Em Megas-Russell, a licensed social worker, Brattleboro resident, and business owner, collaborated on the Community Safety Review Committee report with Shea Witzberger. To read the full report from 2020, visit bit.ly/782-safety-report.
I am disheartened to be writing this op-ed.
I'd rather celebrate our town's active collaboration in cultivating dignified, innovative, and life-affirming responses to the basic human needs for safety and belonging of all our community members. Instead, I am writing from a place of heartbreak and outrage at the increased criminalization and exile of common people from common land.