click to enlarge

After 10 months of debate over how to redraw its own electoral districts, the Burlington City Council agreed in concept Monday night to a plan that would shrink the body from 14 members to 12. 

But even after it became clear the plan would move forward, the council found something new to bicker about: precisely who came up with it.

One faction credited Burlington resident George Gamache, who died in July. Others credited resident Robert Bristow-Johnson. Another said Mayor Miro Weinberger came up with the plan, while yet another said it was "drawn up at the 11th hour by councilors" and wasn't properly vetted by the public.

Whoever conceived of it, the proposal was brought to life by an unusual faction of Progressives, Democrats and the council's sole Republican — all of whom hail from the city's New North End and Old North End. Democrats and independents representing the city's more southerly wards opposed it. 

The vote was 8 to 6. The plan will now go to the council's Charter Change Committee, which will flesh out its details. If the council approves those, voters will have a chance to approve or reject it next March.

Vermont Republican Party chairman Jack Lindley was hospitalized Friday at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the party announced Monday morning. He remains in critical condition.

"It's pretty shocking and scary," said Mark Snelling, a friend of Lindley's and the party's treasurer.

At the request of Lindley's family, Snelling and the party withheld further information about the chairman's condition.

"Jack's family appreciates all of your prayers, good wishes and your respect for their privacy as they support Jack," the party said in a statement.

Vice chairwoman Deborah Bucknam, a St. Johnsbury attorney, will serve as the party's interim chairwoman for the time being, Snelling said.

On Monday night, the Burlington City Council will consider a complicated compromise on redistricting that as of Sunday was just one vote shy of having majority support.

This proposed reconfiguration of the city's political boundaries already has the expressed backing of seven of the council's 14 members. Three Democrats, three Progressives and the council's lone Republican are behind the plan, giving it the gloss of tripartisan appeal.

Geographically, however, support for the scheme is so far confined to the Old North End and the New North End. It remains to be seen whether councilors representing other parts of the city will go along with the proposal to establish eight wards and four "precincts" to be represented by a total of 12 councilors — two fewer than today. The council's Monday agenda also includes five alternative plans, each of which has the listed support of at most a single council member.

One of the virtues of the "hybrid" proposal is that it keeps the four current Old North End and New North End wards intact and distinct, notes Progressive Councilor Max Tracy. Residents in those two sections of Burlington have indicated they do not want their neighborhoods to be combined as a result of the redistricting process, Tracy says.

Spring training in September?

That's one way to think of the reorganization meetings that Vermont's major political parties are currently holding in towns around the state.

Like baseball's pre-season exhibition games, these gatherings generally attract only fanatical followers of the sport. And in addition to prepping for the big contests ahead, the teams use these laid-back occasions to honor retired heroes, rev up excitement for the current roster and showcase promising rookies.

At Burlington's Democratic Party reorganization meeting last night, for example, past stars such as former city councilors Bill Keogh and Ed Adrian schmoozed with members of today's council lineup, including Tom Ayres, Chip Mason, Norm Blais and team captain Joan Shannon. State lawmakers representing Burlington districts, including Joey Donovan (pictured below with Ayres), were on hand to report on their doings in Montpelier.

Mayor Miro Weinberger was hailed as the all-star slugger for the local Dem side. He smiled modestly in response to the ovations he received before, during and after his animated 10-minute pep talk to the 50 or so faithful gathered in Burlington City Hall. The Contois Auditorium spotlight was also aimed briefly at Emily Lee, who almost made the council team in last March's election and seems poised to try again soon.

click to enlarge

Good, who won a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing, will serve as Seven Days' co-editor in charge of news content. He replaces former news editor Andy Bromage, who left the paper in July to return to his native Connecticut.

Born in Missouri and raised all over the Midwest, Good first moved to Vermont to attend St. Michael's College — and despite a few detours over the years, he says he hasn't been able to quit the state.

