A national search launched last year for a new chief administrative officer of Burlington has ended just a few miles from where it began.

Saying it is “in many ways the most important appointment I have to make,” Mayor Miro Weinberger announced on Thursday that he has chosen Bob Rusten, a top South Burlington official, to fill the post. Weinberger noted that he had personally interviewed about a dozen candidates for the CAO job.

Rusten, 62, would bring diversified administrative and political experience to the city’s number-two post if confirmed by the city council next week. He currently holds three positions in South Burlington: deputy city manager, chief financial officer and treasurer. He also served 10 years in the Vermont House as a Democrat representing Halifax, which Rusten described at a city hall press conference as a conservative Republican district.

“The person the city needs at this time is someone with deep municipal finance experience,” Weinberger said.

The mayor touted Rusten’s handling of the same thorny assignments he would be given in Burlington: fixing an underfunded pension system, cleaning up a fiscal mess and negotiating sustainable deals with municipal labor unions.

In a memorandum sent to the city council yesterday, Weinberger said Rusten “co-negotiated an $8.2 million refunding of an underfunded pension system.” The mayor also pointed to Rusten’s work on a team that “unearthed the severe nature of South Burlington’s financial troubles” and helped solve “cumulative fiscal problems exceeding $17 million.”

Burlington should encourage other towns and cities around the state to propose their own charter changes related to firearms, the Vermont legislature's leading gun-control advocate told a city council committee on Monday.

"The more towns you have presenting charter changes on this, the more it will prod the legislature to do something," said State Rep. Linda Waite-Simpson (D-Essex Junction). She added that it will be more difficult for the legislature to reject a charter change related to gun control if other municipalities join Burlington in advocating such regulations.

The city council's charter change committee is hearing testimony related to a proposed ordinance that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips in the city. The full council voted 10-3 in favor of further considering a resolution containing those restrictions that was offered in January by City Councilor Norm Blais (D-Ward 6).

He and the other two members of the charter-change committee seemed receptive to Waite-Simpson's suggestion. Councilor Tom Ayres (D-Ward 7) said it would be vital to "try to have rational and respectful discussions" with residents of the Northeast Kingdom, "where there's bound to be opposition" to gun control of any sort.

Waite-Simpson (pictured) noted she has received assurance from legislative leaders that the issue will be taken up in local meetings after the current session ends. The hope is that consensus can be reached on some aspects of gun control, she said. Waite-Simpson's own set of proposed regulations never got to the floor of the Vermont House despite the emotional upwelling that followed a lone gunman's massacre of 26 first-graders and educators in Newtown, Connecticut, late last year.

Many Vermonters' resistance to any restrictions on guns remains unyielding, Waite-Simpson said. She cited two examples of the state's status as an outlier.

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Lots doing in the Statehouse, as the Legislature careens toward the finish line. Got a submission for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, April 29

• Congressman Peter Welch is in the Middle East this week. Details are being withheld for security reasons, but the rep departed Sunday with fellow members of the House National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations Subcommittee (or, as the kids refer to it, NSHDAFOS) for a trip that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey.
• At 11:30 a.m., the Burlington City Council's charter- change committee takes up the dormant assault-weapons-ban proposal. In city hall, conference room 10.
• At noon, the Senate holds a "token" session. You sure that's not, "tokin'" session? I'm looking at you, Sen. Zuckerman.
• The University of Vermont is holding public forums with candidates seeking Jane Knodell's old job of UVM provost. First one is today at 3:30 p.m. in Billings Library. Full list.

A cycling celebration tour on a gorgeous spring Sunday attracted 150 bikers who pedaled a 10-mile loop linking some of Burlington’s most scenic spots. The riders also heard about the history of those places as part of the relaunch of the Cycle the City route.

It’s been 15 years since the loop was blazed as one of the first projects undertaken by Local Motion, the Burlington-based cycling and walking advocacy group. To mark the anniversary, the route has been equipped with new smartphone-readable sign posts that direct bikers and pedestrians to sights along the lake, in the Intervale and Old North End, at the University of Vermont and around downtown.

