Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Crews erected a chain link fence around the perimeter to secure the site for a redevelopment project that is expected to last until next fall. Plans call for realigned pathways, a new fountain, rain gardens, 1,500 perennial plants and grasses, and extra seating.
“Our park will get so much more use,” said Cindi Wight, director of the Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Department. “It will be a welcoming place.”
As soon as next week, the city will begin removing benches and trash cans and remediating compacted soils, Wight said.
That’s concerning to Jimmy Leas, a South Burlington attorney representing a group of citizens who sued the city in March over the project's financing and other issues. On Monday, Leas filed an amended complaint that alleges the city’s own zoning permit for the renovation has expired.
He pointed to the Development Review Board’s stipulation that the permit would become invalid unless “work or action authorized by the permit” started by March 22, 2019.
Tags: Burlington , City Hall Park , Keep the Park Green , Cindi Wight , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
There were bagel cutters and baking sheets, a midcentury-modern sideboard and vintage parlor chairs. In total, 645 lots were to be sold, many of which contained multiple items and, in some cases, the contents of entire rooms.
And there were a lot of rooms. The mazelike building was once home to 100 Roman Catholic nuns who were part of the international Sisters of Mercy order. It closed earlier this summer.
Tags: convent , Sisters of Mercy , auction , Burlington , motherhouse , Mansfield Avenue , Catholic Church , nuns , Web Only , Image
Friday, July 5, 2019
Lt. Justin Couture was one of nine Burlington PD personnel to take a city-sponsored trip to the Legacy Museum and other civil rights landmarks in Montgomery, Ala., last week. The trip was planned to inform the department’s implicit bias training, which Couture oversees and manages, Chief Brandon del Pozo said.
Couture's T-shirt, however, depicted imagery used by Blue Lives Matter, a countermovement to Black Lives Matter's anti-police brutality campaign.
The black shirt features a white flag with a thin blue line replacing one of the stripes, a symbol traditionally used to express solidarity among law enforcement that has been co-opted by the alt-right. The imagery gained notoriety after white nationalists hoisted Blue Lives Matter flags at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Tags: Burlington Police Department , implicit bias , lynching memorial , Blue Lives Matter , Brandon del Pozo , Black Lives Matter , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
He stayed calm as Douglas Kilburn, a 54-year-old stroke victim, aired his frustrations with University of Vermont Medical Center security guards who wouldn't let him visit his wife in the emergency room. Campbell's bodycam footage of their March 11 encounter shows that the Burlington cop offered a solution: He'd escort Kilburn through the hospital.
The plan worked, and when Kilburn got to his wife's bedside, he extended his hand to shake Campbell's.
Campbell 's demeanor was much different when he encountered Kilburn again seven minutes later. Kilburn was inside his Buick SUV in the hospital's ambulance bay, arguing again with a security guard.
Campbell yelled, "Shut the fuck up and leave! Go! They don't want you here!"
Kilburn had been inching his car away from the hospital entrance. But he stopped and opened the door, triggering a violent altercation with the officer that left Kilburn with a broken jaw and fractured orbit bone.
He died three days later. Chief state medical examiner Steven Shapiro classified his death as a homicide and noted blunt force trauma as one of several factors that killed him, along with obesity, hypertension and diabetes. City leaders have questioned the veracity of the homicide finding.
Bodycam video released Wednesday seemed to confirm Campbell's claim in previously reported arrest records that Kilburn took a swing as the officer tried to physically control him. It also showed how quickly the situation escalated once Campbell lost patience.
Tags: Burlington police , Douglas Kilburn , Cory Campbell , Rich Cassidy , University of Vermont Medical Center , Web Only , Image , Video
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
The Heineberg Community Senior Center is proposing to enter a private-public partnership with the City of Burlington. If approved, the arrangement would allow the New North End center to retain its 501c3 nonprofit status, but the city would take over daily operations.
“We don't really have a sustainable model,” senior center executive director Beth Hammond said. “It’s kind of rare we’re an independent senior center.”
The arrangement would be the Queen City's second senior center rescue mission: The Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Department took over the Old North End's Champlain Senior Center in 2016 after that org almost went belly-up.
