Forgive our single-minded focus, but this week's debate in the Vermont Senate over doctor-assisted death (Or was it "death with dignity" or "physician-assisted suicide? MUST NOT OFFEND READERS, so we'll just call it S.77) was one for the history books. 

That said, there were plenty of other winners and losers this week. So, without further ado, here's The Scoreboard for the week of Friday, February 15:

Winners:

The Vermont Senate — Love S.77 or hate it, the Vermont Senate conducted itself in fine form this week. Sure, debate dragged on and tensions ran high, but for the most part senators kept things civil and thoughtful. Has the Senate learned how to behave?

Sen. John Campbell — The Senate President Pro Tem garnered praise from S.77 backers for bringing a bill he disliked to the floor for an up-or-down vote. He also got his way, for the most part, by gutting the legislation.

Headline writers — Nothing like a bill called "death with dignity" to get the headline-writing juices flowin'. Good thing it's still alive... Get it?

Morris & DeMag — Faced with steep odds after Tuesday's 17-13 vote, the anti-S.77 lobby shop got the job done, dividing and conquering the bill's supporters from its wafflers.

Sen. Peter Galbraith's ego — Who knew it could get any bigger?!

Fiddlehead — It beat out kale as Vermont's fave veggie, according to an admittedly unscientific online poll by WCAX. Wait, Fiddlehead's a vegetable? I thought it was one of them Gucci beers!

Vermont Press Bureau alums — Former Statehouse scribe Tracy Schmaler is leaving her job as top flack for the Department of Justice to join David Axelrod's new firm, the Washington Post and CNN reported. That means Schmaler, who once worked for Sen. Patrick Leahy too, will no longer have to utter the words "Fast and Furious."

Vermont newspapers — Several Green Mountain rags took home top prizes at last weekend's New England Newspaper & Press Association awards in Boston. The biggest winners? Brattleboro's The Commons, Addison Independent, Saint Albans Messenger, Stowe Reporter, and Milton Independent.

Losers after the break...

This just in: Lawmakers in Montpelier are churning out bills like mad. And some of them are just plain goofy. To that end, we're introducing a new feature for Off Message: Kill This Bill! A look at the worst, weirdest, silliest and biggest-waste-of-time proposals to emerge from under the Golden Dome.

To date, House lawmakers have introduced 280 pieces of legislation, while their Senate counterparts have offered 112 bills. Most of those will never even get a hearing, much less become law. Hell, some don't even originate with the lawmakers who put their names on them — it's routine for legislators to file bills at the request of constituents back home.

But that doesn't mean lawmakers won't spend precious time considering this stuff. Exhibit A: Tomorrow afternoon, the House General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee is set to tackle the pressing matter of what should be the state dog. For reals. Rep. Warren Kitzmiller (D-Montpelier) and many others are sponsoring H.171, "An act relating to recognizing as the state dog any adopted dog."

To which we say, kill this bill!

Vermont State Police are investigating the burglary of a Cornwall home rented by former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, according to State Trooper Evan Doxsee.

Swift says that when she returned from work at 7 p.m. Tuesday to the house she rents from Middlebury College, she found the front door had been kicked in.

"I immediately went back to my car, locked my doors and called 911," she says, adding that security training she received as governor came in handy. "Someone had obviously been through the house. There wasn't a lot to take. They did take a couple prescriptions and some cheap jewelry."

According to Doxsee, the thief or thieves rummaged through at least six rooms in the house. The trooper said he had no leads.

"I'd say it's a pretty ongoing thing throughout the entire county that people will break in, steal prescription drugs, loose change, very easily attainable items to sell," Doxsee says.

Grab a bottle of your favorite spring water and sit down with this week's print or digital edition of Seven Days, featuring these news and politics stories...

• The most interesting race of Town Meeting Day 2013 might be in Burlington, where former Progressive council president Jane Knodell and newcomer Democrat and banker Emily Lee face off in Ward 2's city council contest.
• As automatic license plate readers see more use among the state's law enforcement officers, legislators are considering a bill to regulate the technology in response to privacy concerns.
• This week's cover story: Famously free-spirited Goddard College has had its ups and downs through the years. Can new president Barbara Vacarr stablize the school without sacrificing its quirks?
• In media news, three well-read winter sports magazines make an unlikely home in Jeffersonville.
• And in Fair Game, Vermont's "death with dignity" bill lives another day in the Statehouse, while Vermont's congressional delegation wants answers from Obama on the use of drones.