A walking tour was also organized on Sunday. This 3.5-mile route was guided by Barbara Mines of the Montpelier-based Vermont Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition.

“My goal is to get people off the Burlington bike path and onto other cycling and walking routes in the city,” said Local Motion director Chapin Spencer, who addressed the cyclists behind Maglianero Café, on lower Maple Street, prior to the ride.

With boxes of fudge and ice cream serving as props, opponents of the F-35 fighter jet staged a press conference/protest outside the Burlington office of Sen. Patrick Leahy on Wednesday.

The event wasn’t just desserts, however. The activists also enlisted a local grandmother who warned that basing the planes at the Burlington International Airport (BTV) could force her to move from the home she has occupied for the past 40 years.

The two boxes of fudge resting on top of the Democracy sculpture on Main Street were a reference to a recent Boston Globe story reporting that the Pentagon had “fudged” an assessment identifying BTV as the top choice for the F-35 bed-down. The Globe said the results of an evaluation process had been manipulated in order to ensure the plane would be based in Leahy’s state. The senator had pressed the Air Force to bring the F-35 to Burlington, the Globe also reported, citing anonymous officials as its sources for the account.

Opponents of basing F-35 fighter jets in Burlington have scooped up a prominent new ally.

No, it ain't Cherry Garcia — but perhaps the next best thing: Ben & Jerry's cofounder Ben Cohen.

"I think the F-35 is the poster child for all that's wrong with the Pentagon," Cohen says. "And I think it's a plane that doesn't have any purpose. Our enemies don't have air forces or fighter jets."

A press release issued Monday by South Burlington attorney Jimmy Leas and other local F-35 opponents said Cohen would join them for a press conference Wednesday outside Sen. Patrick Leahy's Main Street office in Burlington to speak out against the plane's proposed basing in Vermont. According to the release, Cohen would then march upstairs in an attempt to meet with Leahy, a strong supporter of bringing the planes to Burlington.

But Cohen says that's not quite the case. He says he'll meet with reporters, but doesn't plan to storm the castle. 

Leahy's office took exception to the group's press release.

"The group's publicity announcement itself is a trifecta of fallacies, distortions and innuendo. It's the very definition of a publicity stunt," Leahy spokesman David Carle said in a statement, noting that the senator is currently in Washington. "The group's first thought was a press release, and all else was afterthought, including requesting a conversation for Wednesday or even checking the Senate's very public schedule."

Carle added, "Sen. Leahy talked to Ben Cohen this afternoon and Ben told him he had not seen the release and did not write it. The two of them are longtime friends and, of course, Sen. Leahy takes Ben's word for it."

Cohen says he called Leahy earlier Wednesday to give him a heads-up about the action and had a "cordial" conversation with the senator.

Did Leahy sound like he would budge on the issue?

"No," Cohen reports. "He seems pretty locked in."

Happy Earth Day, you hippies!

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

Monday, April 22

• At 9 a.m., the Vermont Commission on Women hosts a panel discussion on paid sick day legislation at UVM's John Dewey Memorial Lounge. WCAX's Kristin Carlson moderates.
• At 10 a.m., two Vermonters — Alyson Eastman, president of Book-Ends Associates in Orwell, and Megan Smith, commissioner of the Department of Tourism & Marketing — will testify before U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy's Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. The topic: the newly unveiled immigration reform bill. Watch the webcast.
• U.S. Rep. Peter Welch is holding round table talks in Waterbury (at 10 a.m.) and Wilmington (at 2 p.m.) with officials from the federal Small Business Administration. The goal? To hear from businesses devastated by Tropical Storm Irene.
• At 6 p.m., the Burlington City Council holds a budget work session in city hall (followed by another on Thursday at 6 p.m.)
• At 6:30 p.m., Vermont Supreme Court Associate Justice (and former VT Freedom to Marry head) Beth Robinson gives a talk about the relationship between human stories and the legal system. See it at the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library in Williston.  

Rest of the week after the break...

It's easy to see why the report on Burlington's livable wage ordinance — ordered by the mayor last November — was issued at 2 p.m. last Friday. Politicians know that's the best time to release embarrassing information and thus bury a damaging news story.

