Three groups supporting two Election Day ballot items surrounding the Burlington Town Center redevelopment spent nearly $62,000 to help get the measures passed, campaign finance filings show.

The Partnership for Burlington’s Future, a political action committee created by Mayor Miro Weinberger and chaired by city Councilor Dave Hartnett, spent about $41,000 on the effort. In the two weeks leading up to November 8, the group dropped more than $20,000 on advertising, signs and posters, along with food and supplies for a spaghetti dinner at the Fletcher Free Library. The PAC paid to host an election night party at the Courtyard Burlington Harbor to watch the results roll in.

The partnership, which also advocated for two other local ballot items that passed, raised about $40,000 and had an additional $3,267 left over from a previous campaign, reports filed Tuesday with the Secretary of State’s Office show.

Several hundred Vermonters assembled at the Church of Bernie on Tuesday night.

The hymn books at the First Unitarian Universalist Society Meeting House where they gathered went unopened. Instead, people in the pews paged through hardback copies of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) hefty new book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, waiting for the man himself to appear at the pulpit. It proved a fitting setting for a former presidential candidate who’s now famous for his political proselytizing.

Hosted by Phoenix Books and held in Sanders’ hometown of Burlington, the event was one of several sold-out stops on his nationwide book tour. Sanders announced his Senate campaign at the same church in 2006 and some of his most zealous fans attended Tuesday night’s sermon.

A few hundred members of the Vermont Air National Guard will deploy overseas in the coming weeks on an open-ended mission under the command responsible for Middle East combat operations.

The "short notice" deployment of members of the 158th Fighter Wing will likely last a "few months," Major General Steven Cray said Tuesday. The airmen will report to U.S. Central Command — which is responsible for the Middle East, Northern Africa and Central Asia — and is overseeing the fight against the Islamic State, among other initiatives.

The mission will "bring the fight to our enemies," Cray said.

Vermont officials were recently notified a deploy order could come before Christmas. Confirmation came Monday night, Cray said, and the deployment will happen sometime in the next few weeks.

The 158th Fighter Wing has 1,100 members. Roughly 100 are already deployed overseas on other missions, officials said.

After a five-hour recount Monday, Rep. Sarah Buxton (D-Tunbridge) and Republican challenger David Ainsworth of Royalton came to a tie, at least for the moment.

“This is kind of crazy,” Buxton said by phone late Monday afternoon.

Election Day results showed Buxton ahead of Ainsworth by three votes, 1,003 to 1,000. After ballots were recounted by tabulator machines Monday at the Windsor County Courthouse in Woodstock, the candidates stood at 1,000 to 1,000, with two ballots in dispute.

Buxton said a judge will review those two ballots. She argued that the voters’ intent on both of them is unclear and that it’s also unclear whether the vote tabulator counted them.

Vermont Republican Party executive director Jeff Bartley disagreed, saying that the two votes are for Ainsworth and they were not included in the 1,000-to-1,000 tally. “If he gets either, he wins,” Bartley said.

Buxton said that if she believes the ballots are still questionable after a ruling from the judge, she may request a recount by hand.

If the vote were to remain tied after a judge’s ruling, state law calls for a revote within three weeks, Secretary of State Jim Condos said.

Opponents of the Burlington Town Center redevelopment want the results of an Election Day vote that approved tax increment financing related to the project tossed out because of bad ballot language.

In a lawsuit filed Friday, the Coalition for a Livable City says Burlington misrepresented how $21.8 million in TIF bonding would be paid back. The November 8 ballot question implied that all properties within the Waterfront TIF district would pay off the debt, when in reality only three properties within the district would make payments, the suit alleges.

The phrasing, according to the suit, therefore undersold the financial risk to voters, who are on the hook for the cost of the bond if the project falls through.

City councilors are considering making Winooski a sanctuary city.

The Onion City would put on paper its practice of not asking residents about immigration status while “providing municipal services or in the course of law enforcement,” according to a city council resolution. The resolution describes the city as Vermont’s “most diverse community.”

Councilors on Monday evening will discuss and possibly vote on the resolution, which would set in motion the research and development of specific policy, Mayor Seth Leonard said.

When Brittany Dunn left Montpelier early Saturday morning to travel to North Dakota by chartered bus, she brought with her 125 pounds of meat in coolers, along with other food supplies. The 31-year-old volunteer coordinator from the environmental organization 350 Vermont is on her way to the Oceti Sakowin Camp in North Dakota to express solidarity with the anti-pipeline movement.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe started the campaign in April to protest the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline by Texas-based company Energy Transfer Partners. The pipeline will transport crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to Patoka, Ill. Nearly 200 tribes have offered support to the Standing Rock Sioux, according to National Public Radio.

"We've never seen indigenous-led action of this magnitude and I want to be able to support that," Dunn told Seven Days Thursday.

