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01.29.14-02.05.14 SEVEN DAYS 18 LOCAL MATTERS
Records obtained from the Vermont Attorney General’s Offi ce lay bare one of the most tragic aspects of the November 6 death of a mentally ill man in Burlington. Wayne Brunette’s parents saw police fatally shoot their 49-year-old son for refusing to drop a shovel. After summoning police to their home, Ruthine and Lawrence Brunette were the only two civilians to witness the incident, which lasted approximately two minutes. Their statements to investigators appear to have been signifi cant factors in the Wayne decision to clear Brunette Burlington Police in 2003 offi cers Brent Navari and Ethan Thibault of criminal wrongdoing. “They both started shooting, and I don’t know how many times they hit him, he went down,” Lawrence Brunette told investigators, according to the documents obtained by Seven Days. Lawrence Brunette said he had often felt powerless to deal with his son, who had started chopping down a tree in their front yard earlier that day and refused to calm down. “When he gets to that state, the only thing you can do is call the police.” “I don’t blame the police,” he said. “Something snaps in him.” In separate interviews with investigators, his wife agreed. Asked whether she thought her son would have hit an offi cer with the shovel, Ruthine Brunette said, “Yes.” She had repeatedly heard the offi cers tell her son to drop the shovel. “To me, he went towards them, as they were saying that, you know, and he didn’t put the shovel down.” —˜MARK DAVIS
Burlington Council Sends Sweeping Waterfront Proposal to Voters
Burlington City Council endorsed a waterfront redevelopment plan
The Burlington City Council gave its blessing Monday night to a multimillion-dollar plan for redeveloping Burlington’s downtown waterfront. The approval clears the path for the proposal to go before voters on Town Meeting Day. The redevelopment plan bundles six projects into one and would rely on $7.5 million in tax-increment fi nancing, along with other public and private funding sources. At its cornerstone is a $26 million proposal to convert the Moran Plant into a performance space, rooftop restaurant, “nanobrewery” and “maker space.” The city launched a public competition for proposals last January. Mayor Miro Weinberger selected the fi nal slate two weeks ago — and tacked on a contingency plan to the Moran proposal. That backup plan was the greatest source of contention among mostly enthusiastic city council members Monday. If residents approve the revelopment package, they’ll also be acquiescing to a single alternative, should the Moran renovation not pan out: demolition. The only two councilors who voted against the plan — Rachel Siegel and Vince Brennan, both Progressives representing Ward 3 — said they liked the Moran Plan proposal but couldn’t stomach the prospect of demolition. (Two other councilors recused themselves, citing a confl ict of interest.) “It is muddy to have two questions mixed together as one question,” Siegel said. “That we have to say yes to both is problematic to me.” Jane Knodell, P-Ward 2, contended that the “all-or-nothing” approach will rally voters around the project, improving COURTESY OF BURLINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT
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Parents of Mentally Ill Burlington Man Saw Shooting — but Don’t Blame Cops
its chances of success. Brennan solicited reassurance from the Moran Plant project leaders — Charlie Tipper, a redeveloper, and University of Vermont seniors Erick Crockenberg and Tad Cooke — that their plan was fail-safe. He didn’t get it. “Our audacity only goes so far,” Tipper told him. Weinberger allocated the largest share of TIF money to the project — $4.2 million on top of $2.1 million that had been previously allocated to the plant — but the team still needs to raise about $20 million on its own. “I can’t promise you we are going to succeed. I can promise you we are going to give it hell like nobody’s business,” Tipper told the council.
ouster because of her outspoken advocacy for public banking. Hollar is a contract lobbyist whose clients include Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Hollar disputed the allegations, saying, “I had nothing to do with it.” City Manager Bill Fraser wrote in a letter to Hallsmith at the time that her dismissal was the result of insubordination, dishonesty and poor relations with colleagues and elected officials.
—˜AL I CI A F R E E S E
Fired Planning Chief Considering Challenge to Montpelier Mayor
Two months after her fi ring as Gwendolyn Hallsmith Montpelier’s planning and community development director, Gwendolyn Hallsmith says she’s seriously considering running for mayor of Vermont’s capital Hollar, who was fi rst elected to the city. part-time post in March 2012, announced “My motivation for running is to his plan to run for reelection two weeks continue to give citizens a voice in their ago. He says he welcomes a challenge, but future and to make sure their voice is said Hallsmith might not make the best not forgotten,” says Hallsmith, who is mayor. collecting signatures to put her name on “I think it would be a challenging posithe ballot and is “tentatively” planning to tion for her to be in, because of the terms announce her bid on February 5 — though of her departure,” Hollar says. “My hope she says she may still reconsider. is that we’ll run a campaign, though, that Hallsmith would face off against Mayor would be based on issues that would be John Hollar, with whom she publicly important to Montpelier and not persontangled throughout the fall. After she was alities, her past personal issues or mine.” put on paid leave in November, Hallsmith Hallsmith is appealing her fi ring in accused the mayor of orchestrating her Washington County civil court. Asked