The Burlington City Council is likely this evening to reopen discussion of a Church Street Marketplace no-trespass ordinance it unanimously approved four months ago.

Stricken with second thoughts about the wisdom of their votes in February, the council's four Progressive members recently asked attorney John Franco, a fellow Prog, to assess whether the ordinance gibes with the provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It doesn't, Franco concludes in a five-page memo dated June 4.

That finding conflicts with an analysis of the ordinance written a year ago by Assistant City Attorney Gregg Meyer. It argues that giving city officials the authority to ban certain individuals from the Marketplace is consistent with the Constitution. But the basis for Meyer's conclusion has not been revealed to the public. City Attorney Eileen Blackwood says the document's contents come under the heading of "attorney-client privilege" and must thus be treated as confidential.

The Progs got permission from Blackwood's office to share Meyer's analysis with another attorney — Franco.

The four Progressive councilors are offering a resolution at this evening's meeting calling for Meyer's memo to be made public. "We need it to be out there so there can be an open debate," City Councilor Rachel Siegel said in an interview on Sunday.

In response, Blackwood said it would be "inappropriate" for her to comment on the Progs' resolution. Asked how the document's secrecy squares with Mayor Miro Weinberger's stated commitment to transparency in city affairs, Blackwood responded, "If we want to be transparent on something like this, someone has to give me direction" on when the claim of privilege should not be asserted.

Burlington's foreign policy has languished since the Sanders-Clavelle era, when the Queen City palled around with Sandinista Nicaragua and with cities in Russia, Israel and the Occupied West Bank. But Burlington's current mayor, Miro Weinberger, may be able to plug the city back into global politics.

"Excited for long-time friend — world will be better place," Weinberger tweeted on Wednesday in response to the news that President Obama has chosen Samantha Power to become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Burlington's mayor is a long-time friend of the special assistant to the president, and senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the National Security Council?

Yep.

Turns out Weinberger became buds with Power long before she acquired that mouthful of a job title in 2009. The two met as baseball radio announcers at Yale, and later were housemates for two years in Cambridge, Mass., while both attended Harvard. Power was also a member of the wedding party when Weinberger married the former Stacy Sherwat 13 years ago.

"We were very good friends throughout college," Weinberger said in an interview on Thursday. The two bonded through sports. Power played basketball and ran cross-country at her high school in Atlanta. Weinberger was a member of the Woodstock Union High School baseball team that won a state championship in 1987, and he's currently catcher for Burlington's entry in the Vermont Men's Senior Baseball League.

An era will end when Burlington Public Works director Steve Goodkind hangs up his hard hat next month. Mayor Miro Weinberger announced on Tuesday that Goodkind will retire on June 30 — 32 years after being hired by Bernie Sanders as the socialist mayor's first appointee.

Soon to turn 62, Goodkind was a member of the original inner circle of Sanderistas that included John Franco, David Clavelle, George Thabault and Doreen Kraft. Only Kraft, who runs Burlington City Arts, is still working as a city official.

"A fortuitous series of events, mostly financial" led to Goodkind's decision to step down now, he said in an interview in the driveway of his home in Burlington's New North End. "It's working out now probably as good as it's ever going to work out."

With the weather warming, Goodkind has the added incentive of being able to spend unlimited hours riding his custom-built motorcycle around Vermont and likely to Newfoundland, too, on a road trip he's planning with his wife. He says he's heading for "the Wild East" this summer after a 25-year series of cycle trips out West that have included stops at the annual rally that draws hundreds of thousands of bikers to Sturgis, South Dakota.

Goodkind has been a biker since getting his driver's license at age 17. "I wanted to be a motorcycle mechanic long before I ever heard the term 'public works,'" he reminisces. It's an ambition put into practice by his son, Ethan Goodkind, who runs Moonlight Cycles in Winooski.

Retirement will also give Goodkind more time to devote to his banjo picking.

Gene Richards is a mortgage broker and landlord, and he looks the part. But at a news conference Thursday announcing his designation as aviation director of Burlington International Airport, he was lauded as a rock star. Richards, 52, has been holding BTV’s top post on an interim basis for the past 10 months.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger led a chorus of local business leaders and city officials in praising Richards’ work in stabilizing the airport’s finances and initiating improvements in its services and facilities.

“Gene has the eye of a businessman,” Weinberger said. In addition to saving $300,000 a year through refinancing $24 million in airport debt, Richards “has found a way to make substantial investments in this facility,” the mayor added, pointing to a new roof being installed on the airport terminal. Richards has also landed “the first new service in years” at BTV — daily Delta Airline flights to and from Atlanta starting next month, Weinberger noted.

The mayor said he will ask the Burlington city council to approve Richards’ appointment at its June 3 meeting.

“Things are going in the right direction,” Richards commented while taking a brief turn at the podium. “We have a bright tomorrow. It’s a new day for us.”

This week's dead-tree edition of Seven Days is the summer preview issue!

Inside, you'll find stories about a brewery tour, photographing every Vermont town, the new state entomologist and summer art tripping (not that kind of tripping).

And in the news pages, you'll find a smorgasbord of stories.

• Burlington's New North End ain't what it used to be. (Read: it's younger and hipper.)
• Some say Burlington's effort to redistrict its voting wards is mired in dysfunction.
• Vermont's F-35 foes have a new hand-picked poster child — and her name is "Gramma."
• And in Fair Game, Paul Heintz reports on a brewing labor battle, division within the Vermont GOP and Sen. Patrick Leahy's decision to withdraw a gay-rights amendment from the immigration reform bill.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger reaffirmed on Monday his support for banning assault weapons in the Queen City, and urged city councilors to take additional steps aimed at preventing gun violence.

