BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The Burlington Unified Parent Teacher Organization held the first mayoral candidate debate Wednesday night at Hunt Middle School.
Candidates Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and Joan Shannon took questions from parent representatives about how they would help support Burlington schools if elected.
Students and staff from the city’s schools sent in questions for the candidates surrounding how city-wide issues like addiction and homelessness end up affecting the school system.
When asked about public safety, Joan Shannon said there needs to be more demonstration that open drug use in Burlington streets is not acceptable.
“Gun violence and drug dealing often go hand and hand, I think that we do have to send a message that this is not a community where we are going to look the other way when these things happen,” Shannon said.
Stanak said her long-term solution to public safety is to put systems in place to stop people from turning to drugs and violence in the first place.
In the short-term – she recommends a community safety response.
“We do need a community safety response system that responds. Period and full stop,” Mulvaney-Stanak said. “We need everyone in the city to feel safe and be safe and that requires police as part of that response but we need to use them strategically especially when there are issues of violence, or threat of violence.”
Both candidates said partnering with the state is the only way to truly solve the city’s ongoing issues with safety and homelessness.
They said other issues in schools such as behavioral problems, stem from the city culture – and addressing those issues are their top priority.