Read it all on the new Seven Days app for iPad and iPhone.

What with that whole State of the Union address and doctor-assisted death debate, you might've missed yesterday's other big political story: the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a measure to reauthorize the expired Violence Against Women Act.

Sure, it sounds like renewing VAWA would be a layup, but the seemingly uncontroversial reauthorization has been held up by inter-cameral bickering between, you guessed it, House Republicans and Senate Democrats.

The biggest obstacle to passage? A dust-up over whether Native American cops and courts can go after non-natives who commit sex crimes on tribal land, as the New York Times's Jonathan Weisman explains here.

Tuesday's 78-22 vote was a big victory for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the bill's lead sponsor. He's been fighting hard for VAWA's reauthorization alongside Republican cosponsor Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Yes, that Mike Crapo. Among the 22 Republican senators to vote against the bill? This tall drink of water.

Vermont's junior senator, Bernie Sanders, joined Leahy in supporting the bill.

Like last year, when the House and Senate passed competing versions of the law's reauthorization and failed to forge a compromise, the House is expected to introduce a narrower version soon. But as Politico's Seung Min Kim reports, Leahy pressured House members at a Capitol Hill press conference Tuesday to take up the Senate version, arguing that lawmakers shouldn't "pick and choose" which victims to protect.

"A victim is a victim is a victim," Leahy told reporters. "And violence is violence is violence."

Read more about the bill's passage in the New York Times, Politico and Talking Points Memo.

A small city by the lake was facing a budget crisis, so it hired Sandy Miller as manager to clean up the mess. Miller came with a deep understanding of fiscal issues, but over time city employees complained about his behavior, describing him as "arrogant," "rude," "vicious" and "intimidating."

In Miller's performance evaluation, City Councilor Greco gave the manager a "very poor rating" for the way he deals with people but was willing to overlook the lack of people skills because "he is doing a good job as city manager."

We're talking about South Burlington, right? Where Miller was recently fired as city manager for his "aggressive" behavior?

Nope. It was Geneva, N.Y., in 1999, where Miller was also terminated as city manager. The councilor wasn't Rosanne Greco of South Burlington. It was John Greco, one of dozens of Geneva officials interviewed for an exhaustive fact-finding report that investigated complaints lodged against Miller by the head of the city's Human Rights Commission.

Seven Days obtained a copy of the 89-page report authored by Gerald L. Paley, who was hired as special counsel to examine the complaints against Miller. Though Paley concluded that Miller's behavior toward associates was not sexist or racist, as alleged, his report raised serious questions about Miller's behavior toward coworkers and ordered him to undergo formal sensitivity training "with the goal of improving his interpersonal skills."

Paley also concluded that Miller retalitated against the head of the Human Rights Commission, a black woman with whom he had a long-running feud, by rejecting her for a city job on questionable grounds.

After grappling with concerns about constitutional rights and drawing a distinction between "behaviors" and "type of individuals," Burlington's city council voted unanimously Monday night to initiate what a Church Street Marketplace official describes as "a timeout for adults."

The new ordinance empowers police to issue a citation exiling an individual from the Marketplace. It specifies that a no-trespass notice can be handed out only to a person engaged in illegal actions such as disorderly conduct, property damage, public consumption of alcohol or possession of banned drugs. A first offense would result in banishment from the pedestrian mall for the remainder of a day; a second citation puts the Marketplace off limits for 30 days; and a third ostracizes an offender for up to one year.

Advocates argued that the new measure is needed because current penalties have not adequately deterred illegal behaviors on Church Street. Outdoor Gear Exchange owner Marc Sherman told councilors that potential customers don't want to expose their children to the "reality show at Church and Cherry" — the location of Sherman's store.

Councilors then debated what could be interpreted as an offensive or illegal "reality show."

Rachel Siegel, a Ward 3 Progressive, proposed stripping from the ordinance references to "inappropriate" or "antisocial" behavior. These terms are "extremely subjective," Siegel argued, noting that years ago when she was a Marketplace peddler, she regarded one store's amplified tape loop of Alvin & the Chipmunks as "antisocial."