The former nonprofit was losing so much money, it could only afford to stay open four hours a day, Seven Days reported in 2016. Heineberg is in a similar situation. It lost a sizable United Way grant last year, and its annual appeals have fallen short, Hammond said.
Tags: Heineberg Community Senior Center , Burlington Parks and Recreation , nonprofit , public-private partnership , Champlain Senior Center , Web Only , Image
Drink up, Burlington! The city has lifted its first boil-water notice in recent memory.
About 2,500 water-users were under the advisory for a little more than 24 hours after a valve break on July 1 knocked out water pressure to a large swath of the South End.
The city received water test results Wednesday morning, which indicated no evidence of contamination, according to Robert Goulding, Burlington Department of Public Works’ spokesperson.
DPW continues to investigate the root cause of the issue but suggested Tuesday that it was likely due to simultaneous water line projects in the area.
Original story:
A word of caution, South Enders: Don’t drink the water.
On Tuesday, the City of Burlington issued its first boil water notice in two decades after a valve break overnight on July 1 caused a significant portion of the South End to lose water pressure.
The notice affects about a quarter of the people who live in the Queen City, plus numerous local businesses, Megan Moir, Burlington’s water resources division director said during a press conference call Tuesday afternoon. Affected areas include south of the Shelburne Street/Clymer Street intersection, on Flynn Avenue and locales south of there, city officials said.
The notice will be in effect until 2 p.m. on Wednesday, July 3, if lab tests confirm then that there’s no bacteria in the water, Burlington Public Works Department spokesperson Robert Goulding said. It can take 18 hours to run the tests, Moir said.
City Market, Onion River Co-op announced its South End store, within the boil water zone, will remain closed "until further notice."
Tags: boil water notice , South End , Burlington , Robert Goulding , Megan Moir , Web Only , Image
Monday, July 1, 2019
Judge Helen Toor decided that the video relates to an arrest and cannot be withheld even if investigators believe it might interfere with their work.
The decision is a win for the Burlington Police Officers' Association, which sued on behalf of Officer Cory Campbell. Unless the city appeals to the Vermont Supreme Court, the footage will soon become public and may shed new light on the controversial case.
Tags: body camera , public records , Douglas Kilburn , Cory Campbell , Vermont State Police , Burlington Police , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Of four open positions on the seven-member commission, the council only returned vice chair Shireen Hart to her seat. Two other incumbents, Peter Bahrenburg and James Dunn, did not win reelection, while a third, Robert Simpson, did not reapply.
Newly appointed to serve three-year terms were black men Jabulani Gamache, a bartender; Yuol Herjok Yuol, a social worker; and Mark Hughes, a community activist.
Tags: Burlington City Council , police commission , Mark Hughes , Yuol Herjok Yuol , Jabulani Gamache , Shireen Hart , Web Only , Image , Video
Monday, June 24, 2019
The alley between Red Square and Akes’ Place off Church Street is now known as Thorsen Way in honor of staff photographer Matthew Thorsen, who died from cancer at age 51 on New Year’s Day 2019.
The council unanimously approved a resolution renaming Mechanics Lane as a way of recognizing Thorsen’s artistic contributions to the Queen City.
“Matt’s work helped to tell the stories of thousands of Vermonters,” associate publisher Colby Roberts told the council. “If you picked up a copy of Seven Days over the past 24 years, you will have almost exclusively seen Matt’s work. And for any of you who knew him, he was an incredibly unique individual.”
Tags: Matthew Thorsen , Thorever , Burlington City Council , Thorsen Way , Red Square , Akes' Place , Colby Roberts , Diane Sullivan , Web Only , Image
Friday, June 21, 2019
It targeted Native Americans, French Canadians, people of color and the poor. UVM professor Henry Perkins directed and founded the effort, with support from other UVM leaders including then-president Guy Bailey.
"We recognize and deeply regret this profoundly sad chapter in Vermont and UVM’s history," university president Tom Sullivan said in a statement Friday.
Tags: Dorothy Canfield Fisher , Thomas Sullivan , University of Vermont , Guy Bailey , eugenics , Abenaki , Web Only , Image