http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140906/NEWS02/709069955
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Published September 6, 2014 in the Rutland Herald
Retired Judge Hudson urges Springfield to be more active against crime
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — Retired Vermont District Court Judge Paul F. Hudson has written an open letter, urging his hometown to take a more active role in countering recent drug crime in Springfield.
Hudson has invited Rutland City Police Chief James Baker to attend a Springfield Select Board meeting later this month to discuss countering what Hudson called the current “hands-tied” reaction.
“Over the past months, we have watched the events of public misconduct playing out in Springfield. Like the majority of residents, I have felt as if I was trapped in a very bad movie,” Hudson wrote in his letter, which was first posted on the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page, and then reposted on other Springfield social media sites.
“By now, I guess all of us who love this town must be asking ‘What happened?’ — ‘How did it get this bad?’ and ‘What can be done?’ the lifelong Springfield resident wrote. Hudson had been a Vermont district court judge for 23 years before retiring; before that he was a deputy state’s attorney in Windsor County.
“I offer my views with the goal that soon it will again be safe to walk the Springfield streets, to live here, work here, and enjoy our former community pride without being accosted,” he wrote.
Hudson, who couldn’t be reached for direct comment Friday, said he had talked with Baker, whom he has known for decades, about Springfield’s ‘spike in lawlessness,’ and he was willing to come to a meeting in Springfield to discuss what he did in Rutland to counter a similar problem.
Springfield Town Manager Robert Forguites said he had received emails from about 10 people saying they would be attending the Sept. 22 meeting with Hudson and Baker.
“Paul is looking to have Chief Baker come down. He’s been down here before, two years ago,” Forguites said, after the first downtown drug-related shooting sparked a strong community response.
Forguites said he didn’t view Hudson’s letter as criticism of the Springfield Police Department’s actions in the past couple of years.
“I read it more that it was telling people in town they have responsibility here too,” Forguites said.
Springfield Select Board Chairman Kristi Morris said he sat down with Hudson Friday afternoon, along with Springfield Police Chief Douglas Johnston, Lt. Mark Fountain and Officer Pat McCall, along with Select Board member Stephanie Thompson, to discuss Hudson’s concerns.
“It was great to chat with him face to face,” said Morris. Hudson spends most of the summer in Rangeley Lakes, Maine, Morris said, and has his longtime home in Springfield for sale. He said he had been exchanging emails with Hudson before his community letter.
“We went over his expectations and to explain what we’ve got going,” Morris said, referring to law enforcement and community efforts. “I was concerned it might be taking a negative approach with the police. It was good to get this all out in the open,” he said.”He’s a concerned citizen,” said Morris, noting that Hudson’s son Eric is a Vermont State Police sergeant.
Morris said he was also reaching out to Baker, who he knows from earlier meetings about the state’s drug problems.
Jenevieve Johnson, the executive director of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce executive director, said Chamber President Wendi Germain had posted Hudson’s letter on their website; Germain, executive director of the Springfield Restorative Justice Center, couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.
How did it get this bad? Deindustrialization marking the collapse of the under-riding economic base to support a town of this size. Locating a correctional facility in our community serving as a magnet for family and friends of criminals to move in to be near loved ones, along with the locating of half-way houses and re-integration services. Springfield is Detroit on the Connecticut: wealth in the suburbs with poverty, despair, and abandoned factories, offices, and buildings in the donut-hole core. To lead a simple middle-class life many a Springfielder must commute 50, 80, 100 miles a day to a job that more likely than not fails to benefit Springfield directly except to allow a home-owner to pay for ever-increasing property taxes in support of an aging and failing infrastructure. Of note, many in our town choose to identify with the cartoon parody of the Neanderthal-side of American life, The Simpsons. Can't happen here? Well, it has happened here.
ReplyDeleteAlways nice to have those self-anointed "elites" proclaim the path to righteousness for a town they and their “rulings” helped into the gutter in the first place. Any contributor to VT’s lenient court system and revolving doors of “toothless justice” ought to just remain at their “summer [homes] in Rangeley Lakes, Maine,” or wherever else the entitled ones decide to escape to on their hefty pensions generously funded at the taxpayers’ expense.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the useless remarks of a failed town manager (“I read it more that it was telling people in town they have responsibility here too,” Forguites said.”), is it any wonder that having never seemed to extract his noggin from that place where the sun don’t shine he is now “interpreting” things in a way that excuses his slothfulness and incompetence and instead transfers it on to the backs of those whom he allegedly serves.
KEEP FORGUITES OUT OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE.
Springfield is a broken record – employing the same lame problem solving “techniques” over and over again. This time it’s “Bring on Chief Baker (again)!” Yes, Chief Baker will help us fix this mess! Except Chief Baker was in town two years ago, and now the situation is even WORSE! But hey, when ya don’t have any original thinkers left in town and you continue to have a municipal government full of the same worn out, ineffective bureaucrats who produced this mess in the first place, what are ya gonna do? Hold another meeting, but this time, add a retired bureaucrat to the mix! Because the sooner the town can solve this problem, the sooner property values recover, and the sooner those with summer homes elsewhere can get a better price for their homes in Springfield!
Former Judge Hudson worth listening to, Chief Baker has been here before. If Hudson calls them as he sees them, will be worth listening to and possibly helpful.
ReplyDeleteI agree. When chief baker was here 2 years ago or so he made the point quite clear: meaningful and powerful change will not happen until we reach bottom. Sadly, while things may look dismal, we ain't seen nothing yet. I was engaged in community organizing during the late 1970's in the South Bronx and Times Square. I've wended my way thru Trenchtown in Jamaica and London's Brixton. Too bad we may have to wait for armed pimps chasing their girls thru a safe house, or for even more heroin addiction. Unless Springfielders take back the night, I fear it will be a long darkness. I am hopeful that Chief Baker may offer some insight as to how we might best proceed.
DeleteWe're not impressed by your resumé of "community organizing" escapades.
DeleteWill the judge appear in person or will he be "Skyping" in from his summer home in Maine? No matter, I guess. Either way it's just more pollution in the form of CO2 emissions. We'd better get NOSAG on the case!
ReplyDeleteEven if your able to clean up all the drugs/drug dealers/users and gangs, you still have NO jobs! and the taxes are UNLIVABLE. As far as Paul Hudson goes, he came in blazing saddles, mad as hell about park street school remaining open after being told it would close and be sold. Guess what it's still open. Springfield don't get your hopes up to high over this meeting. There is nothing more dangerous than a man that thinks he's way more important than he really is! Albiet his cronies will all stroke his ego and pat him on the head and things will continue on just as they are now! And by the way, Vt. Judges are one of our worst problems.
ReplyDeleteYes, jobs are what we need. But so do communities all over the U.S. What we are experiencing in Springfield is a microcosm of what afflicts cities, towns, and villages from sea to shining sea.
DeleteWhat we're experiencing in Springfield are years of lethargy, complacency, and incompetency on the part of its municipal government, all of which has been tolerated by citizens and voters for much too long.
DeleteSpringfield's upcoming selection of a new town manager will speak volumes about how it intends to pursue its future. Will it resort to true form and pick a milquetoast candidate, or will it finally have the mettle to select a real leader? Anyone care to lay the odds?