This story was updated at 4 p.m. 10/24/2014 to include comments from Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger and Vermont Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe and at 5:30 p.m. with remarks from school board leaders.

Burlington's interim superintendent, assistant superintendent and chief administrative officer resigned their positions Friday morning, citing an untenable relationship with the school board.

In a scathing letter to board chair Patrick Halladay, the interim leadership team wrote, "There are board members who regularly make email and public meeting comments that malign central office administrators. This behavior only serves to expand the 'us against them' culture which has led to the departure of many directors in the last ten months."

When House Democrats held a rare Statehouse press conference last Wednesday promising to confront rising property taxes, their Republican opponents rolled their eyes.

"It's kind of interesting that a couple weeks before the election, after having done nothing for years, they're finally finding religion on property tax reform," Rep. Kurt Wright (R-Burlington) said at the time. "I welcome that, but I think voters should always be wary of near-election-time conversions."

This week, House Democratic leaders appear to have found religion on another subject: the influence of money in politics. 

After spending the last two years raising campaign cash from out-of-state corporations and in-state lobbyists, House Dems issued a press release Thursday complaining about the sudden influx of such money in support of Republican candidates.

It was billed as a get-out-the-vote rally ahead of New Hampshire’s closely contested congressional elections. But in 50 minutes of remarks Thursday afternoon at Dartmouth College, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) only once mentioned the race that could determine control of the United States Senate: incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D-N.H.) showdown against Republican Scott Brown, the former senator from Massachusetts.

And Sanders didn’t even mention Shaheen’s name.

The subject came up 40 minutes into the Vermonter’s stump speech, as he hailed the progress he believes women have made in American politics.

“In this state alone right now, you have a woman governor, you have two women United States senators and your two congressional seats are held by women,” he said, adding parenthetically, “And by the way, I hope very much you’ll return one of these women to the United States Senate, who’s doing a very good job.”

The rest of Sanders’ speech appeared focused on getting out the vote in another race: the 2016 presidential election.

His visit to Hanover marked his seventh day in New Hampshire this year — and his fourth this month alone. On Tuesday, he visited Keene State College and, later Thursday, he was scheduled to appear at Plymouth State University.

As befits a veteran diplomat, the Palestinian Liberation Organization's chief representative to the United States knows how to work an audience.

Maen Rashid Areikat began his speech at Champlain College on Tuesday night by thanking Vermonters for their “warmth of hospitality.” He also showed he'd done some historical homework as he cited Vermont's period as an independent republic committed to democratic rights.

From there, Areikat segued smoothly into his main message to 150 attentive listeners: “My people are fighting for equality, social justice and to live a life of dignity and freedom.”

For the next 40 minutes and during a polite, 30-minute question-and-answer session, he presented a narrative counter to the pro-Israel point of view that he said prevails in the United States. Areikat depicted the Palestinians as victims of relentless and brutal oppression who nevertheless seek a peaceful political resolution to a conflict in which they are a blameless party.

“It is not easy for me to say I'm keeping my hand extended to the Israeli government, the Israeli people,” Areikat said. He suggested that Israel, enabled by the United States, has spurned all efforts by the Palestinians to make peace on the basis of a two-state arrangement.

Updated at 3:11 p.m.

The state's largest labor union is demanding a meeting with Gov. Peter Shumlin over remarks the union says "demoralized" its members.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the two-term Democrat, Vermont-National Education Association president Martha Allen said the governor should have refrained from speaking out against teacher strikes last week as South Burlington teachers walked the picket line. 

Shumlin told Vermont Public Radio's Taylor Dobbs that teachers should be barred from striking and that both parties should be subject to binding arbitration. 

"When you see what's going on in a community like South Burlington, the people that get hurt are the kids, the moms and the dads who suddenly have no place for their kids to go during the day," he said at the time. 

In her letter to Shumlin, Allen said the governor struck the wrong tone at the wrong time.

Uber is operating illegally in Burlington, according to city attorney Eileen Blackwood. In a letter sent to the smartphone-based car service, which launched here two weeks ago, Blackwood wrote that Uber cars qualify as "vehicles for hire," meaning they need city-issued licenses.

Uber relies on individuals who sign up to be drivers using their own cars, and it describes itself as a technology company, not a taxi company. According to Blackwood, neither Uber nor its drivers have sought licenses from the city, which means they are breaking the law. 

Uber responded to a request for comment with the following statement: "Since our launch in Burlington, riders and drivers have embraced the added choice and economic opportunity with open arms. We look forward to continuing productive conversations with local officials, working together on a temporary agreement and moving towards a permanent solution for ride-sharing in Burlington." Spokesperson Kaitlin Durkosh declined say whether they plan to continue to operate in the meantime. 

The mayor met with two Uber officials on the morning the company launched in Burlington. Afterward, both parties said they were looking forward to updating the city's taxi ordinance to better accommodate companies like Uber. At that time, the city attorney was still determining whether companies like Uber fell under the city's taxi ordinance.  Blackwood's letter leaves the door open for this discussion: "Mayor Weinberger is willing to explore with Uber whether changes to modernize the ordinance are warranted and can be crafted in such a way that the public is fully protected and that Uber can offer its service to Burlingtonians."

