At a dedication ceremony at the Sustainability Academy at Lawrence Barnes today, the Burlington magnet school celebrated the construction of its new outdoor classroom.

Students, teachers and parents — as well as a few representatives from Seventh Generation, which funded the project — crammed into and around the open-air veranda. It's a space that teachers and students dreamed up for outdoor classes and community gatherings.

We have a longer story about the Sustainability Academy in tomorrow's issue of Seven Days, focusing less on cosmetic updates to the once-neglected schoolyard and more on the growing momentum to transform a high-poverty elementary school into a leader in experimental education.

The school reopened as a magnet school in 2009, in large part because Burlington desperately needed a way to economically integrate its school. Ninety-five percent of Barnes students at that time lived in poverty, compared to roughly 48 percent district wide.

Today, that percentage at Barnes has dropped to 70 percent. Test scores are starting to improve. And under the leadership of interim principal Brian Williams — who labored on the outdoor classroom for six weeks alongside Burlington High School art teacher Chris Sharp — parents report that changes are coming rapidly to the Old North End elementary school. That's perhaps most obvious in the school yard, where school leaders envision constructing accessible tree houses and natural playgrounds in addition to the new outdoor classroom.

What's happening in Vermont news and politics this week? A former presidential candidate leading the charge to repeal Citizens United returns to Vermont. Chittenden County Senate candidates speed date you. And Gov. Peter Shumlin and Republican challenger Randy Brock face off in debate No. 2.

Got an event you want listed in next week's calendar? Email us by Friday.

Monday, September 24

• U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will greet the press at Burlington International Airport at 10 a.m. before jetting to New York for the United Nations general assembly session beginning today.
• Gov. Peter Shumlin will be making a "campaign announcement" on the Statehouse steps this morning. What is it? Stayed tuned to Off Message to find out.
• U.S. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) holds a press conference at the University of Vermont at noon to announce legislation he says will "curb the skyrocketing cost" of college education, which climbed 8.3 percent last year.
• At 7 p.m., the Burlington City Council will take up, among other things, whether to put a $100,000 down payment on buying the Winooski One hydroelectric plant.

Editor's note: This post is by Seven Days contributor Kevin J. Kelley.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger unveiled a proposal Thursday to link Pine and Battery streets through what's now a privately-owned rail yard — a plan that appears as sketchy as it is bold.

The loosely formulated plan to build a network of car, truck, pedestrian, bicyle and transit connections through property partly owned by Vermont Rail System is intended, in part, to address some local residents' objections concerning the King/Maple streets terminus of the long-stalled Champlain Parkway.

At a press conference held in the busy and noisy rail yard, Weinberger had literally lined up many of the political players essential to moving the project forward. On hand to voice support were Secretary of Transportation Brian Searles; Democratic city council President Joan Shannon (who noted she has long been an opponent of the Champlain Parkway); Progressive councilor Rachel Siegel; and real-estate developer Ernie Pomerleau, a regular contributor to Republican candidates.

The distribution of costs for the plan seems to be firmly in place as well. The Federal Highway Administration has agreed to pay 80 percent of the price, Weinberger said, while VTrans, the state's transportation agency, is pledging to push the legislature to approve a 10-percent share.

Not lined up, however, is a specific way for the city to cover its 10-percent share of a project for which there is no cost estimate.

Six pro-life women are suing the city of Burlington in federal court, claiming an ordinance that bans protests within 35 feet of Planned Parenthood and other abortion and health clinics is an unconstitutional violation of free speech.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Tuesday challenges an ordinance passed in July that creates a fixed buffer zone with a radius of 35 feet from the premises of reproductive health care facilities. Violators can be fined up to $500 per offense.

The plaintiffs are six women from around Vermont who demonstrate regularly outside the Planned Parenthood clinic with signs, prayer, singing and literature. They oppose abortion, the lawsuit says, as well as artificial birth control because "they believe it harms women."

The women want to offer "sidewalk counseling" to women entering Planned Parenthood but say the buffer zone requires them to stand at a distance where people entering the clinic can't read their signs or take their brochures. The lawsuit notes that several of the woman are mothers and grandmothers who have experienced emotional trauma from past abortions and miscarriages and want to share those experiences with women entering the clinic. 

In an update to our story on Tuesday about a union election at the University of Vermont, we bring you this news: eligible UVM staff voted 339-278 in favor of forming a union. 

But just which union the group of 778 staffers — lab techs, research assistants and library support staff, among others — will join is still up in the air. This week's election included two questions: Did staff members wish to form a union? And which union would they like to join — Vermont-NEA, the state's largest union; the unaffiliated United Staff; or neither?

The "neither" option received the most votes — 260 — likely from those who voted against unionizing in the first place. The NEA finished second with 183 votes. The two top choices will be on the ballot for a run-off election; no date has been set yet for that vote. 