Sure enough, the 55-page report shows the ordinance has gone almost entirely unenforced during the nearly 12 years it's been on the city's books. Of 160 municipal contracts subject to livable-wage provisions, just 23 — or 14 percent — were found to be in full compliance with the ordinance. And 19 of the 23 conforming contracts came into compliance only after the city began its review early this year.

Mayor Miro Weinberger ordered the review after the city’s Board of Finance issued a controversial exemption from the wage rules to the Skinny Pancake restaurant for cafes it’s operating at Burlington International Airport. Skinny Pancake owner Benjamin Adler persuaded city officials that paying his workers according to Burlington’s livable wage would significantly increase prices for airport customers.

"No restaurant pays their dishwasher $17.71 an hour," Adler told Seven Days in November. "It's not sustainable." The Skinny Pancake is in full compliance with the ordinance because it received the exemption. 

Failure to pay a livable wage is defined in the ordinance as a civil offense subject to fines up to $500 for each day a violator remains out of compliance. But the city has not penalized any contractor in response to this flagrant flouting of its rules. It's unlikely the city was even aware that contractors were out of compliance in most cases or that department heads weren’t enforcing the ordinance. "For most of the city, there is no mechanism or personnel to actually do the monitoring contemplated by the ordinance," says the report prepared by the office of City Attorney Eileen Blackwood.

On April 1, the city of Burlington welcomed a team of six international experts from IBM's "Smarter Cities Challenge Initiative." Their goal: Spend three weeks meeting with Burlington stakeholders to figure out how to reduce the city's carbon footprint. Seven Days previewed their arrival in the March 27 story, "IBM Wants to Help Burlington Reduce Its Carbon Footprint — No Strings Attached."

On Thursday night, April 18, after more than 40 meetings with over 150 people, the IBM team reconvened in Contois Auditorium with their findings and recommendations. Their advice was summed up in six words by IBM team member Christian Raetzsch of Prague: "Make Burlington synonymous with green tech." In other words, Raetzsch advised, build off Burlington's unique strengths, culture and infrastructure and use them to create a "new ecosystem" of sustainable, renewable energy.

The IBMers, who hail from Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Brazil and the United States — and whose consulting services over the past two weeks are worth an estimated $400,000 — focused their efforts on five areas: transportation, Burlington's new smart grid metering system, renewable energy, energy efficiency and stormwater lake protection. The team offered up four major recommendations, all of which will be spelled out in greater detail in a written report available within a month. Those recommendations include:

Lake Champlain bike ferry service is primed to restart on June 14, restoring a seamless bike route between downtown Burlington and South Hero … and beyond.

Local Motion director Chapin Spencer and Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce president Tom Torti jointly announced the return of the ferry at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

The link across the lake was severed two years ago as a result of the spring floods that washed away chunks of the causeway in Colchester. The seasonal service remained out of operation as repairs were made to the route.

Local Motion and partner groups raised $1.5 million for causeway repairs and a more frequent ferry schedule. Spencer said a 30-foot, six-passenger craft will make the two-minute trip across the causeway cut on 51 days this year — more than twice as many as in 2010. The ferry will operate from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays from June 14 to September 2, and on Saturday, Sunday and holidays until October 14.

The announcement was made almost two months in advance of the ferry’s return because Canadians and other potential bike visitors to Vermont “are scheduling their summer vacations right now,” Spencer (at right in photo) explained. Torti (at left in photo) added that the ferry is an integral component in a cycling network that serves as a big draw for tourists — and consequently as an economic booster for Burlington and the Champlain Islands.

Ferry passengers have been asked in the past to contribute to the cost of the service, with $10 posted as the suggested donation in 2010. The amount of a requested payment for this season has not yet been determined, Spencer said, but he indicated it would likely be less than $10.

Brian Costello, a Local Motion cofounder and the ferry’s pilot, said at the Thursday press event on the Burlington bike path that daily service in summer and early fall remains “our big goal.” A stride toward it will take place in 2014 when plans call for a larger ferry to operate 75 days, Costello said.