██████ Vermont Town Evicts Homeless Shelter // legal help needed, housing offered ██████

A recent press release sums up the situation

$72,000 parking ticket

(The judge hinted he could raise the fine to $170,000.)

On February 14 the Town of Brattleboro, Vermont asked VT Superior Court for a judgement of $72K for zoning violations against a local nonprofit for parking RVs that were used as homeless shelters on private land.

The Town has effectively evicted the RV shelter started in late 2022 by the non-profit Brattleboro Common Sense, which is now giving shelter to homeless people in its home.  The charity claims the town has begun to harass them for this.  The town is also prosecuting the charity for violations of rental codes which carry fines up to $10,000 per day (currently $4M).   At their first trial February 2023, they were blocked from presenting their defense.  The group spokesman, Kurt Daims, says "We have a good safe project here.  Our team is exhausted, forced to work without an attorney against charges that are nothing but rumors and technicalities.   One health board member claims that I personally am the only person saying there is a housing crisis, and the health board does nothing on the real issue, while threatening $4M in fines and maneuvering to take our home."

See brmse.org

We are defending ourselves

in lawsuits by the Town of Brattleboro against us, nonprofit corporation

Brattleboro Common Sense for our  emergency homeless shelter (EHRV) on land

owned by me. The Town alleges violations of zoning regulations and rental laws.

Since February, 2023 officials have fabricated evidence, told us to delay

permitting and then sued us, censored our written defense, denied us access to

public information, intimidated a witness, and violated open meeting law.

We have

video, public records or other strong evidence for all but the last two claims. 

Town officials have been

unable to produce rules of procedure for the February trial.  We also

discovered that the judge in our hearing before the State Board of Health unlawfully

withheld our motion to reopen evidence from the full board.   

The Town is maneuvering

around the corporation and threatening to apply a four-million-dollar fine and

take my personal home.  We believe this legal

campaign by the Town is largely a political vendetta for our political work.

Fearing the litigation, we

have begun to shelter people inside our home building, and the Town has

recently arranged an emergency health inspection by the state  We fear more lawsuits may arise from this.

    We could close the shelter. This will

satisfy the local health order which is almost moot now, but we want to

continue the litigation to vindicate homeless people, who have been so grossly

slandered by the town,  and promote the

project as a cheap solution to the homeless crisis and the housing crisis.  I personally am desperate for legal

assistance, as I have been exhausted every day since July, working almost

double-time on multiple cases.  We are

two capable laymen, good clients, and not likely to call for daily hand-holding.  Our work has made regional and worldwide

news.   We need help urgently

pro/low-bono, or hourly, with dangerous lawsuits pending  and, if we survive,  anticipated litigation.

   1. re WSESD school board censorship

violation of open meeting law and banning a committee member from meetings

because of controversial e-mail about climate crisis.

    2. Acts 164 and 497 which restored

government process under social distancing with electronic meetings and

signature waivers, but neglected signature waivers for the initiative

processes, and so has reduced the people’s powers.[1]

Please

give me a call.

802 490 9363

SUMMARY

There are three lines of

prosecution pending. 

·       The health order was appealed to the State

Board of Health, whose decision is on appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court

(23-AP-306), and

·       The preliminary injunction April 17, 2023  for an enforcement order for the health order

was very favorable for us.  A merits

hearing is scheduled April 29 and 30. (23-CV-01086)

·       The local zoning order was appealed and

upheld in the Environmental Court (23-ENV-00045) and an appeal to VSC was

dismissed on procedural grounds.  An

enforcement order is under advisement since February 14 (23-ENV-00111).  BCS has removed two RVs and promised timely

removal of the last.

              On

February 7^th, 2023 Brattleboro officials came to inspect the

vehicles.  Taking their leave, the health inspector said that homeless

people would be safer sleeping in the snow (on video)  and the zoning

administrator threatened to take the vehicles and demanded that we remove them

to comply with town ordinances.  The officer refused to say which

violations were most important.  Daims said we would not comply. The

administrator issued a zoning order, which we appealed. The health officer

issued an inspection report February 8 and an emergency health order to close

the shelter.  The orders are based on the false assumption that the

vehicles are rented.  The claim that the vehicles are an imminent fire

hazard is false, based only on the fact that our electrician was licensed in

another state, not Vermont.  The health officer has no electrician

license, special education or training, as none is required. The central claim

of his report, regarding the ubiquity of human feces, is demonstrably fraudulent

.   The resulting prosecution is inflammatory and prejudicial, listing as fact

that we have violated human rights, and implying that the shelter homeless

people staying here are filthy and dangerous.