Ward 4 Democrat Dave Hartnett added, "I don't want it to apply to people who have purple hair."

Amid growing criticism of an expensive state practice that houses homeless Vermonters in motels, the Department of Children and Families is floating a new proposal to slash funding to the controversial program. The idea? Cut funding entirely for single individuals, rather than families, who currently receive nearly half of the hotel vouchers dispensed by the state. 

A proposal from Sen. Tim Ashe (Chittenden) would go even further; in legislation he plans to introduce later this week, Ashe is recommending dialing back motel spending entirely by July 1, 2015, and instead allocating the roughly $2 million Vermont spent on motel vouchers in fiscal year 2012 to a suite of other measures, including transitional housing, better case management for homeless individuals, and homeless prevention programs. 

VTDigger's Alicia Freese has the story about DCF's budget plan in more detail here. We've reported on the motel spending spikes several times in recent months at Seven Days — from what the program looks like on the inside for homeless families holed up in motels, to the motels that profit the most from the state vouchers. Long story short: Vermont is spending more than ever to house homeless individuals and families in motels when homeless shelters are full. 

DCF's proposal, as Freese reports, could save the department $500,000 by tightening eligibility requirements. Families in need could still tap into the program, as could individuals classified as "vulnerable" or facing "catastrophes" — both terms that would need to be more clearly defined, but that could include people with disabilities or those facing domestic abuse. 

It's a plan that so far worries Rita Markley, the director of the Committee on Temporary Shelter in Burlington (pictured). While she says she would be the last person to say that the overflow motels are an answer to homelessness, she worries about cutting funding to that program in the short term when it may be the only refuge for some people. She told Seven Days that she'd rather see the state focus on ways to improve accountability in the system. 

Vermont transportation officials are asking for a new state-owned airplane, but at least one top lawmaker says the idea should be grounded.

"It just caught me by complete surprise that we'd be spending so much money when we don't have any money," says Sen. Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee. 

Vermont's Agency of Transportation (VTrans) is hoping to sell its 1962 Cessna 182 aircraft and replace it with a 2013 Beechcraft Baron. The state would pay $117,600 per year for 10 years in a lease-to-buy arrangement, says VTrans policy planning and intermodal development director Chris Cole. 

(Pictured above is the Cessna with state aviation program administrator Guy Rouelle.)

Given that the plane would cost $250 an hour to operate and would likely fly about 150 hours a year, Cole estimates the total annual price tag would come to $155,100. 

To Mazza, who first learned of the request during a Senate Transportation Committee meeting Friday, that's too much to spend when the state budget is already tight.

"This is not a time to be asking for that kind of money when we're talking about a shortage in our total funding," Mazza says. "I have a hard time believing we can own a plane cheaper than we can rent it when we need it."

If you’re drunk and belligerent on Church Street, it could be a while before you're allowed to return.

That's the goal of a proposed ordinance, which comes up for a vote tonight by the Burlington City Council. If approved, the new rule, sponsored by city councilors Vince Dober (R-Ward 7), Sharon Bushor (I-Ward 1) and Chip Mason (D-Ward 5), would give police the authority to issue no-trespass warnings and citations for "anti-social behavior...[that] enhances a sense of fear, intimidation, and disorder within the Church Street Marketplace District."

Under current law, police can issue a no-trespass order on Church Street only if the offensive or illegal behavior occurs indoors or on private property, such as a restaurant, bar, store or in the mall.

Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling describes the ordinance, which has been talked about downtown for years, as a creative tool for preventing "repetitive and poor behavior." In most cases, it wouldn't require police to arrest offenders, then dump them into the court system. Instead, he says, the new rule would act as a deterrent to those who want to be downtown. Police would have the discretion to issue a no-trespass order for as little as one day, or for as much as one year.

The new ordinance is modeled on those already in place in City Hall Park and Fletcher Free Library. Schirling notes that in City Hall Park, where the ordinance took effect just 18 months ago, police have already seen a "notable decrease" in their call volumes.

"What we found is what we had hoped," Schirling says. "In City Hall Park there have been very few arrests or the need for very few trespass warnings issued. The very fact that [the ordinance] exists is enough to change behavior."