Burlington city councilors dispersed into small huddles in the middle of their meeting Monday night.

Were they discussing whether non-citizens should be able to vote or whether people with marijuana-related offenses should be granted amnesty? No. Discussions about proposals to put those questions on the ballot — the former would require state approval; the latter would be non-binding — had been shelved earlier in the evening due to lack of support.

It was permitting, not pot, that prompted the unexpected recess. 

Most people agree that the city's permitting process needs fixing, and city officials have long been looking for ways to streamline it. So a resolution on the city council’s agenda that made this point and asked Mayor Miro Weinberger to come up with a plan for reforming the system seemed like a bit of a sleeper item — even to the councilors who proposed it. 

"It seems so noncontroversial," said Jane Knodell (P-Ward 2) before the meeting. Knodell, along with Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) and Dave Hartnett (D-Ward 4) sponsored the resolution, which asks Weinberger to present the council with a "soup to nuts" plan to reform the permit system — with the goal of creating a "one-stop shop" — by January 2015. It also calls for a public forum on the topic in December. 

It didn't take long for the interim president of Burlington College to hatch a plan to save the school. For now, it hinges on one thing: cash.

Sitting in his new corner office at the college's North Avenue campus on Wednesday afternoon, Michael Smith summarized his challenge: "What I need to do is figure out a way to give this organization some breathing room because when you're going crisis to crisis, you’re only planning for that crisis ... How do I do that?"

Smith, who took over the position less than two weeks ago after Christine Plunkett resigned unexpectedly amidst a student protest, proceeded to answer his own question. "I ask for money. It’s as simple as that."

It does sound pretty obvious, but it's also a reversal of the college's stance up until this point. After the regional accreditation group put Burlington College on probation in late June, the college administration said it was putting fundraising on hold because, as board chairman Yves Bradley put it then, "The time to come to them is not when you are down and need a Band-Aid."

Asked to explain the turnaround, Smith responded, "I think we’re past that."

It's been nearly a year since Jeff Munger, chair of the airport commission, penned an urgent letter to Burlington's mayor and city council asking them to fix glaring problems with the way taxis are regulated. 

On Monday, the city answered Munger's plea — at least it started to. After months of study, the city attorney's office has come up with a list of recommendations for fixing the city taxi system. Now, Mayor Miro Weinberger is reviewing its report, with the goal of presenting a plan for action to the city council before its October 20 meeting. The city council can also weigh in with suggestions before September 24. 

For the last decade, airport staff have been in charge of giving out taxi licenses, making sure taxis are playing by the rules and fielding complaints from drivers and passengers. The arrangement — in addition to creating more work for those employees — has made downtown Burlington a "Wild West" when it comes to enforcement. 

To ease the burden on the airport, the city attorney's report suggests hiring an employee in the clerk and treasurer's office to take over those duties. Revenue from license applications would fund the position. (Taxis need a special permit to pick up passengers at the airport, and airport staff would continue to oversee those vehicles.)

Figuring out how to actually enforce taxi rules has been high on the priority list. As Munger put it in his letter: "Anyone can put a magnetic sign on a vehicle as a taxi, operate in the city and never get caught."  To address this, the city attorney recommends analyzing taxi-related complaints, and based on that review, possibly hiring a part-time enforcement officer to supervise downtown taxis. 

On Tuesday afternoon, in a basement room at Burlington College, class carried on as usual — students sat listening to their professor, who stood next a life-size skeletal model. 

Upstairs, the chair of the college's board of trustees was assuring a room full of reporters, students and faculty members that the school's new leadership team would do everything possible to keep the school afloat, despite dire fiscal challenges and the sudden departure of its president. 

The question for the community, Yves Bradley said, is whether Burlington is better off with or without Burlington college. "We feel extraordinarily strongly that Burlington is better off with Burlington College."

Bradley was not being melodramatic. The school is under extreme financial pressure, which led NEASC, the regional accreditation group, to put it on probation earlier this summer. Four days earlier, a group of students precipitated the resignation of the school's president, Christine Plunkett, by protesting outside her car as she attempted to leave a board meeting.

On Monday, the board confirmed that Plunkett had left the college. It also announced that former FairPoint Communications state president Michael Smith would serve as interim president alongside Jane Knodell, who will temporarily serve as an academic adviser to Smith, and David Coates, who will act as an interim financial adviser. Smith will be paid $8,000 a month and will work full time through December. Knodell, who will work up to 12 hours a week, and Coates, whose hours haven't been determined, are volunteering their time.

After briefly trying to quell the crowd of chanting Burlington College students who surrounded her car Friday morning, the school's president, Christine Plunkett — clearly flustered — told them what they wanted to hear: "OK, I resign! Happy?"

The students cheered, hugged one another and dispersed, allowing Plunkett to drive out of the parking lot.  

"I do not believe Christine is resigning," said the board chair, Yves Bradley, reached by phone after the meeting. Emphasizing that the board remains "in full support" of her, Bradley said he had not spoken to Plunkett since the students confronted her but had been apprised of the situation. "I think she was ambushed," he said. 