The election was the largest ever conducted by the Vermont Labor Relations Board. According to UVM staffer and union organizer Michele Patenaude, it was also the first time a group of eligible UVM employees voted to unionize on their first try. Faculty, service and maintenance workers, and campus security officers are all part of nationally-affiliated unions, but Patenaude says all of those groups faced multiple elections before successfully unionizing.

Nearly 800 University of Vermont staff members are slated to vote today and tomorrow. At issue? Whether or not staff members should unionize.

Faculty, campus police, custodial and grounds staff at the university are all currently represented by unions, but, according to some staff members, that leaves other employees without the resources to negotiate working conditions, salaries and hours.

"When the university starts talking about budget problems and finances, they can balance the budget on the backs of the staff because we have no recourse whatsoever," says Michele Patenaude, a staff member who works in the Bailey-Howe Library and a leader of the pro-union movement. 

The UVM election is being administered by the Vermont Labor Relations Board; a third of the UVM staffers eligible for the union petitioned the board for the election to take place. Voting continues tomorrow, and Patenaude says they'll know by tomorrow evening how the election shook out.  

The vote considers two questions. The first asks whether eligible staffers — defined as those who qualify for overtime pay — wish to form a union. The second gives employees three choices as to which union to join: a University Staff Union affiliated with the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association (NEA); United Staff, a local and unaffiliated employee association; or neither.

This week in news and events in the Green Mountain State's political sphere: an "interesting" Obama fundraiser, a Vermont appearance by former Obama adviser Van Jones, and some newsworthy readings at the Burlington Book Festival.

Monday, September 17

• Today's the deadline for monthly campaign finance reports. It's like Christmas for political reporters.
• Vermont Business Magazine hands out its 5x5x5 Growth Awards, for five growing local businesses in five categories over five years, at the Doubletree Hotel in South Burlington.

Tuesday, September 18

• Jonathan Goldsmith, a.k.a. the Most Interesting Man in the World, holds a fundraiser to support Barack Obama's reelection campaign at Nectar's. We wrote all about that one last week.
• Longtime political journalist Barrie Dunsmore gives a talk called "Discerning Fact From Fiction: Navigating Political Campaigns and the Media." (Sounds useful this year, no?) The talk begins at 7 p.m. at the Writers' Barn in Shelburne. It's free, but RSVP by emailing [email protected].

He keeps a catamount as his house cat. He knows how to get there from here. Tractors get stuck in traffic behind him. 

He is... the Most Interesting Man in the World. And he doesn't always host Obama fundraisers, but when he does, they're in Vermont.

Actor Jonathan Goldsmith, who plays the cosmopolitan, impossibly accomplished character in a series of TV ads for Dos Equis beer, is hosting the fundraiser to support Barack Obama's reelection campaign at Nectar's next Tuesday, September 18 from 6 to 8 p.m. Proceeds go to Gen44, the Obama campaign program dedicated to fundraising from the under-40 crowd. Humble little Burlington might seem an odd spot for a pop culture hero like Goldsmith to make an appearance, but the Most Interesting Man in the World is, appropriately, a Vermonter — he lives down in Manchester and was spotted in Burlington when Obama spoke at the University of Vermont earlier this year.

A Shelburne landmark — or eyesore, depending on your point of view — is slated for demolition this week. If your morning commute took you past this Route 7 curiosity across from Almartin Volvo, the shuttered, tumbledown restaurant probably still appeared much as it does in the photo at right: a hodgepodge of boarded-up doors and shattered windows topped, improbably, by a rickety faux-lighthouse.

It may have been your last glimpse of the blighted property. As of 10 a.m., excavators were slated to begin demolishing the restaurant that former Seven Days writer Lauren Ober discovered was once "the swank restaurant in town." (Ober wrote about the Harbor Hide-A-Way's origins, 1960s hey-day, and eventual decline in a WTF column in 2010.) She reported that the restaurant got its start in 1941 as a hot dog stand, and by the 1960s was a "special occasion" eatery-meets-museum filled to the brim with an eccentric collection.

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"We're growing jobs, we're delivering on promises to get tough things done, and we are making extraordinary progress to make this state a better place to get a job, a better place to make a living and a better place for our kids to prosper," Shumlin said.

After spending the summer putting off questions about his long-running campaign for reelection, the governor finally embraced his status as a candidate Monday, touring the state from Bennington to Rutland to Burlington. At Nectar's, he found a welcoming reception from cabinet secretaries, legislators, staffers and donors.

In a 17-minute speech, Shumlin outlined the achievements of his first term and goals for a second term while hammering Republican opponent Randy Brock's health care plan. Though much of his speech focused on the brewing debate over competing health care plans — a debate the incumbent appears to relish — Shumlin told Seven Days afterward that his campaign would be squarely focused on selling his economic record.

We'll have more on Shumlin's campaign kickoff in Wednesday's Fair Game. For now, we leave you with a video of the governor's speech and some photos from the event.