LOCAL NEWS: ABOUT LAST NIGHT.....

Shay Totten writing in Blurt:--

About 50 people were inside Contois Auditorium tonight to hear The Burlington City Council debate a host of issues related to downtown development and on-campus housing and development at the University of Vermont and Champlain College.

Three Burlington City police officers were called to Contois Auditorium after a testy exchange between two Democratic city councilors — David Berezniak (Ward 2) and Ed Adrian (Ward 1) — and Republican City Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) threatened to put a halt to yet another evening of debate on several major issues.

Councilors Berezniak and Adrian made repeated requests for "points of order" and "points of information" which angered Wright and clearly frustrated other councilors. Wright and otehrs were convinced the Democrats were pulling procedural stunts to derail discussion on whether to publicly warn a hearing on changes to the city's zoning rules.

The furor continues. Today Shay updates his post and provides the text of the BPD police report:--

Here, in its entirety, is Lt. Emmett Helrich's incident report (I've confirmed the veracity of this report with Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling):

"City Council President Kurt Wright called to say that he would like police presence as there had been some disruptive behavior on the part of some in attendance prior to the break. Cpl. Edwards and I went to Contois. Wright told me that Councilors Adrian and Bresniak [sp] had been disrupting the council meeting to the point that he might be compelled, as a point of order, to have them removed from Contois. Some in attendance had said that it had been quite disruptive prior to our arrival. Nothing happened after we got there and remained orderly until after the proposed amendment in question had been voted on. (raising the height of buildings in the city) At one point Councilor Adrian asked President Wright why the police were there and Wright told him he had called for police in case the members continued to be disruptive.

"After the vote we left as it was clear our presence was not needed."

Adrian said he was circulating the incident report to show that Wright called the police for no other reason than "to remove councilors that he thought were disruptive ... in particular myself and Councilor Berezniak."

Adrian reasserted his belief that Wright was "manipulating the police to intimidate city councilors from speaking and asserting their parliamentary rights."

As I noted last night, I think this is very, very far from "end of story."

The intimidating games people play. Remember, these are our elected representatives, all adults.