The college's spokesperson, Coralee Holm, told reporters "I'm not confirming anything," and she did not return phone calls later.

Approximately two dozen students had marched roughly one mile from the college to the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, where Plunkett and the Burlington College Board of Trustees were meeting. Before starting off, they’d walked the hallways of the school, trying to recruit professors to come with them. At least two did. “When 20 of them show up at your office door, it’s kind of hard to say no,” explained Piers Kaniuka, who chairs the college’s integral psychology program.

Stationing themselves at each of the chamber building's four exits and chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, Christine Plunkett's got to go," they waited for an hour until Plunkett and Holm came out the front doors a little after 11 a.m.

Burlington College neglected to make contributions to the retirement funds of staff members this summer.

In an email sent to employees Monday, President Christine Plunkett called it an “inadvertent oversight as our staff balanced many responsibilities over the summer” that was "neither a planned nor intentional step," and she assured her staff that their accounts were being swiftly replenished.

The college failed to deposit both the employee contributions — which come directly from their paychecks — and the employer match.

"This is, of course, a grave concern," Plunkett's email continues, "as the contributions include your own employee funds as well as College contributions. I am well aware of the legal obligations to remit those funds in a timely manner."

Joellen Leavelle, outreach manager for the Pension Rights Center in Washington, D.C., said employers are legally obligated to deposit employee contributions within seven days, but failing to meet that requirement is a common problem. “We’re glad the college realized the mistake and worked as fast as it could to correct the problem, and we hoped it learned from its mistake and will not do it in the future,” Leavelle said.

Does it matter that a self-described Democrat running for the Burlington School Board is getting bankrolled by conservative supporters? That question is fueling lively debate among residents in the New North End's Ward 7, where there’s a competitive, three-way race for a seat that opened up when Greg Jenkins resigned several months ago. 

Former school board member Linda Deliduka, who lost her seat last March to newcomer David Kirk, is facing off against Kevin Garrison and Ed McMahon. The election is Tuesday.

The candidates all live within a few blocks of one another in the Village Green neighborhood. The school board is considered a nonpartisan body, but Garrison's political affiliations are causing a stir. 

Lenore Broughton, who funneled more than $1 million into the conservative super PAC Vermonters First, gave Garrison $500, according to the August 18 campaign finance disclosures. Scot Shumski, a conservative and outspoken member of the school board who is also running for state representative, is acting as Garrison's campaign manager. He introduced Garrison to Broughton and also encouraged the Burlington Republicans to help out. The party chipped in $150. 

A self-described "Blue Dog Democrat," Garrison points out that he's got Democrats backing him, too, including City Councilors Tom Ayres, Dave Hartnett and Bianka Legrand. He sees his bipartisan backing as a good thing. "I come from humble roots, and I’ve been able to build a coalition of people that support me — Republicans, Democrats and independents. At the end of the day, I think that’s what we need to move forward with our schools." 

Garrison said Shumski's a good friend — they went to high school together — and they are both focused on reining in school spending while promoting "better outcomes for students." On other topics? "We agree to disagree, and we only talk about the things we agree on," he said. As for his meeting with Broughton, "She’s a sweet lady. I sat down and I talked to her and I look forward to talking to her again if I have the need to… and she was concerned about the outcomes for our students just as much as I was, and basically that’s what our conversation was based on."

Regardless of who gives him money and helps on his campaigns, Garrison insisted, "I’m a man of my own convictions, my own values, my own ideas."

Not everyone is convinced. "We are who we keep company with," said Jenkins, who's supporting Deliduka. "If Kevin really thinks that the company he keeps is going to have no bearing on the way he is going to govern on the school board, then he is very naïve."

Ayres said he's had to defend his endorsement of a candidate  who's also getting support from the far-right side of the aisle. "Quite frankly, people kind of freaked out when they saw the 'Kevin Garrison for School Board' on my lawn," he said.

The Democratic councilor continues to support Garrison but he actually shares some of his neighbors' concerns. In a post on Front Porch Forum, he wrote, "Those of us who have been elected to local and state office know that the financial, political, and logistical support of Scot Shumski, ultra-conservative funder Lenore Broughton, and others from the far-right fringe comes with expectations and a price tag."

Ayres said he and others are concerned that the national organization, American Majority — which trains conservatives to run for down-ballot offices — could make inroads on the Burlington School Board. Shumski participated in a training earlier this year before winning his election. "Much of this discussion has focused on Kevin’s association, to put it bluntly, with a skillful, well-organized, and well-funded group of far-right, ultra-conservative Tea Party activists seeking to gain a foothold in Burlington and communities in our region," Ayres wrote in a Front Porch Forum post.

In a Front Porch Forum post titled "The Real Scot Shumski," Shumski defended his intentions. "Whether it's my role on the Burlington School Board or my candidacy for the statehouse its about improving the community I live in ... Let me close by focusing NOT on the poisonous, negative attack launched by Tom Ayres (that really serves no purpose but to distract and divide our community) but rather on what is truly important, electing Kevin Garrison to the Burlington School Board from Ward 7. Knowing that my children will have another tireless advocate for them on the school board is what drives me in my support for Kevin Garrison."

