On Monday, Winooski City Council approved the inclusion of an Apartheid-Free Communities measure on its Town Meeting Day ballot after sufficient signatures were gathered. The non-binding resolution will now go before Winooski voters.
For the better part of 2024, activists and Vermont residents across the state have been organizing efforts to place the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge on the ballot in multiple municipalities for Town Meeting Day, held on March 4th this year. The pledge, originally drafted by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, affirms solidarity with the Palestinian people and pledges to oppose Israeli apartheid.
With this vote, Winooski is now the first city in the state to put the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge on the ballot.
While Democrats on Burlington’s city council have long stood in the way of letting their constituents vote on the issue, whether it be rejecting a ceasefire resolution or twice blocking the advisory measure from appearing on the ballot, other towns across the state have been far more receptive to such resolutions.
The measure passed in a 4-0 vote decided among the city’s three councilors and Deputy Mayor Thomas Renner, after residents had submitted enough signatures, five percent of registered Winooski voters, to the City Clerk. It passed during Monday’s meeting without public comment from residents or community groups, as no one signed up to speak. This was a stark contrast to when Burlington City Council considered the measure and the public comment period stretched for hours.
During a brief and mostly procedural comment period among the council, multiple members including Renner and Mayor Kristine Lott expressed personal concern with the measure’s language and whether Winooski could directly take action locally to support the pledge to end the support of Israeli apartheid. None stood in the way of its passing, however, with some noting that the measure falls in line with many other voter-backed initiatives brought forth by Winooski residents over the years.
“This feels more in line with Winooski’s long history of putting these types of non-binding resolutions about wider issues that affect our community, wider local community, or national and international communities,” said Councilor Aurora Hurd, who noted various ballot measures in Winooski such as the F-35 and Vermont Air National Guard mission ballot measures and Citizens United resolutions. “So to me, this does feel in line with past practice to move this forward.”
On why an Apartheid-Free Communities pledge has value being placed on the ballot, Councilor Charles Judge said, “I think there’s a lot of value in local municipalities taking up issues like this, even if it is perceived as only being performative. The performance of solidarity is in and of itself minor, at the very least, solidarity.”
Despite saying she did not see the correlation between it and similar voter-backed ballot measures, and expressing concern over the item’s language, Councilor Bryn Oakleaf voted in favor of the measure, while also seeming to throw shade at her Burlington counterparts across the river. “While it’s interesting to see what our neighboring municipalities have done in correlation with previous non-binding petitions, I don’t see that influencing my decision here. Personally, I think I’m comfortable moving this to the ballot,” she said.
Wafic Faour, a lead organizer with Vermonters for Justice in Palestine (VTJP), also contrasted the two cities’ approaches. The Burlington City Council vote “was disrespectful of democracy, democratic institutions, the First Amendment of the Constitution and the charter of the City of Burlington,” Faour said. “In Winooski, they respected the democratic principle, and they accepted the initiative.”
Faour also described what he sees as the positive impact of building public support for the ballot measure regardless of outcome. “We went out of our comfort zone of mobilizing the usual people and moved toward organizing, relating the question of Palestine to the American question,” he said. “And it is unbelievable, the positive feeling we get [from residents].”
Nickie Brownell said the public response to their signature canvassing was overwhelmingly positive. “When you explain the situation, pretty much everyone is onboard. Usually people don’t like to hear about people suffering,” she said. Brownell is a Winooski resident, co-chair of the Green Mountain DSA, and member of VTJP and the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation. She said that many signatures were gathered at local events like the Winooski Farmers Market and by door knocking, but likely the majority of them came from canvassing throughout the day at the city’s polling place on November 5th.
“I hope it’s inspiring to people,” Brownell said. “Hopefully it means that cities, villages, towns, can also do the same thing.”
Efforts are underway in cities and towns across the state, including Montpelier, Vergennes, and Thetford, as well as many of the thirteen municipalities that passed ceasefire resolutions last year.
Editor’s Note: While we pride ourselves for the niche we play in the Vermont media landscape, it is worth noting that while almost all local news outlets covered the defeat of this measure in Burlington last month, no one outside our modest pages has yet covered the measure’s success in Winooski. While Winooski is a much smaller city, zero coverage by legacy media after the better part of a week is disappointing.
Matt Moore is a writer from Vermont. He is on the editorial collective of The Rake Vermont.
