Yellow-Yellow, we bearly knew ye.

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise is reporting that a hunter shot and killed the famous black bear known as Yellow-Yellow last month. The 20-year-old female — named for the two yellow tracking tags that wildlife officials attached to her ears in 2004 as part of a High Peaks bear study — became a national celebrity in 2009 when the New York Times wrote about her unusual ability to open a "bear-proof" food container called the BearVault.

Seven Days' Ken Picard wrote about the brilliant bruin for our 2011 Adirondack issue. Click here to read "A Cause for Paws," (July 27, 2011).

According to the Daily Enterprise:

The roughly 20-year-old sow was killed on Friday, Oct. 21 in the town of Jay, said DEC spokesman Dave Winchell. The hunter contacted DEC because the bear was wearing a radio collar, which was later used to identify her, Winchell said. Neither of bear's yellow ear tags were on her ears when DEC wildlife checked, and the hunter reported that the animal did not have them when he shot it.

The Adirondack Alamack has a touching obituary for Yellow-Yellow, which includes this great line:

Apparently, advanced age brought about an alleged increased aggressiveness toward campers and hikers with food, which is a common phenomenon among the animal kingdom as anyone observing geriatrics at a Denny’s around five in the afternoon can attest. Perhaps this aggressiveness played a role in her recent demise.

RIP, Yellow-Yellow. We'll see you at that big pic-a-nic in the sky.

Photo credit: File photo courtesy of Ed Reed

In this week's dead-tree edition of Seven Days...

• A developer wants to build up to 300 new apartments in Burlington, but some neighbors aren't thrilled with the plan.
• Burlington voters authorized $6 million in borrowing to fund waterfront improvements. What's on the way? Bike path repairs and improvements, 125 new parking spaces and a realigned Lake Street.
• A greener way to fuel your furnaces and vehicles: Central Vermont's first facility blending used cooking grease with heating oil and diesel fuel is now open.
  
  
• This week's cover story: How Ric Cabot and Darn Tough Vermont saved the last hosiery mill in New England. The Cabot Hosiery sock sale continues this weekend!
  
  
• And in Fair Game, Paul Heintz takes a closer look at the shakeup coming to Gov. Peter Shumlin's cabinet. Plus, lawmakers gun for House leadership positions, the Burlington Free Press loses subscribers and two Burlington TV stations get new owners. 

Paul Heintz is on the road to Montpelier, but sent this update on key staffing changes being announced by Gov. Peter Shumlin today. Read Paul's earlier post about chief of staff Bill Lofy departing for a gig with the Democratic Governors Association, which Shumlin is expected to chair come January.

....

Shumlin announced several more staff transitions Tuesday afternoon at a press conference on the 5th floor of the Pavilion State Office Building:

• Department of Public Service Commissioner Elizabeth Miller (pictured) will take over for Lofy as Shumlin's chief of staff in January. Before joining Shumlin's cabinet two years ago, Miller worked in private practice at Burlington's Spink and Miller law firm.
• Longtime Shumlin aide Alex MacLean will leave the 5th Floor at a date to be determined. MacLean served as Shumlin's assistant when he was Senate president pro tem and managed both of his gubernatorial campaigns. In her official capacity, she serves as Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs, essentially working as the administration's liaison to the legislature.
• Miller will be replaced as DPS commissioner by Chris Recchia, who is currently serving as deputy secretary in the Agency of Natural Resources. Miller's deputy, Sarah Hofmann, recently announced that she too is leaving DPS.
• Department of Financial Regulation Commissioner Steve Kimbell will return to retirement. The former longtime lobbyist will be replaced by Susan Donegan, who has served as the department's deputy commissioner of insurance.
• Mental Health Commissioner Patrick Flood will also leave the administration. Previously, he served as deputy secretary in the Agency of Human Services. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Mary Moulton, who currently serves as deputy commissioner.

Read more about the shake-up tomorrow in this week's Fair Game.

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Bill Lofy, the governor's chief of staff, will step down from that role in January — leaving the 5th floor of the Pavilion to return to national politics. He says he's accepted a new gig at the DGA, where he'll support the party apparatus' goal of electing Democratic governors throughout the country.

"It's been a highlight of my career and it's been a great honor to work for the state of Vermont," Lofy says. "I'm looking forward to continuing to work for Gov. Shumlin in a different capacity."

Lofy's is the administration's first confirmed high-level departure, though Shumlin is expected to announce more staff transitions — including Lofy's successor — later Tuesday at a Statehouse press conference. Last week, Shumlin was elected to a second two-year term.

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for the calendar? Email us by Friday to submit.

Monday, November 12

• At 10:45 a.m., newly re-elected U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) holds a press conference at his Burlington office to talk "budget deficits" and the fiscal cliff — the main issue facing the lame duck Congress.
• At 11 a.m., Champlain College will celebrate Veterans Day by dedicating a new campus memorial to members of the military, past and present, who attended the school. Newly re-elected Gov. Peter Shumlin and former guv Jim Douglas will speak, as will Provost Robin Abramson, Brigadier General Steven Cray, and Digital and Computer Forensics Assistant prof Cristian Balan, an Afghanistan War veteran.
• At noon, Vermont Public Radio's "Vermont Edition" hosts Vermont Law School professor Greg Johnson and lawyer and Vermont Freedom To Marry founder Susan Murray to discuss what's next for the same-sex marriage rights movement. Listen live.
• At 2 p.m., newly re-elected U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) meets the press at his Burlington office to talk about the farm bill and the fiscal cliff. And how Washington should totally just act more polite. Like Vermonters.

Doug Hoffer's victory in Tuesday's state auditor's race wasn't just surprising. It was historic.

