Pick up this week's print issue of Seven Days and behold .... animals! Cute. Fuzzy. Ridiculously Adorable. Animals.

But there's still plenty of news — about animals, of course. And about other stuff.

• The Humane Society of Chittenden County says pit bulls get a bad rap, and therefore don't get adopted. So it's launched an ad campaign to soften the dogs' rough reputation.
• The state Legislature passed a number of animal-themed laws this year, including ones to deal with the problems of feral hogs, nuisance bears and unlicensed dog breeders.
• With just two dog runs, Burlington canine owners want more Queen City park space to go to the dogs.
• In nonanimal news, Ken Picard follows up on our illegal massage-parlor series by asking the question, "Is it possible to keep erotic massage parlors out of Vermont?"
• And in Fair Game (which comes with the best Farm Bill headline ever), Paul Heintz looks at Peter Welch's dairy-versus-food stamps dilemma, Welch's high-priced Vermont fundraiser for D.C. lobbyists, and layoffs at the Rutland Herald.

Passers-by cringed and covered their ears as opponents of the F-35 staged a noisy demonstration in Burlington's City Hall Park on Tuesday morning.

It wasn't the chanting and drum-banging typically heard at protests that was causing those within earshot to wince in pain. It was what organizers said was a replication of the roar the F-35 would produce over downtown Winooski at an altitude of 1000 feet after takeoff from the Vermont Air Guard base at Burlington International Airport.

"You're making my walls vibrate!" a nearby resident complained to protest leader Chris Hurd at the conclusion of the six-minute-long blast of sound. David Harrison, who lives at 141 Main Street, told Hurd, "You're disturbing businesses across the street."

A couple of the F-35 opponents gathered for the media event responded in unison, "That's exactly the point."

Updated with PDF of legal memo

The Burlington city council voted 11-3 on Monday night to release a formerly secret memo from the city attorney's office defending the constitutionality of the Church Street Marketplace no-trespass ordinance.

Councilor Norm Blais (D-Ward 6), who joined fellow Democrats Dave Hartnett (Ward 4) and Chip Mason (Ward 5) in the minority, said proponents of keeping the document confidential were not trying to hide something. "There's never been anything to hide but always something to protect," Blais declared, referring to the claim of attorney-client privilege.

He said that assertion of privileged communication, which had been used to justify the secrecy of the memo, was based on the council's "duty to protect our ability to converse in a confidential manner with our attorneys."

Blais' claim of "nothing to hide" appears to be largely substantiated by the contents of the 14-page memo written by Assistant City Attorney Gregg Meyer and dated June 12, 2012. Download No Trespass Memo and Proposed Ordinance

One point that could be seen as potentially problematic from the city's perspective is contained in a footnote on page 10, in which Meyer writes that proposed changes he suggests for a draft version of the Marketplace ordinance "could be applied to the city hall park and library ordinances to minimize risk of constitutional challenges as well."

The city council has not amended those earlier no-trespass ordinances to reflect the suggestions Meyer makes. City Councilor Karen Paul (I-Ward 6) says Meyer's footnote was probably the substantive reason why many councilors did not want the memo released.

The Burlington city council seemed set on Monday night to give unanimous approval to Mayor Miro Weinberger's choice of Chapin Spencer as director of the Department of Public Works. In comments on Spencer's qualifications, councilors expressed admiration for his work as director of the bicycle/pedestrian advocacy group Local Motion and for his other forms of service to the city.

Then Councilor Rachel Siegel spoke.

The Ward 3 Progressive caught many in the audience by surprise in announcing she would vote against Spencer's appointment. Like her colleagues who had spoken earlier, Siegel praised Spencer's record and said she was confident he is a good choice to lead Public Works.

"I will vote against the appointment in order to vote against the mayor's process," Siegel explained. 

The Burlington city council appears likely to vote this evening to release a secret document that it had refused two weeks ago to make public.

Written last year by an assistant city attorney, the legal opinion is said to argue that a Church Street Marketplace no-trespass ordinance does not violate rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

The city council voted 8-5 at its June 10 meeting against releasing the memo. Councilors in the majority said the document should be treated as confidential on the grounds of attorney-client privilege. In this instance, the city council was said to be the client of the city attorney.

But at least three councilors who voted in favor of keeping the memo secret have indicated they will change their votes when the issue comes before the council again this evening. Republican Paul Decelles (Ward 7), Democrat Tom Ayres (Ward 7) and Independent Karen Paul (Ward 6) say they will join the five Progressive-aligned councilors in supporting release of the document.

Such a turnaround would come as an embarrassment to the administration of Mayor Miro Weinberger. While the mayor has repeatedly pledged to conduct city business in a "transparent" manner, the city attorney's office had defended the secrecy of the memo. It appears that at least a few of his allies on the city council are now poised to abandon Weinberger on this issue. And if the council does vote to release the memo, the public will learn whether there are embarrassing aspects of it that led the administration to insist it remain secret.