Opponents of the project, who call themselves water protectors — not protesters — worry that the pipeline will leak into the Missouri River, which holds cultural, spiritual and environmental significance for the tribe. They also say the proposed route cuts through sacred burial grounds.

Dunn and her colleague Abby Mnookin had been thinking about traveling to North Dakota separately before deciding to coordinate the bus trip. It took them a week to do the planning. All 51 seats filled up.

"I'm a little surprised and excited that so many people are able to come at such a last minute," said Dunn.

Participants include students from colleges in Vermont and Massachusetts, Dunn noted. Before the trip, she encouraged everyone to read a resource package from the Standing Rock Solidarity Network, which includes camp protocols. The group will spend the week at the Oceti Sakowin Camp before returning on Sunday, November 27.

Some passengers, including Dunn, will link up with another Vermonters-led group, the NoDAPL Builders Delegation and Supply Caravan, which left Friday. Henry Harris and Erik Gillard are coordinating that group. They've raised close to $13,000 since last month to buy building supplies.

Harris told Seven Days Thursday that the caravan of trucks and cars comprise builders and volunteers from Vermont, New York, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota. They will work throughout Thanksgiving week to help winterize and insulate existing structures with straw bales.
"I hope that we can get a bunch of warm places for the people who are there, participate in direct action, make enough pressure on President [Barack] Obama that he moves to protect water before [Donald] Trump [comes into office]," said Harris.

The Plainfield builder said he has contacted native leaders in North Dakota. "They are excited for us to come down and help them," he said. "This isn't just a struggle over the climate. But this is a struggle for native survival."

Clashes between police and demonstrators have followed what activists described as peaceful protests. The movement has received backing from several groups, including Black Lives Matter, as well as politicians and prominent personalities, such as former vice president Al Gore. Celebrities have organized benefit concerts.

The Standing Rock tribe points out that the pipeline was originally supposed to pass north of the state capital, Bismarck. But that plan was rejected and the pipeline was rerouted closer to the tribe's reservation.

"This pipeline was rerouted towards our tribal nations when other citizens of North Dakota rightfully rejected it in the interests of protecting their communities and water. We seek the same consideration as those citizens," Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said in a statement last month.

Brenda Gagne, an Abenaki, said earlier this month that she plans to send supplies to the Standing Rock tribe. Gagne runs the Circle of Courage, an after-school program in Swanton that teaches children about Abenaki traditions.

Melody Brook, the vice chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, said the Elnu band of the Abenaki tribe has sent money and messages of support to Standing Rock.

"I hope everyone recognizes that they are making history," said Brook, when told about the Vermont delegations. "Standing up for what you believe in in a world that often marginalizes others and contains far too much injustice is, in essence, expressing your deepest love of the world around you and for all of its people."

Updated at 5:13 p.m. with a statement from Scott spokesman Jason Gibbs.

Gov. Peter Shumlin has taken some heat for declaring that he will appoint a replacement for retiring Vermont Supreme Court Justice John Dooley, who will formally leave the bench months after Shumlin surrenders the keys to the governor’s office to Republican Phil Scott.

There will apparently be no such controversy in replacing another pivotal legal position — Chittenden County state’s attorney.

T.J. Donovan, who currently holds that office, will be sworn in as Vermont’s new attorney general in January, two years before his term in Chittenden County expires. There had been whispers that Donovan could officially resign his current position in the coming weeks, affording Shumlin, a fellow Democrat, the chance to name his replacement.

But in an interview with Seven Days, Donovan said he won’t do that.

Updated at 6:24 p.m.

Burlington could be designated a “sanctuary city” before president-elect Donald Trump even takes office.

The Burlington City Council hopes to craft and present a resolution by the end of December, according to council President Jane Knodell. The designation would mean municipal employees, including police, would not ask people about their immigration status during calls for service. It also means city employees wouldn’t round up undocumented immigrants at the behest of the federal government.

The policy allows undocumented immigrants to contact law enforcement if they’ve been a victim of a crime, witnessed a crime or otherwise need police services — without fearing reprisal, according to police Chief Brandon del Pozo.
Queen City police have long carried out such a practice, del Pozo said.

“We want to continue the relationship of trust we’ve built with the people who need our protection by locally emphasizing crime fighting over immigration issues,” del Pozo said in a statement Friday.

Originally published at 9:53 a.m.

When Scott Williams steps up to accept a Carnegie Hero Fund Commission medal on Monday morning at the Statehouse in Montpelier, he will appreciate the gesture and be grateful for the acknowledgement. But make no mistake, the 52-year-old Navy veteran will be incredibly uneasy.

“I didn’t save Lara,” he said.

The Carnegie medal will recognize Williams for what he did do on a Friday afternoon in August 2015.

Jody Herring, a 40-year-old Barre woman who’d lost custody of her 9-year-old daughter, allegedly laid in wait in the parking lot of a Barre state office building and gunned down state social worker Lara Sobel, 48. Earlier, Herring allegedly killed three family members in Berlin.