"You are on strong legal ground to move forward with an assault weapons resolution of some sort, and I support that,” Weinberger told the three members of the council’s charter change committee. He noted that similar initiatives by other municipalities have survived court challenges.

But any attempt by Burlington to regulate possession of firearms would require a change in the city’s charter thus could not take effect unless approved by the state legislature. City Councilor Rachel Siegel, the Ward 3 Progressive who chairs the charter-change committee, said it’s unlikely the legislature would even consider such an initiative until 2015, assuming it was first endorsed by the council and approved by Burlington voters in March 2014.

“More immediately,” Weinberger told the committee, Burlington might be able to adopt another measure relating to access to firearms.

He noted that in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut, mass murder of schoolchildren and educators, 24 communities around the country “have passed resolutions to encourage action to fix the federal background-check system.” This screening process for prospective gun buyers is “badly broken,” the mayor said. He added that Vermont is one of 19 states rated as having done the least to submit data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Weinberger then handed out to committee members a model resolution that urges action to strengthen federal background checks.

“Burlington does have a stake in this, and I’m very much in favor of it,” the mayor said.

Legislative adjournment? Ha! It's ain't over till the fat lady sings — by which we mean those svelte legislative leaders, Shap Smith and John Campbell.

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week — sure to be the last of the legislative session. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, May 13

• The Legislature couldn't wrap it up on Saturday as planned, which means lawmakers are back in Montpelier for another two days. The House hits the floor at 10 a.m. to take up the latest versions of several bills, including marijuana decriminalization and physician-assisted death-with-dignicide. The Senate's on at 10, too.
• Congressman Peter Welch is in Vermont today and at 12:30 p.m. he'll be making a "business visit" to the Alchemist Cannery in Waterbury. When you can't find any Heady Topper on the shelf this week, you'll know who to blame. 
• In Burlington, there's a Board of Finance meeting at 5 p.m. in city hall conference room 12, followed by a city council budget work session at 6.

Rest of the week after the break...

Updated with comment from City Attorney Eileen Blackwood

Negotiations aimed at settling CitiCapital’s $33.5 million lawsuit against Burlington Telecom have collapsed, Mayor Miro Weinberger said on Saturday.

The two sides proved unable to reach an out-of-court agreement in talks that got underway in January. BT and Citi met for only a single two-day negotiating session. They did not hold a second round of talks in March, as had earlier been scheduled, the mayor disclosed in an interview in Battery Park during Kids' Day celebrations.

“It didn’t make sense to continue those talks,” Weinberger said, declining to specify the reasons for the breakdown. Because the dispute remains in litigation, the mayor said it would be improper for him to comment in detail.

The battle for control of the telecom network equipment leased to BT by CitiCapital thus returns to federal court in Burlington for adjudication of the lawsuit filed 20 months ago, after BT ceased making payments on its lease agreement.

The Weinberger administration had hoped to negotiate a deal with Citi that would clear the way for BT to be sold to private interests or to a co-op that some Burlington residents are forming. No buyer is likely to take the financially troubled utility off local taxpayers’ hands until the fight with CitiCapital is resolved. The New York-based creditor wants to be paid $33.5 million it says it is owed for the fiber-optic system or have the court order return of BT's infrastructure.

BT has been making small monthly payments to Citi, but at the current pace, it would take decades to cover the full amount.

It could also take more than a year for the court battle to be decided.

“We will continue to do everything we can to defend the taxpayers against further BT liability,” Weinberger said.

In this week's Home & Garden issue of Seven Days...

• Federal law says domestic abusers are prohibited from possessing firearms, but Vermont has few safeguards to keep guns out of the wrong hands.
• Vermont and other maple-producing states are in the midst of a "liquid gold rush" — but is big maple a bubble in danger of bursting?
• No one checked on Burlington's livable wage ordinance for 12 years. What's next?
• It's commencement season, which means a few lucky folks will have honorary degrees bestowed upon them by Vermont colleges.
• In Fair Game, Paul Heintz breaks down yesterday's grand bargain on taxes and the state budget between Gov. Peter Shumlin and legislative leaders.
• Lastly, "Stuck in Vermont" features a character that might be familiar to lawmakers, lobbyists, reporters and anyone else who makes the Burlington-Montpelier commute: Buddy Longworth, the most interesting bus driver on the road.

It's the last week of the legislative session in Montpelier — or so they say!

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

Monday, May 6

• The House gavels in at 1 p.m. On the lengthy calendar: third reading for the immigrant driver's-license bill.
• The House and Senate set to work resolving differnences in their versions of the tax and budget bills. Conference committees begin at 2 p.m. (budget bill) and 5:30 p.m. (tax bill) and are scheduled to continue all week.
• The Legislature might be in crunch mode, but Gov. Peter Shumlin is apparently leaving the arm-twisting to his staff today. The gov's schedule: 9 a.m. in Johnson for a ceremonial lease signing, 10 a.m. in Morrisville for a library centennial, and noon in Montpelier for a state employees recognition luncheon at the Elks Club. 
• Live at 5:25 p.m., State Auditor Doug Hoffer will be on Channel 17. Watch live.
• At 7 p.m., the Burlington City Council meets at city hall, where they'll vote on the appointment of Bob Rusten as Mayor Miro Weinberger's pick for chief administrative officer.

 Rest of the week after the break...