Pictured above: City Councilor Jane Knodell (P-Ward 2) at a press conference Monday morning.

Outside on the Church Street Marketplace, lights shone from crowded bars and restaurants and amplified bands played as the second longest day of the year gave way to evening.

Inside city hall, World Refugee Day was being marked. Survivors of wars in Somalia, Iraq and Burma were telling of their flights to safety in Vermont. All three had lost friends and family members and had experienced extreme violence unimaginable to most Vermonters. Each also mentioned the absence of a convenience — electricity — that was brightly present on the Marketplace.

Zar Ni Maw (pictured), born in the jungle to parents on the run from a military dictatorship, said she had studied the Burmese alphabet in a textbook shared by 15 children. "We could only study in the day," she recounted. "There was no electricity."

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger today nominated a leading bike advocate and Progressive former city councilor to head the city's Department of Public Works.

The choice of Chapin Spencer, director of the bicyclist and pedestrian advocacy group Local Motion, likely ranks as the boldest personnel move of the Democratic mayor's 15-month tenure.

Spencer (pictured with daughter Zia) cofounded and has helmed a 14-year-old "inclusive-transportation" organization recognized as one of the most effective of its kind in the country. In his four years on the city council as a Ward 1 Prog (1998-2002) and in his work at Local Motion, Spencer has demonstrated the political instincts of a pragmatist as well as those of a partisan.

Weinberger emphasized those two aspects of Spencer's career during a press conference Thursday afternoon at a Department of Public Works garage on Pine Street.

"In nearly two decades of service to this community, Chapin has shown himself to be both a visionary who can push the community forward and a pragmatist who can deliver on-the-ground progress," Weinberger said. The department that Spencer has been chosen to lead is "responsible for our most basic municipal needs as well as our highest aspirations," the mayor added.

Asked about the political significance of choosing a Progressive, Weinberger said the selection "gives substance to the idea that we want to be an administration that appeals to a broad political spectrum."

Local police aren't certain how to respond to revelations that Asian women in Chittenden County massage parlors were performing sex acts for money. But one thing appears to be off the table: prosecuting the women for prostitution.

Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan said Wednesday he will not charge any women who perform so-called "happy endings" because his working assumption is that they are human trafficking victims.

"I am incredibly reluctant to ever charge the women with prostitution," said Donovan (pictured). "I view them as victims. People may disagree with me, but I just will not do it."

Instead, Donovan said he would pursue a three-pronged response to the illegal activity: looking for zoning and licensing violations at the establishments; putting landlords on notice that they could be held criminally liable; and providing assistance to any victims.

Donovan's comments followed a meeting with police officials and victim's advocacy groups Wednesday to discuss a response to evidence of prostitution at three Burlington-area massage parlors, first reported by Seven Days last week.

In this week's wood pulp-and-ink edition of Seven Days:

• Burlington's Parks and Recreation Department has struggled with management and morale problems for years. Can the new director, Jesse Bridges, right the ship?
• Following last week's cover-story exposé on prostitution in Asian massage parlors in Chittenden County, two of the establishments closed their doors, while a third is still accepting customers. Police have yet to visit any of the parlors, and seem uncertain about how to respond to what could be human trafficking. (Curiously, the adult site that listed the sexual services available at these parlors, Rubmaps.com, appears to be down).
• As downpours intensify, Burlington's storm-water system is fast becoming overwhelmed. Public works employees are working on a fix, but it could be expensive.
• And in Fair Game: U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy is cosponsoring legislation in response to the NSA phone records scandal that would make public rulings by a secretive surveillance court. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders takes on ... the Vermont ski industry? And Gov. Peter Shumlin's real-estate troubles take a political turn.
• Need something lighter? How about a Segway tour, little free libraries, Revolutionary War reenactors or eating without a gallbladder?  

As Washington debates the balance between government secrecy and citizens' right to know, Burlington city councilors argued Monday night over whether to make public their own government secret: a written opinion from the city attorney's office about the legality of a new no-trespass ordinance.

The councilors ultimately voted 8-5 to maintain the secrecy of Assistant City Attorney Gregg Meyer's 2012 opinion on the constitutionality of the ordinance, which authorizes expulsions from the Church Street Marketplace for unruly behavior. The vote broke along party lines, with the council's five Progressive-aligned members against six Democrats, one independent and one Republican.

The showdown centered on an amendment offered by Ward 6 Democrat Norm Blais (pictured) that effectively negated a Progressive-backed resolution calling for release of the legal opinion. Blais told the council that the issue at hand actually involved "politicians' remorse." He implied that the Progs now regretted having voted for an ordinance that the council approved unanimously in February.

The Progressives' effort to make the analysis public did stem, they acknowledged, from subsequent objections by some constituents that the ordinance violates constitutional protections. The Progs responded to those expressed concerns by asking John Franco, a former city attorney now in private practice, to analyze the constitutionality of the ordinance. Franco declared in a five-page memo dated June 4 that "this ordinance is neither lawful nor constitutional."