Stay involved! Followup from Last Night

Hi all,

Thank you for showing up in every-growing support of making a safer community in Brattleboro by encouraging the Selectboard to consider compassionate and collaborative community solutions to human suffering.

Last night's Select board meeting was a huge disappointment, both with our board members' decisions and with our fellow members of the public. Thank you to all those who attended in person and on Zoom - we were a sea of change crashing down on the Selectboard, demonstrating that community safety is for everyone. Every word spoken against the "Acceptable Community Conduct" Ordinance mattered, even if it didn't shift the outcome of the votes.

We were nearly successful in delaying the vote, but ultimately the Ordinance was passed 3-2, and they are further committing egregious expenditures to increase the Police force. This Ordinance and increase in policing will not benefit our economy or community safety, nor will they give people access to resources or places to meet their vital needs; homeless, elderly, disabled, or not. These decisions will only continue to enter people into the cycle of criminalization and restrict access to this town by prioritizing those most able-bodied and resourced.

This means that the hard work continues - but we don't have to carry the labor alone. We hold power in our numbers. In one week of circulating the petition, we had at least 13 executive directors, program directors, and board members of local human service organizations, 28 case managers, social workers, restorative justice facilitators, and service providers, 5 people impacted by homelessness and who access services (currently and/or formerly), 12 business owners and landlords, and 12 educators, totaling more than 437 individuals (as of this writing) who consider Brattleboro to be part of their community as downtown shoppers, event-goers, and general community supporters.

Today, a Letter to the Editor (LTE) was published by a local organizer, social worker, and co-author of the Community Safety Review published and presented to the Select board in 2021, Em Megas-Russell, in this week's edition of The Commons. You can also read relevant LTEs from Hannah Sorila and Fhar Miess, and this beautiful essay "I look away, I look back." Please also check out this piece, published yesterday, noting free Narcan distribution and training days across Windham County, and consider attending and inviting friends along as well.

Our next steps will require all of us to come together and apply pressure from all directions - and we need your support! There will be many different ways to plug in, so please consider staying in contact throughout this unfolding process.

For now, 

• Please read the Community Safety Review, and follow your curiosity around our local issues and the community interventions that make a difference in the lives of those unsheltered and addicted.
• Reach out to the Selectboard members and let them know you disagree with their decision, and talk to neighbors and business owners about the harms of criminalizing homelessness and addiction.
• Register to vote in Brattleboro so we can make an impact in the next local election - there will be three open seats up for the Selectbaord in the spring (Franz Reishman and Richard Davis both currently hold one-year seats and might run again, and Daniel Quipp's seat will be open as he has said this will be his last term),
• Consider getting involved with Representative Town Meeting, there are always open seats for new folks to join.
   

Email us at buoyantresponse@gmail.com or add your email address when signing the Google form version of the petition if you're interested in continuing to organize in solidarity with all those who want to enjoy life in Brattleboro.

Thank you,

your neighbors