Unsurprisingly, the selectboard in the Northeast Kingdom town of Canaan has backed away from its broadly-written, almost certainly unconstitutional ban on loitering — or doing just about anything else without permission.
At its September 18 meeting, the selectboard adopted a new ordinance aimed specifically at unauthorized camping on public property. (The text can be downloaded from the town’s website.) The change in heart likely follows some pointed communications from those darn busybodies at the Vermont ACLU and Vermont Legal Aid.
The original ordinance, adopted in August, would have barred anyone from sitting, standing, or loitering “in or about any municipally owned or municipally maintained land, park, building, or parking lot between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.” unless authorized by a town official. It would also have banned sitting, standing, or loitering on any “street, sidewalk, municipal land, building, or any other public space in town” if an “owner, tenant, or custodian thereof” asked them to leave.
Yeah, that’s pretty damn unconstitutional.
The new ordinance creates an “effective and respectful procedure” for dealing with homeless folk camping on public land. This “respectful procedure” includes “the removal of persons, and their property, from municipal property through either a voluntary or involuntary approach.”
Yep. First they ask nicely, then they’ll get rough. But always with “respect.”
The ordinance also creates rules for the removal — voluntarily or otherwise — of any homeless person’s property. It’s a pretty thorough and time-consuming process, but it does allow for forcible removal and disposal if the person doesn’t comply with an order to clear out their stuff.
And just in case some do-gooder takes the town to court, the selectboard included a “separability clause” in this ordinance just as it did in the loitering ban: If any portion of the ordinance is voided by the courts, the rest of it remains in effect.
I guess congratulations are in order for this belated outbreak of common sense. But as I wrote previously, it’s remarkable that a town known for its espousal of liberty in all its forms has suddenly turned into a nanny state out of, to state it plainly, fear of the unhoused.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
When this story was first published I looked at online images as I haven’t been that way in a couple decades, Caan is pretty dang small (I have lived in smaller) and given the isolation of the NEK, I wonder just how much of a homeless population there is, if any.
Reactionary politics doesn’t have a good history.
As you have not been in the area for quite awhile, you probably don’t understand that the homeless and precariously housed families in the area are significant. Unlike Vermonts ‘urban areas,’ there is less infrastructure to aid them: no public transportation, no shelters in the tri-county area, fewer services overall. There is a lot to learn about homelessness, and the media, which conflates many social issues erroneously around lack of housing, sustains our ignorance. You can pass right by a person here and not know they are without housing. As one person, who lives outside, told me with pride, “I do homeless well.”
Did I actually read this correctly? You bemoan and excoriate the “nanny state”? You, a very liberal person, love the nanny state in almost every other area of our lives, but not in this instance? Let’s mention a few examples. What kind of car we can drive. How we can heat our homes. Mail-in ballots for everyone. Non citizen voting. Unlimited support for the abortion agenda. Blocking parental involvement in public school curriculum in the area of gender identity. Intrusion into the religious freedom of the Catholic confessional. Rules and regulations governing every area of our lives in the name of climate change. Nanny state involvement in all. And mostly with your approval. You like the nanny state. Please be consistent. We are losing our freedom in all of those areas, but you are appalled that we might not have the right to loiter?? Strain at a gnat but swallow a camel, as the saying goes. My take on all of this? The government needs to remember that it has limited power and needs to obey the U.S. Constitution. Citizens who love liberty do not like or need a nanny State. Did you ever read “Atlas Shrugged”?
My point wasn’t to bemoan the “nanny state” but to point out that Canaan has turned its back on real conservatism.
John, you did indeed use the words “nanny state”. Your reply tells me exactly what I discussed in my comments prior to your reply. You like the nanny state except in this instance?? John, once you vote in and continue to support a nanny state, which is what we now have in Vermont, you cannot control where it will go. Our nanny state in Vermont feels entitled to go everywhere, at both the local and state levels. They all need to obey the Constitution, which espouses limited government. My fellow Vermonters seem to have a love affair with socialism and all kinds of leftism. And so they will get what they voted for. As a Vermonter, I do not support a nanny state. I have read “Atlas Shrugged”.
Congratulations on reading a terrible book.
Don’t try to make your living as a literary critic, John. “Atlas Shrugged” is considered a classic novel, has been on the best-seller lists for years, has been required reading in hundreds of high school and college classrooms, and is stocked by such right-wing conservative businesses as Barnes & Noble. Ayn Rand, the author, fled from Soviet Russia after the Communist Revolution, and much of what she writes is a “hymn of praise” to freedom and capitalism. She is very anti-Communist. Her writing is excellent. She has a brilliant mind. The fact that you rate her novel as terrible is all about your political views (pro socialist etc.) and hardly about her literary skills. If you compare her writing to your column, it isn’t even close. Also, even though I don’t agree with some of her comments about religion and charity in the book, I am broad-minded enough to not let my subjective feelings cloud my appreciation of her brilliant literary skills, unlike yourself. Apparently you cannot do that.
Thank you, John, for recognizing a literary hack when she deserves to be called out. Atlas Shrugged is indeed a terrible book.