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne released his first television advertisement of the general election Tuesday, and it's a decidedly negative affair.

Milne spends the first half of the 30-second spot attacking Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin over jobs, taxes, poverty, health care and the incumbent's out-of-state travel. He spends the second half pledging to clean up the mess.

Milne's campaign posted the spot online Tuesday afternoon and said a two-week, $79,000 ad buy would hit Vermont's four network television stations on Wednesday. Here's what it looks like:

The Burlington City Council on Monday night approved initiatives supporting non-citizens’ rights to participate in local elections and serve on city boards.

After more than a dozen people, including many refugees, voiced support for the proposals, the council took the first steps in what would be a lengthy, difficult process to bestow local voting rights on people who have not secured American citizenship.

By an 11-2 vote, councilors placed on the March ballot a non-binding referendum that would urge state lawmakers to change the Vermont constitution and give non-citizens the right to vote in municipal and school elections, with councilors Dave Hartnett (D-Ward 4) and Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) opposed.

And in a unanimous vote, councilors ordered the charter change committee to draft a proposed ordinance for the March ballot that would allow non-citizens to serve on city boards and work as department heads. 

Even if city voters approve the measures, they would face a lengthy journey before being implemented. The legislature would have to approve both them, and the constitutional amendment would also require a majority vote from all Vermonters. The city has launched similar campaigns at least twice in the past decade, but they foundered well before they could get to state lawmakers.

Speakers urged the council to try again.

Jeetan Khadka, a refugee from Nepal who has been in Burlington for six years, mentioned that the city’s website features a welcome message from Mayor Miro Weinberger touting Burlington as “vibrant,” and “diverse.”

“It’s about building a city that stands up for its values,” Khadka said. “Burlington will be a better place to work, live, and raise a family if all residents are involved in the voting process.”

Burlington High School teacher Erika Lowe, the daughter of a Chinese refugee, said she teaches students in her school —14 percent of whom are learning English as a second language — to value their civic responsibilities.

“We spend a lot of time encouraging our students to value what’s happening in our community and to pay attention to the news,” Lowe said. “Essentially, we’re preparing out students to be a part of the community when they won’t have a vote in that community. Hearing that voice, it’s important.”

While the measures might face long odds in the legislature, Councilor Rachel Siegel (P-Ward) noted that one year after Burlington voters passed a non-binding referendum urging lawmakers to decriminalize marijuana, legislators made that historic step.

“The legislature really does look to us in Burlington as leaders for change,” Siegel said. “I think change is coming.”

A series of assaults last year inside a Kentucky prison that houses 400 Vermonters stemmed from a culture of drug use that involved prison guards and inmates, officials from the company that runs the prison said today.

Representatives from the Corrections Corporation of America made a rare appearance in Vermont, testifying before the Joint Legislative Corrections Oversight Committee. The told the committee  they have made improvements since a series of violent incidents inside Lee Adjustment Center last year alarmed Vermont officials. However, CCA officials faced sharp questions from lawmakers about their staffing levels and security measures. 

CCA managing director of operations Kevin Myers said that a spate of violent assaults last winter that eventually led to a weeks-long lockdown arose from “culmination of a lot of things coming together at one time.”

The prison received two batches of new Vermont inmates in October 2013, Myers said, including, “a lot of people from New York and the Bronx that had been arrested before.”  Those inmates were brought into a prison where a network of buying and selling drugs was already established, Myers said, and only made things worse. 

“When they got to Lee Adjustment Center, we had a system where people there were dependent on drugs, and those [new] people maximized that opportunity and took advantage of that opportunity," Myers said.

Updated 10/21/2014 at 1:30 p.m. to include mayor's statement

Burlington College is planning to sell all but seven acres of the lakefront campus it acquired just a few years ago. Interim president Mike Smith said in an interview Monday that the school needs money from a sale soon in order to survive. 

After what he described as a "deep dive" into the school's finances during the last several weeks, Smith said he came to the conclusion that absent an immediate infusion of cash, "Burlington College is not a viable ongoing entity." He determined that it would likely need to undergo a "soft closure," starting next year.

The college, which currently has $11.4 million in debt, plans to sell 25 acres, including the land closest to Lake Champlain, for $7 million to a local developer, Eric Farrell, who intends to build a large housing development there. Under the deal, Farrell would assume the $3.5 million debt that Burlington College owes to the Catholic diocese for the original purchase of the property, and he would provide the remaining $3.5 million in cash to the college. The two parties expect to sign a memorandum of understanding on November 1.

As part of that agreement, though, Smith said he'll give land-conservation groups 60 days to beat Farrell's price, in which case he'll sell it to them. "Eric supposedly put his best price there and if a conservation [group] comes in and does it and beats it, they got it." Asked why he settled on 60 days, Smith responded, "We have a cash-flow problem, and we have to close it."