Oh, maaaan. I hear and read a lot of outlandish stuff while checking out the far-right zealots clogging up Town Meeting Day ballots around Vermont, but this one takes the cake.

According to the gent pictured above, Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah Fair George “may have been funded by George Soros. I don’t know that for a fact, but she isn’t doing her job.”

Ah yes, the globalist conspiracy, dipping its toes into the Chittenden County justice system for who knows what nefarious purpose.

This man, who doesn’t know how to center himself on a Zoom call, is David Xavier Wallace, candidate for Winooski City Council, speaking at an online candidates’ forum earlier this week. Seriously, he spent almost the entire event looking downward.

I don’t know why he’s running for office in progressive, cosmopolitan Winooski, of all places. He’s got about as much chance of winning as David Foster Wallace.

Mr. X, as we might call him, makes no bones about his beliefs. But the voters of Winooski should know that he has a much subtler kindred spirit on the ballot: Chad Bushway, who loosely wears the cloak of Concerned Moderation but whose true colors show through from time to time. We’ll consider him in a moment. First, let’s hear more from David Xavier Wallace.

Wallace is very concerned about “the rising crime rate in Burlington,” which he ascribes in part to George’s alleged failure to prosecute criminals — and also to an alleged “defunding of the police” that has, ahem, not actually happened.

Oh, he also blames Black Lives Matter, which he calls “a grifter movement.” BLM, in his view, is a significant cause of the “major crime wave going on in this country” due to its “sympathy to the chaos that we’re seeing.”

Just for the record, there ain’t no crime wave in Burlington. According to the Burlington Police Department’s own statistics, reports of crime have been fairly consistent over the past 10 years — and if anything, they were lower in 2021.

A few examples: Total police calls were between 32,000 and 37,000 a year between 2012 and 2016, and have been falling since. In 2021, the number was 21,000.

How about assaults? 2015 was the peak year, at 427. Since then, it’s consistently been in the 330-360 range per year.

Property crimes? Peaked in 2012 at 2,982. The number was almost 1,000 lower in 2021.

Police use of force, a good measure of violent or potentially violent confrontations? Peaked at 364 in 2012. The lowest yearly figure was 160 in 2020. The second lowest? 184 in 2021.

Sorry, Mr. Wallace. You got nothin’. (Neither does Mayor Miro, but that’s a separate conversation.)

Well, I suppose he’d say that of course crime reports are down because those monstrous Progs and BLM activists have left left One North Avenue an empty shell and Sarah Fair George has let the criminals run free. But he has no evidence. He can only rant about that lawless pit of hell that our Queen City has, in his imagination, become.

Would it surprise you to learn that Wallace is also a Covid truther? He said Covid is nothing more than “a bad flu.” He promises to eliminate mask mandates. He’s troubled by an unnamed business that requires proof of vaccination in order to enter the establishment. He labels that ” a HIPAA violation,” which is nonsense.

When asked which other candidate/s he would support in the City Council election, he said “Chad [Bushway] would be my choice if I were to vote for someone other than myself.”

Coincidentally or not, Bushway said the same about Wallace. And while Bushway’s statements were carefully moderated for the most part, he did let the veil slip on occasion. He also claims that Burlington “defunded the police,” and opposes Black Lives Matter because the movement “seems to bring violence with it.”

And like Wallace, he is opposed to Winooski’s charter change allowing noncitizen residents to vote in local elections. Why? Because “not everyone in the world has good intentions for us.”

Um…

Does he think there are terrorist rings at work in the Noosk? That seems to be what he’s alleging.

Anyway, be informed, Winooski voters. Watch the forum on YouTube. Decide for yourself whether you want Messrs. Bushway and Wallace lead your fair city.