According to Shumski, people like Ayres are the ones politicizing the school board race. "There a small minority of extreme radicals in the New North End who are making an issue of it," he said in an interview. "Do you think people as principled as Kevin and I are going to be swayed by someone who contributed to us?" During his door-knocking rounds, Garrison also said he's seen "no evidence" that people are concerned by his Republican supporters. 

Garrison added that he had to look up what American Majority was to figure out what people were alarmed about. "I'm going to accept the support from all parties and I think that's what we need to move forward," he said.

For Deliduka, there's a déjà vu quality to the situation. Last March, Kirk clobbered her on the fundraising front, and he too was helped along by a $1,000 donation from Broughton. (Kirk raised roughly $2,500 total while Deliduka brought in less than $500.) So far, Garrison has raised $1,500. Deliduka said she just recently crossed the $500 mark. 

Deliduka declined to weigh in on her opponent and his Republican supporters. " I don't want to put out anything that says I’m concerned about that. Where we should be putting our time and thoughts is on the schools."

McMahon couldn't be reached for comment. 

A $9 million, six years-in-the-making project to redevelop the northern part of Burlington's waterfront began Tuesday.

In March, Queen City voters approved a plan to use tax increment financing (TIF) to help fund six major projects on the waterfront. The "Waterfront Access North" construction — which includes building a new skatepark and doctoring a "decayed and disjointed" stretch of the bike path — is the first to get underway. 

Standing amidst the gravel and overgrown Queen Anne's lace next to the defunct Moran Plant (the subject of another of the projects), Mayor Miro Weinberger called the ground-breaking a "historic and long-awaited day" and described the project as the most significant waterfront development undertaken in the last two decades. 

In addition to the skatepark and the bike path renovations, the city will extend Lake Street, bury the nearby utility lines, install a new storm-water runoff system and do environmental remediation work.

In its first meeting since the Supreme Court effectively voided Burlington's buffer zone, the City Council voted unanimously Monday to start "urgently investigating and supporting legally defensible alternatives that ensure women’s safety and access to healthcare services."

On June 26, the nation's highest court ruled that a buffer zone law in Massachusetts, created to prevent protesters from coming within 35 feet of reproductive health centers, violated the First Amendment.

Burlington had erected a similar buffer zone in 2012, but upon the advice of city attorney Eileen Blackwood, the city stopped enforcing it after the ruling. Part of the city's law remains in place. Blackwood explained that while the zone itself has been dismantled, people are still prohibited from "obstructing, detaining, hindering, impeding, or blocking a person's entry or exit from a clinic." 

The sidewalks of St. Paul Street, where Planned Parenthood runs a clinic, have gotten more crowded, according to Jill Krowinski, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood in Vermont. Prior to the ruling, a handful of protesters showed up one or two days a week. Now they're outside four to five days a week, and last Saturday, there was crowd of roughly 20 people, according to Krowinski.

As the city council's ordinance committee considers its options, Krowinski described the tactic that Burlington's Planned Parenthood is employing: "The more protestors we see, the more greeters we’ll have." 

The Supreme Court ruling suggested that Massachusetts' buffer zone wasn't "narrowly tailored," and people seeking reproductive health services could be protected using other means. It stated, “A painted line is easy to enforce, but the prime objective of the First Amendment is not efficiency.”

One of the potential long-term options suggested by Blackwood would make it a criminal rather than a civil offense to violate the still-standing part of the city's ordinance. Krowinski said that Planned Parenthood is working with its other affiliates to find alternatives, too. One possibility they are considering: asking the City Council to establish a "bubble" in lieu of a buffer that would create a barrier around patients rather than a building. The Supreme Court upheld Colorado's "bubble" law in 2000. 

At Monday's meeting, Krowinski described protestors "persistently following and engaging with patients even when they say they are not interested" and taking photos and video footage of people entering the St. Paul Street facility. 

Two of those protestors were also at the city council meeting and disputed her account. "We are being misrepresented here," said Agnes Clift. "We will continue to be there praying and offering support and literature to people."

The Burlington school district is asking the City Council for an interest-free loan of up to $4.8 million to make sure it can pay its bills during a 90-day period.

Confronted with the possibility that it will temporarily run out of cash — a common situation for school districts across the state, according to school board chair Patrick Halladay — the Burlington School Board's finance committee has been looking for a line of credit.

"This is nothing that would be considered atypical," Halladay said, adding that the cash flow situation doesn't stem from the district's deficit troubles. "The complication we have this time is this hasn’t been how things have been done in Burlington in the past."

Up until July 1, the city and the school district shared a pooled cash account. If the school district was running low on money and needed to send out paychecks or pay for other expenses, it could temporarily draw on city funds. They terminated that arrangement and separated their accounts at the request of the Agency of Education.  

In early June, the school board asked the City Council for a loan of up to $2.6 million at a 0.5 percent interest rate. At the time, several councilors on the board of finance expressed misgivings about approving such a low interest rate. Before the council had a chance to vote on the request, both city and school officials found at that state law doesn't actually allow municipalities to charge schools interest on loans.