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.

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.

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.

As president-elect Donald Trump vows to clamp down on undocumented immigrants, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger wants to take steps in the opposite direction.

Speaking with Vermont Public Radio Thursday, Weinberger announced his intention to make Burlington a sanctuary city for immigrants, codifying protections for undocumented immigrants who are pulled over by police, and prohibiting municipal workers or law enforcement from asking about immigration status.

Burlington already meets most of those requirements, and considered formally becoming a sanctuary city in the early 2000s, Weinberger noted.

“Our practices have been consistent with cities that consider themselves sanctuary cities and what I think it is time for now, given the uncertainty in the community, is for us to take that step and to formalize our practices into policy,” he said.

Once Donald Trump becomes president, Chris Hudson said, she’ll have a target on her back.

The 34-year-old artist is a transgender woman and a lesbian small-business owner. She lives in rural Isle La Motte, where Trump tallied (four) more votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton. Oh, and her wife, Shelly Hail, is a permanent resident from Israel whose visa is up for review next year.

Trump, in other words, stands opposed to her sexuality and lifestyle in more ways than one, she said.

On Friday, Hudson stood in front of a crowd in Burlington’s City Hall Park and led a diverse group of some 200 people in a raucous chant of “Love Trumps Hate!”

Burlington School Board member David Kirk did not violate board policy with posts on his Facebook page that many city residents said were racially insensitive and belittling of women and immigrants.

That's the finding of a legal review of the posts, according to school board vice chair Stephanie Seguino. The decision was announced  Thursday night at a board meeting during which the board also released a resolution denouncing and disavowing Kirk's posts.

Kirk did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment and has said little publicly since issuing an apology for the posts last month. The board resolution stated that the Facebook reposting "of racially/gender/and ethnically offensive materials by a member of this board is at fundamental variance with the standards of conduct and example desired by the board for its members."

On Thursday morning Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger announced a citywide effort to create a comprehensive, data-driven response to the opiate crisis.

Speaking to the press at Burlington City Hall, Weinberger announced the hiring of opioid policy coordinator Jackie Corbally, who will fill a new position working as a public health adviser for the Burlington Police Department and managing opiate-response efforts across departments and organizations.

The announcement followed a gathering of more than 40 government officials, nonprofit leaders and medical workers in the first meeting of a new initiative called CommunityStat. The model will emphasize data collection, coordinated approach and rapid follow-up. Weinberger called the initiative a "a new front in the city's response to the opiate challenge that is gripping the city."

Later, Seven Days met with Corbally in her office in the Burlington Police Department to discuss the details and challenges of her work. The conversation was edited for clarity and brevity.

Seven Days: How does your background qualify you for this position?
Jackie Corbally: First and foremost, I'm a social worker. And I've been a social worker for 30 years. Social work is about community change and it's about teaming and it's about working with various partners. I've worked at Spectrum. I've worked at the Baird Center. I've done internships with the state hospital; I've worked for Women Helping Battered Women. I feel like my career has been really varied. I worked for the Health Department's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program for 10 years. [Most recently] I went back and was a clinician on the ground because I had to get back to my roots and have some really real conversations with the people who were in the throes of addiction.

SD: What are the initial steps you'll take as opioid policy coordinator?
JC: I think we started today, by bringing community partners around the table [and] beginning to have some really hard and honest conversation about what we're doing well and what we're not doing well and recognizing where the barriers are and how we need to knock those down. Secondarily, working with the police department ... providing education and support to the department.

SD: What is the data you'll be collecting and how do you plan to apply that to your work?
JC: When we demonstrated the data we had today ... it was clear there were holes. What we're hoping is that the data will show where we're having success in the city and where we're not. Are people able to get housing in a timely manner? Are people able to get treatment? One thing we know about addiction is, when the person's ready to make the life change, you have got to be there to offer the services. If you delay, there's the potential you're going to lose them.

SD: What kind of on-the-ground changes can the public expect to see, in terms of the police department's response and the city's approach?
JC: The police department's response is tying folks into assessments. Folks might come in and we hook them up with somebody who can give them an assessment within 24 hours to move them along their treatment path. Someone who has been arrested, someone who just comes to the police department and needs help. We're just in the beginning and this is going to evolve.

When we do this, when we get to a place where we're operating at full capacity, this will be a really vibrant place where the community can access treatment, can access the prevention that they need. If we're doing it the right way, there won't be any silos. The systems will be talking to each other as one and be able to augment the services in a timely fashion.

SD: How will you determine your metrics for success?
JC: We are just deciding that. Today was the first conversation with the community partners around what are the data elements that they're collecting in their agencies; where are the gaps. Now we're taking it back and doing a debrief next week and then we'll make a measure of that.

SD: Holistic opiate treatment involves a lot of different components including health care, housing, et cetera. What impact do you see this initiative having on the community as a whole or in other areas long-term?
JC: I think first and foremost, we look at this disease as a chronic health disease. Meaning that you just don't go and get treatment for six weeks and then you're better. Another thing is to recognize that this disease is based in shame and humiliation. Having a level of understanding that you don't choose this.

When we talk about opiate addiction, it's more than just someone committing crime, or somebody losing their children. It's a chronic health disease. It changes the brain structure, and it takes time when somebody engages in recovery to get to a place where they're fully functioning.

SD: What have you seen as the biggest gap in the cooperation or coordination in the programs across Burlington?
JC: The system is really stretched right now. It really is, when you have a 50-person caseload, and you have a person who has done criminal behavior ... You've also got someone who's suicidal and kids who are being taken away. These folks are just really overwhelmed. Part of it is just how can we alleviate that burden.

We need to norm the data. I can promise you that the people in the community are like, 'I'm dealing with people right now, I don't have time for that.' What we're trying to do ... is to shift the lens. Data can be a fantastic tool, but you've got to invest in it.