              In three

proceedings we were prevented from showing evidence in our defense: twice

illegally and once by legitimate maneuvers. 

The hearing of the local Health board on February 21, 2023 censored our

testimony,  which we submitted in written form in absentia. The zoning

board, hearing our appeal of the zoning order April 5, limited the grounds of

our appeal and prevented our presentation, and at the VT Health Board hearing

July 11 we were not allowed time to present our evidence.  The judge

denied our Motion to Reopen evidence without showing it to the full board, which

is required to decide on such motions. All three “courts” decided against

us.  

              The local

health board hearing was  further defective, as no official had told us of

our rights to an early hearing.   The town manager and a current member of

the board have to date not been able to produce the rules of procedure for that

quasi-judicial hearing.  As we did not comply with the order, the local

board sought injunctive relief, and on April 17 VT Superior Court issued a

preliminary injunction, declaring the shelter was not a safety risk and

imposing reasonable conditions during pendency.  The Town filed a motion

for contempt of the injunction.  We had actually exceeded the requirements

of the injunction.  The motion was so deficient that the judge complained.

  The judge acknowledged our assertions that the officer was unfair and the

officer’s lack of education (the State Board of Health expressly requires no

special training or education for town health officers. ordering a limited

inspection to be performed by the health officer and his supervisor.   The

health officer came on the agreed date but performed an inspection that did not

mention or follow the terms of the Superior Court injunction, and referred only

to the Board of Health.  We implied in a motion for clarification that the

health officer was incompetent and biased and should not continue working on

this case.  

  The case is

complicated by the inclusion of Daims individually as a defendant, although the

project and vehicles are administered and owned by the corporation.

    The

cases are further complicated by the disclosure by the town manager’s assistant

August 23 that the town attorney had told her to not respond to our requests

for her testimony and public information.  She had always been helpful

before, and had stopped communicating early July after promising certain

documents relevant to our defense.  Insofar as Freedom Of Information

applies to the documents, the Town did not supply any reason for withholding

them.  On August 25 after a final request the Town supplied some of the

evidence. Unfortunately this delay has materially affected our defense in more

than one case.  The VT Bar dismissed our complaint about this.  

      In

the appeal to the State Board of Health the judge rushed Daims so adamantly that

Daims protested. All but two of our twenty-one exhibits were excluded from the

record.  A motion for reopening evidence was denied by the judge and not

forwarded to the board.  On August 25 the Board of Health upheld the local

health board decision and ordered the homeless guests evicted.  The

board’s decision, written presumably by the judge, made the broad interpretation

that the Vermont Rental Housing Health Code (VRHHC) applied to the vehicles

without finding that there was rent paid or an exchange of value.  This

broad and paradoxical finding arguably gives the homeless guests rights as

tenants, so that they cannot be evicted without due process. On September 19

the  Environmental Court upheld the zoning board decision, and on

September 29 it filed to take the vehicles.  This case was docketed as

23-ENV-00111 and a status conference is not yet scheduled.  On November 15

our motions for discovery and clarification  (23-CV-01086) were

denied.  The Clarification motion maneuvered to remove the health officer

from the case, and we are preparing other motions to remove and impugn him and

vacate the State Health Board order. 

We feel the state of Vermont

is reckless at more than one level of justice; the local health officer having

no training, and the State Board of health, which allows local boards to

operate without quasi-judicial rules. There have been two confusing procedural decisions

in cases on appeal to the VT Supreme Court: one that makes the object of a

motion into a prerequisite for the motion, and another in which it holds the

defendant liable for decisions suggested by the court clerk.   It is

not possible for a person with limited means and no counsel to respond to confusing

decisions and all other litigation which a municipality may bring without

limit.  Thousands of other people less

literate than we are, are subject to such legal harassment.  This constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and

a violation of due process.  Civil

litigation places a defendant in peril of life and limb, the state should

provide an attorney just as in criminal proceedings.