Burlington Council Debates Crime ‘Data’ From Parking Garage

A few weeks ago, Burlington City Councilor Becca Brown McKnight (D-Ward 6) declared that moving a free lunch program out of a city parking garage had immediately — and greatly — reduced the amount of “antisocial behavior” happening there.

In fact, she proffered specific numbers about specific infractions. McKnight told Seven Days that data from the Chittenden County Sheriff’s Office, which the city pays to patrol the Marketplace Garage during the lunch, showed a 50 percent reduction in people “shooting up heroin openly, smoking crack openly, as well as public urination and defecation.”

At a July 14 council meeting, she went even further: The sheriff’s office had reported up to a 75 percent reduction in those infractions in the two weeks since Food Not Cops had moved its free lunch out of the garage and into City Hall Park. Other media outlets also reported her claims.

In reality, McKnight’s statistics were not based on hard data but rather anecdotal evidence she heard from Sheriff Dan Gamelin, who had patrolled during the lunchtime hour. In a follow-up interview, Gamelin told Seven Days that he’d seen a 50 percent reduction in the number of people there — but not necessarily of specific infractions. He pointed out that his department is only there for three and a half hours each day and does not “keep stats or a spreadsheet.”

In the weeks since that meeting, Progressives asked McKnight to provide more information or to correct the record. McKnight, though, has doubled down and stood by her claims.The dispute showcased the divisions between the council’s Progressive and Democratic members, who often have been at odds since the early 2024 election of Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak. The bickering and attempts to score political points has, at times, drawn more public attention than the actual solutions these elected officials have proposed for the myriad problems beguiling the Queen City.

A local activist, Lee Morrigan, provided Seven Days with city emails obtained through a records request that reveal some of the behind-the-scenes communications about the parking garage statistics. In one, Councilor Melo Grant (P-Central District) wrote to McKnight as the July 14 meeting was in progress to ask her to share the data with all councilors.

“This information came from a detailed conversation I had with one of the Sheriffs at the garage,” McKnight responded. “I don’t have any documents to share. I did take careful notes to ensure accuracy.”

The morning after the meeting, the mayor’s chief of staff, Erin Jacobsen, fired off a similar email. Where, she asked McKnight, had this data come from about a 50 percent reduction?

“Is there quantitative data or is this simply anecdotal?” Jacobsen wrote. “Is the data broken out by type of activity?”

McKnight responded three minutes later.

“This information was based on a report I received in a phone call with one of the sheriffs that work in the garage,” she wrote. “I took careful notes from our conversation and it was based on his experience as a law-enforcement professional. There is not any spreadsheet or database type of information that I’m aware of although maybe they provide something like that to you or to DPW? It does seem like there should be some type of recordkeeping that the contracted sheriffs are providing.”

After Jacobsen revealed that she had spoken with Gamelin about the less-detailed information he’d provided, McKnight seemed to bristle.

“I’m not sure what your goal is with this back-and-forth,” she wrote. “Are you disputing that the food distribution departure has improved the situation at the garage? Are you trying to suggest that the information I shared is not true?”

Things got similarly tense in McKnight’s emails with Grant, who asked that McKnight share her notes of the conversation in lieu of hard data.

McKnight refused. Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke, she wrote, “gave me the very good advice that anything anyone says about this topic will be weaponized against them.

“This has proven to be very true,” McKnight continued. “I’m not going to give you more information to help you do that. You have access to all of the same information and people that I do.”

The conflict burst into public view at Monday’s council meeting. During public comment, Morrigan demanded McKnight issue a public retraction of the “false crime data” she’d cited. And André Clark, a founder of mutual aid group Street CATs, expressed his dismay over McKnight’s comments. He noted that “there is no actual numerical data to back this statement.”

“Whether it was the intention or not, that statement demonizes Food Not Cops and the work of their many volunteers,” he said.

Later in the meeting, several councilors used a portion of their time with the floor to speak about McKnight’s data and the state of the parking garage. Things got testy, as several councilors invoked “points of order” as their colleagues discussed McKnight’s data and statements.

“This is important, because facts actually do matter in this world,” Councilor Carter Neubieser (P-Ward 1) said at one point. “I am not trying to impugn anyone’s motives, nor am I trying to raise this issue to score political points.”

The data McKnight provided, he continued, “is a bold claim that has real impacts on hundreds of people.”

Councilor Grant, meanwhile, questioned whether the data was relevant or accurate.

“When we look at quantitative data, we have to look at trends. We can’t say within a couple of weeks, ‘This for sure happened,’” she said.

She added: “With regards to the sheriff’s department, they do not clean up human waste. So they can’t speak to that.”

McKnight, the first councilor to speak, made no apologies for her statements. She acknowledged that she’d received “qualitative” data because no hard, numerical data are tracked. Without that, she said, “conversations and anecdotal data are our primary source of information that we do have access to.”

“So I will in no way be issuing a retraction, because everything I said is factually accurate as it was relayed to me,” she said. “Sometimes, especially in government, we get information or data that does not match the narrative that we have constructed in our minds. This can be difficult to face.

“But unfortunately for all of us, all anyone has to do is walk outside the doors of this building and into City Hall Park to see the many problems we are facing,” she continued. “We do not need a spreadsheet to tell us that this is a city in crisis, and that it’s past time to act.”

At least two councilors seemed to recognize that the prolonged, contentious debate seemed to be going nowhere. Councilor Buddy Singh (D-South District) said he hears from constituents that “what’s going on right now is what they don’t like about our council, that we sit here and do these types of things.”

Councilor Allie Schachter (D-East District) shared a similar sentiment.

“When we find ourselves in these bickering moments … I fear that it hinders the solutions and progress that we need,” she said. “I do believe we’re all here for the right reasons and to do the right thing and because we really care.”