Dear Kesha, Thank you for writing your brilliant article (below) with the terrific quotes from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King about the housing crisis and the devastating effect of what you call “the racial homeownership gap” on Black Americans.
As the Chair of the Vermont Senate Economic Development & Housing Committee, you are perfectly positioned to take action. I urge you to include a provision in the affordable housing and homeownership bill that your committee is writing to require restoration of the 44 acres of publicly owned land across from the Burlington airport back to affordable housing. Owned and rented homes consistent with Dr. King's call that you quote in your article. And consistent with the Chamberlin neighborhood and the desire of its thousands of remaining residents for housing to be restored on those 44 acres where 200 homes once stood and are now demolished.
Addressing the one obstacle to doing this is within the authority and the responsibility of your committee. But before discussing that one obstacle, consider that South Burlington zoning regulations in the city center location allow the 44 acres to provide affordable housing now for many more families than before. Something like 500 to 1000 working class and BIPOC families can get housing once housing is rebuilt on the 44 acres. And this is something your committee can take action to allow and to require.
Because the 44 acres is already publicly owned land, because it is zoned residential, because it is an appropriate central-city place for housing, and because this central-city location allows high density, affordable housing for so many families, this is action your committee should put at the very top of its priority list.
If only action is taken by your committee the one obstacle can be removed. An enormous amount of affordable housing can be built in a highly desirable location zoned for housing and near jobs, public transportation, and stores. Your article can stop forever being a “galvanizing dream.” Empty words from a politician. Your article can become reality.
Lets talk about the obstacle
One obstacle has to be removed: the illegal 115-decibel F-35 training hundreds of times a month conducted by a Vermont state agency from the airport in the Chamberlin neighborhood. The US Air Force said the noise of the F-35 training flights makes the area "unsuitable for residential use." FAA grant assurances, that were signed by the airport in exchange for funding to buy up the 200 homes that once stood on those 44 acres, prohibit restoring any housing while that F-35 noise persists. But those same grant assurances require the land to be restored to housing when the F-35 and its extreme noise goes away.
You and your committee can turn this around and fix this problem. Your committee can consider how the US Constitution and federal law empower the states to control the training of their national guard, including the time, place, and manner of the training, especially the place of the training.
The US Constitution and federal law go on to state that the training must be conducted according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. That discipline protects civilians from military operations. Congress required the discipline for state national guard units to be the same as the discipline for the US armed forces. You and your committee can consider how the F-35 training in a city, in a heavily populated area, violates that Congressionally enacted discipline, including the military's most fundamental regulations.
As one example, the military law principle of "distinction" prohibits intermingling military forces in populated areas. You and your committee can consider how the F-35 training in a populated area not only violates distinction but also violates ordinary Vermont laws that protect people from extreme noise, and ordinary federal law that prohibits such things as “human shielding,” which is exactly what the nuclear-capable F-35 is doing in a city. And how the military law and how the Vermont and federal laws all require the state to remove the F-35 away from a city location and away from any populated area.
Your committee can consider how removing the F-35 training to another location, remote from populated areas, can not just allow but will also require restoration of housing on the 44 acres of publicly owned land in central city. Your committee can also consider how to ensure that this restored housing is the affordable housing that your letter calls for. And that Dr. King called for.
According to your quote from Dr. King, it will take you and your committee to do it because “it is right.” And to resist the pressure you are certain to face.
We know you will face pressure from certain other political and military leaders. But especially if the committee holds its hearing in Winooski or in the Chamberlin neighborhood, you can count on hundreds of Vermonters from Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski, Essex, Williston, Richmond, and many other towns and villages to support doing the right thing. Action that puts a stop to the F-35 training in the Chamberlin neighborhood and restores affordable housing to the 44 acres.
The bill your committee is preparing can require the state to use its constitutional-and-federal-law control over Guard training to remove the 115-decibel F-35 training from Burlington airport, and keep it away from any populated area, so housing on those 44 acres can be restored. By holding the hearing on a bill to consider the facts and the law, your committee will not only put a spotlight on the illegal, immoral, unjust and physically and mentally damaging F-35 training that adds to the already immense burden on working class and BIPOC people. Your committee will set an example of the kind of courage that Vermonters expect of their political and military leaders.
These actions by your committee can be enormously effective: It will bring this sordid chapter of sickening state-sponsored abuse of 6,663 Vermonters, including some 1,300 children, and that especially targets working class and BIPOC Vermonters, to a close.
Constituents, including me, would be glad to meet with you to share the research we have supporting each of the points made in this letter. As you may know, this issue has been a focus on CancelF35.substack.com for 27 months.
Please let me know when is a good time for you to meet. Many of us look forward to a meeting where we can hear from you about what you and your committee will be doing to restore the 44 acres to housing and remove the F-35 to a location remote from any populated area. Many of us look forward to testifying before your committee about the facts and the law. Best regards, James Marc Leas
Among Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s galvanizing dreams was that all Americans receive a fair shake at accessing housing and economic opportunity. And this has long been a dream denied to Black Americans, in particular.
As he states of the post-Emancipation era, “...One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land… America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’”
Access to safe housing and stable homeownership were an integral part of Dr. King’s work. In fact, the Fair Housing Act was signed into law one week after Dr. King’s assassination, which prohibited discrimination in the sale and rental of housing. Today, 55 years later, we still remain a long way off from realizing Dr. King’s dream of housing for all.
As the Chair of the Vermont Senate Economic Development & Housing, this inequality weighs heavily on my mind. The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein is prominently displayed and discussed in my committee this year as we write an affordable housing and homeownership bill. I encourage others to read it to better understand how we have continually failed Black Americans and others in the pursuit of the centerpiece of the American Dream - a place to call home.
The racial homeownership gap is a prominent issue across the nation and is the fifth largest in Vermont. The lack of affordable options like townhouses, duplexes, and starter homes have worsened the prospects for young families, new Americans, and historically marginalized groups. Every family deserves not just housing, but a home.
Home is where we find warmth and safety, peace and sanctuary. Home is where we gather to celebrate life’s gains and losses, where our children can do their homework uninterrupted, where our grandparents can transmit wisdom.
This meaningful work will not be easy. And for that, I leave you with the Dr. King quote that I return to most often: “Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.”
I hope you had a blessed and reflective Martin Luther King Day.
Submit your report & complaint to the active online F-35 Fall 2021-Summer 2022 Report & Complaint Form: https://tinyurl.com/5d89ckj9
See all the graphs and in-your-own words statements on the F-35 Spring-Summer 2021 Report & Complaint Form (513 responses): https://tinyurl.com/3svacfvx.
Thank you, James, for calling attention to this contradiction in this lawmaker's historical position. Let's hope she continues to more than reflect on the message of Dr. King.
Thank you, James, for calling attention to this contradiction in this lawmaker's historical position. Let's hope she continues to more than reflect on the message of Dr. King.