By Curt Peterson
For years, Hartland has been a quiet place to live, work and recreate, residents feeling relatively safe under the watchful eye of the Vermont State Police (VSP), contracted to provide a certain number of hours of patrol coverage, and to respond to calls from townspeople for help. Now the Select Board has created the Safety and Policing Committee to recommend future policing policies.
A shooting incident on Lords Road in May served as a wake-up call. Andrea Robinson, according to police accounts, reported someone had fired shots into her home, causing visible damage. One person, Tim Murphy Jr., was taken to Mt. Ascutney Hospital for treatment of a “superficial gunshot wound.” The state police considered the incident “suspicious, and not “random.”
Minor thefts, accidents and dangerous traffic infractions, as well as annoying nighttime firearms incidents have increased over recent years, but these events were not what triggered creation of the committee.
The state has wanted the VSP to give up the kind of “rural policing” Hartland has enjoyed, and to concentrate on statewide specialized services, said to Select Board chair Phil Hobbie.
The decision was accelerated by a recruiting problem. The state police no longer has the manpower to fulfill its obligation to Hartland, and urged the Select Board to seek alternative sources. The Windsor Police and Windsor County Sheriff’s Department have indicated interest in serving the town, but the board opted to sign a contract renewal with the VSP until proper research is completed.
On June 19, the Select Board voted to form the Safety and Policing Committee, consisting of two Select Board members (Mandi Potter and Tom Kennedy), three citizens, one school board member, and one Fire and Rescue representative. The Select Board chair and the Town Manager would be “personnel resources”. A compensated “scribe” was suggested for efficient communication and record-keeping.
Hobbie presented a draft “charge” to the committee, which the board hopes to populate quickly.
“The purpose of the Safety and Policing Committee is to define what is meant by safety in Hartland, prioritize those needs, create recommendations on how to achieve those identified needs, and draft a budget associated with these recommendations,” the charge reads.
Two sources for research are cited — the VSP, relative to incidence records, and the townspeople themselves. The charge includes anecdotal references to residents’ concerns: “Speeders, drug use, domestic violence, stolen property, vandalism, noisy neighbors, mental health, suicide checks, suspicious activity, vehicle crashes, fighting, choking, child abuse, death investigation, dog and wildlife complaints, alarms, sexual deviants and landlord/tenant problems, etc.”
Relationships with other law enforcement authorities and first responders will be documented. Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Commission will facilitate a public meeting for discussion of the committee’s findings and recommendations.
The committee is expected to submit their final report to the Select Board no later than October 2023.
