implemented the Downtown Public Safety Plan to reallocate and focus our reduced public safety resources on the downtown. This plan assigned two Burlington Police Officers and two Community Services Officers to the Church Street Marketplace and downtown area. 
   
• Hired Green Mountain Concert Services and Chocolate Thunder to provide additional security foot patrols for the Church Street Marketplace and surrounding blocks to assist businesses and residents visiting the downtown. 
   
• Established a voluntary Vermont State Police overtime detail for the Downtown 

Addressing Homelessness and Substance Use Disorder

• Created a Special Assistant to End Homelessness position within city government for the first time to respond to the historic increase in homeless and unsheltered individuals and families in Chittenden County. 
   
• Expanded the Housing Trust Fund to strengthen the City’s housing and homelessness efforts. Through a variety of policy changes, we have increased the annual revenues for local housing efforts from approximately $300,000 in 2012 to $1.5 million in 2023.
   
• Advocated successfully, with others, to prevent 2,200 additional vulnerable Vermonters from losing their housing through the closing of the State’s motel program. In June, I called on legislators and the Governor to pass an emergency measure that would prevent high-needs households, including young children and senior citizens, from being evicted from hotel rooms. 
   
• Partnered with Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform to create and support Vermont’s first specialized re-entry and recovery center for justice-involved people living with substance use disorders. In the absence of any financial support from the State, the City will be funding VCJR with an additional $75,000 from Burlington’s opioid allocation settlement funds, in addition to the $173,000 of CDBG funds and $62,500 from our ARPA grant program. 
   
• Opened two new temporary shelters with partners: the Elmwood Avenue Shelter and the Champlain Inn. The City is also opening a seasonal temporary shelter at the former VFW building with the help of State funding. This shelter, which will open on December 15, will offer 30 new shelter beds.
   
• Strengthened Coordinated Entry, a strategy developed with housing and service providers to provide shelter, permanent housing, and wrap around services to Vermonters in need.