For the first time, Vermont voters elected a statewide candidate with the Progressive Party label. Hoffer ran as a fusion candidate with endorsements from both the Democrats and Progressives.

But many see Hoffer as a Prog at heart, pointing out that he came to Vermont 30 years ago to work for Bernie Sanders when the latter was mayor of Burlington, and later worked for Progressive mayor Peter Clavelle. Hoffer also provided paid staff assistance to Progressive city councilors and research for the Peace & Justice Center.

On election night, Hoffer stopped by the Progressive Party gathering at Magnolia's Bistro in Burlington before joining the Democratic victory party at the Hilton.

"This is my family," Hoffer told the assembled Progs.

Unlike lieutenant governor candidate Cass Gekas, who ran as a Progressive/Democrat, Hoffer elected to run as a Democrat/Progressive. No doubt, Hoffer's Democratic label helped him enormously in a year when President Barack Obama topped the party's ticket.

But Progressive stalwarts such as state Rep. Chris Pearson (P-Burlington) view Hoffer's 51-to-45 win over Republican state Sen. Vince Illuzzi as an "extremely significant" victory for the Progs. Combined with wins by fusion state Senate candidates Tim Ashe and David Zuckerman — and a strong showing by Gekas — Pearson says the Hoffer victory "sort of suggests that the Progressive label is something voters are pretty comfortable with."

Maps are cool! Especially these maps created by Stone Environmental's Charlie Hofmann for the Vermont Secretary of State's elections web site.

Since they rely upon data from the state's voluntary election night reporting website, they are sadly incomplete for now. Town clerks reported the results from just 206 precincts that night — roughly 75 percent of the state's 275 precincts.

The secretary of state's office hopes to release unofficial results this weekend and certified results next Tuesday. We'll try to bring you complete maps when they're available.

Despite the missing info, these maps show some pretty interesting regional trends. The most obvious, of course, is the northbound retreat of the Vermont Republican Party. The GOP still has a couple southerly pockets of strength — particularly in Rutland County — but they are few and far between.

You can check out all the maps here. Also, in case it's not obvious, you can zoom in to view town names and check out a town's results by clicking on it.

President: This is both the most and least interesting map. Yeah, we all know President Obama beat Mitt Romney 67 to 31 percent in Vermont, but this map shows just one town going for Romney: Maidstone. (Of course, it's likely several other of the 69 precincts not included in the map also voted for Mittens.) Even in Maidstone, it was a close one. Romney won 52 votes to Obama's 50. If only the two voters who backed Gary Johnson and Rocky Anderson had backed Obama, it would've been a tie!

Damn. It was a big week in Vermont politics. Now that it's over, we're going to Disney World, where we plan to ride the monorail around for a while.

But before we go, we'd like to present this week's list of winners and losers (and ties!). We've mostly tried to disqualify winning and losing candidates themselves because, well, that'd be even more conventional wisdom than we typically offer.

Without further ado, here's The Scoreboard for the week of Friday, Nov. 9:

Winners:

Shap Smith — Yesterday we noted the key role Vermont Democratic House Campaign director Nick Charyk played in slightly expanding Democratic ranks in the House, but we should keep in mind that House Speaker Shap Smith runs the show. And he won big Tuesday. Dude likes to pretend he's a low-key policy wonk, but he's actually a shrewd strategist and an ambitious guy. The question is not whether he'll run for statewide office, but when it'll be — and whether it'll be for attorney general, governor or Congress.

Alex MacLean — Sure, it wasn't much of a fight. But Gov. Peter Shumlin's 20-point victory over Sen. Randy Brock (R-Franklin) has as much to do with good work by administration and campaign officials as with his own impeccable political instincts. MacLean has served as one of Shumlin's chief political advisers since he was Senate President Pro Tem. As his reelection campaign manager, she did a masterful job of ignoring the crap out of Brock.

Liberty Union Party — Thanks to Mary Alice Herbert's 13 percent showing against Democratic Secretary of State Jim Condos, Vermont's favorite fourth party will regain its major party status next cycle. That means you can expect to see even more Diamondstones on the ballot in 2014.

Brian Dubie — It was a good year to sit it out.

Vermont Democratic Party — It's impossible to say how much the Dems' domination had to do with rampant Obama fervor here in the Green Mountains, but the Democratic ground game surely added a few points to the board. Credit must go to chairman Jake Perkinson, executive director Julia Barnes, field director Ryan McLaren and all those other indoor kids down on Battery Street.

Numbers Guys/Gals — In the races for state treasurer and auditor, voters backed two candidates — Beth Pearce and Doug Hoffer — who were, um, qualified for the jobs. Go figure!

Seven Days food writer Corin Hirsch has a post over at the Bite Club blog that's well worth reading for anyone interested in the subject of GMO food labeling.

Hirsch looks at why California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have forced food producers to disclose whether products contain genetically-modified organisms — and at the mounting effort in Vermont to re-introduce a GMO labeling bill to the Legislature in 2013. (Last year's attempt fizzled after Monsanto threatened to sue the state over the law.)

Click here to read the story.

University of Vermont students marched on a board of trustees meeting Thursday to demand that UVM sell off its shares in companies that contribute heavily to climate change.

"Divest, divest, put fossil fuels to rest," the 50 or so protesters chanted as they made their way across the university green on a gray and blustery afternoon. They urged other students walking across campus to join the demonstration, but only a couple did.

"We want to take away the prestige of these fossil fuel companies so they don't release untold amounts of carbon into the atmosphere," student activist Daniel Cmejla (pronounced Shmayla) told the trustees during a public comment period. He directly urged university president Tom Sullivan to "put UVM at the forefront of this national movement."