“(Mayor) Louras made no apologies for excluding the public from the planning. If the proposal had been floated earlier, the mayor said, the debate would have become ‘about them’ — meaning the Syrians, their culture, and possible links to terrorism — instead of whether the city had the means to accommodate the refugees.”
“’The benefits, economically and culturally, that we will recognize is exactly what the community needs at this time,’ said Louras, the grandson of a Greek immigrant who fled the Ottoman Turks a century ago.”
Once the logistical questions were quietly answered, Louras said, the timing was right for an announcement in this city of 16,500 people, which is 95 percent white and overwhelmingly of Eurpoean ancestry.
If approved by the State Department and others, the resettlement would begin in October and gradually send Rutland more Syrian refugees than are currently living anywhere else in New England.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/05/12/vermont-city-prepares-for-syrian-refugees-with-welcome-wariness/nfs6Z8QbcQZQzMmlqZm26I/story.html#comments
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/05/surprise-after-secret-talks-tiny-vermont-town-gets-100-muslim-migrants
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