BY MAT CLOUSER
BRANDON — Dozens of concerned citizens filled the Brandon Town Hall basement on the night of October 24 so that their voices might be heard by members of the selectboard—and heard they were.
Dominating the conversation that night were two hot-button items: Police staffing and the ongoing drama surrounding the composition and conduct of the board. Both issues have spilled over recently into public conversation far beyond the scope of the town offices and meeting rooms—and the scrutiny of the latter led to a board statement about its handling of the former.
Selectboard Chair Seth Hopkins began the meeting by reading a prepared statement in which he outlined a procedural violation on the part of the board stemming from its Oct. 10 executive session to discuss varying police staffing level scenarios.
Hopkins said the board chose to enter into the executive session rather than hold public discussions because they felt it “would not be in the interest of public safety in our community to make public-specific duty schedules either in place or proposed for varying levels of police staffing.”
He went on to state that the board felt that to do so “would tend to advertise that our ability to respond rapidly to [the] commission of a crime would likely be compromised at that time. It would be inviting trouble, in other words.”
Hopkins said that it was his “working understanding” that the board had operated within the law. However, he went on to say that he was approached by an unnamed Brandon citizen following the meeting, who led him to believe that the board had inadvertently violated open meeting law.
“The Brandon citizen who engaged me in a dialogue beginning on October 14—based on that person’s superior professional education and experience—raised the view that the provision of the law we used applies only to an individual and not to a group of employees,” read Hopkins.
As part of the statement, Hopkins also moved that the board would acknowledge its violation, agree to provide written proof that they had re-read the expanded and elaborated guide to Vermont open meeting, and render void any action taken or resulting from the executive session. The board voted unanimously to accept Hopkins’ motion with no further discussion.
Hopkins’ did not mention any particular actions that may or may not have been rendered void by that statement; however, following the October 10 meeting, he indicated to The Reporter via email that no action had been taken during the session.
“There was no action resulting from the executive session,” he wrote, “it was simply [an] examination of several different staffing schedule scenarios the police chief had provided us at our request, with an eye toward understanding what different levels of staffing would look like before we embark upon budget-writing season with the budget advisory committee, town manager, and department heads.”
During the public comment of the meeting, several townspeople spoke up to air their displeasure at the recent scrutiny of the board’s composition, including the accusations of sexism and impropriety.
Among the many who spoke in support of the board was Sharon Stearns, who thanked the board for their work. “It’s very, very important work,” she said. “I’ve been in this community, I think, for close to 35 years… I trust your efforts and your work.”
“I want you to know that as you face what I see as criticisms,” she continued, “I think it’s unfortunate because I think that most of us are pretty darn happy. We don’t have to come out to these meetings all the time, and we trust that you’re doing the right thing—and you have been.”
Stearns went on in an attempt to minimize the recent criticisms of the board. “One person or five people is not the voice of the whole community… there’s at least 4,000 more,” she said, adding that she hoped her statements would encourage the board to move ahead despite the criticism.
Among the speakers who followed was Claire Astone, who has been among the vocal critics of the selectboard. Astone addressed Stearns directly. “I’m one of those five people that you think you’re talking to,” she said, “and I’m happy to see your face because I can have a dialogue with you,” adding politely that she had an email prepared to that end.
Astone then distributed and discussed the literature she had recently given board members outlining varying forms of gendered micro-aggressions and reiterating her position that the board’s recent adoption of the Declaration of Inclusion could be better upheld through meaningful action.
“You’re going to get a lot more of these,” she said, speaking of the handouts. “Gender is the easiest one to start with—you spend all of your lives… with women. You have wives, mothers, and daughters, so you ought to check it out with them.”
Additionally, Astone mentioned a previous public complaint involving an unresolved issue with an unnamed public figure from sometime in the spring of 2021. Astone specifically mentioned that Town Manager Dave Atherton had recently agreed to help her with the process of resolving that issue, but she did not mention any other specifics, stating only that she did not wish to re-hash the details publicly.
“There hasn’t been closure, and that’s important to me,” Astone said before discussing her work at the Brandon Restorative Action for Victims and Offenders program (BRAVO). (Restorative Justice is a system of criminal justice that focuses on rehabilitating offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large as opposed to more punitive legal means.)
Astone mentioned an incident during a relatively recent selectboard meeting in which someone who had been through BRAVO in the past had their confidentiality breached by an unnamed board member, adding that she would like to see that individual’s name removed from public record.
“It is not okay,” said Astone. “All the business of restorative justice in this town is confidential. If people hear [that the selectboard] is putting the business [of BRAVO’s clients] out, we are not going to be trusted—and trust is absolutely important to the process of restorative justice.”
Following the public comment portion of the meeting, the board heard additional public input from the community concerning the police staffing conversation it had previously been holding in executive session.
The board described the difficulty that the Brandon Police Department (BPD) has had in recent years in finding and retaining enough officers to meet a level of 24-hour patrols, stating that it often sees officers leave for more attractive and lucrative positions elsewhere.
It was also discussed that in recent years the town had lowered the department’s budget from around $900,000 to $700,000 due to repeated budget surpluses stemming from an inability to meet the staffing levels outlined in the budget.
Unlike the earlier public comment period, there was unity and cohesion among those who spoke, as not one person who spoke gave anything other than support for BPD, with nearly all participants stating that they would like to see the town maintain 24-hour coverage and do whatever it could to make Brandon as attractive as possible to potential and current law enforcement officers—as well as to avoid burnout among the current officers that might come with being understaffed relative to their current workload.
The board thanked the public for their input, stating that it would consider it as it moves into upcoming budget workshops.
In other business, the board:
- Set the dates of the upcoming budget workshops as Nov. 21, Dec. 5, and Dec. 19, to be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Town Hall meeting room.
- Accepted a Patch Electric bid for heat pump installation at town hall for $20,600 and the police station at $19,800 to be paid for from the town’s cash reserves.
- Discussed rates and potential maintenance costs for the town’s electric charging station, ultimately deciding not to make any changes until more data about usage could be collected.