Good started his journalism career as an intern at the Vermont Vanguard Press and worked as a writer and editor for Ralph Nader in Washington, D.C. He went on to spend 12 years at Florida's St. Petersburg Times, where he won the 1995 Pulitzer for a series on state probate courts. He returned to Vermont in 1996 to serve as the Burlington Free Press' capital bureau chief. Good left the Freeps in 1999 to teach journalism and serve as college historian at his alma mater. In 2000 he joined the Lebanon, N.H.-based Valley News and worked his way up from capital bureau chief to news editor, managing editor and editor.

click to enlarge

* Updated below with new comments from Gov. Shumlin *

Gov. Peter Shumlin starred in a fundraising conference call held by the Marijuana Policy Project Thursday afternoon. In an invitation obtained by Seven Days last month, the call was billed as a "strategy" session to discuss how to legalize marijuana nationwide.

The "exclusive conference call," as MPP executive director Rob Kampia put it in the invitation, was open only to the pro-legalization advocacy group's major donors. Participants had to pledge to contribute $1000 to $10,000 to the group itself — or to pro-pot politicians.

Seven Days requested permission from MPP and the Shumlin administration to listen to the call, but was denied by the former and ignored by the latter.

"The idea was that it would be an opportunity for donors to hear from MPP staffers and from Gov. Shumlin, so we did not envision any media being on the call," MPP legislative analyst Matt Simon said Wednesday. "I don't think we have anything in particular to hide. At the same time, I'm not authorized to let you join us."

Simon added, "We figure members of the media already have plenty of opportunities to ask questions. Our donors do not."

Happy Wednesday, people. Here are the news and politics stories you'll find in the latest edition of Seven Days:

• Vermont's new health care exchange goes live in less than two weeks! In this week's cover story, Ken Picard follows five households and professional "navigators" to untangle how it will work for average Vermonters.
• St. Michael's College fired two longtime custodians, and the campus isn't happy about it. Was it a case of union busting?
• A Vermont-born political strategist is playing a major role in one of the biggest races of the year in Virginia. Some observers think he may feature in the next presidential campaign.
• In looking to revitalize its downtown, is St. Albans turning its back on a piece of history?
• And in this week's Fair Game: After an ineffective 2013 session, Vermont's gun control advocates aren't going away — now they're even hiring a high-powered lobbying firm. Plus, why are F-35s okay for Vermont if missiles aren't?

If those links aren't your style, read these stories in print or on the Seven Days app.

Cover illustration by Michael Tonn

"The Rutland Herald is not for sale," the Rutland Herald's Gordon Dritschilo reported in Wednesday's paper. It's just the damn boss starting rumors again:

Publisher R. John Mitchell said Tuesday he may have inadvertently started rumors to that effect while discussing plans to sell the building. The building is for sale, listed by Coldwell Banker Watson Realty for $995,000. 

The news comes a month after the Mitchell family sold the Barre headquarters of its other paper, the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, and moved its operations to a new downtown rental. The Gannett-owned Burlington Free Press has also put most of its College Street facility up for sale; that property is listed as "under agreement" on the Freeps' broker's website.

The Herald has called the building home since the mid-1930s. Mitchell tells Dritschilo the paper will remain in downtown Rutland.

Read the full Herald story about the Herald here.

Are Vermonters living in a surveillance state? The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont believes we’re fast approaching it — and the organization now has the facts to support that disturbing conclusion. The promise of an actual drone demonstration drew a crowd to a Tuesday morning press conference in Montpelier, where Allen Gilbert, executive director of the ACLU of Vermont, unveiled a new report, “Surveillance on the Northern Border.” 

Several years in the making, the 22-page, locally produced report offers a chilling view of the methods used by state and local authorities to gather, compile and sift through digital data that pertains to the activities and movements of ordinary Vermonters. “We are being watched,” the report states. “Today, Vermonters can barely go anywhere without creating a trail of digital information that pinpoints a person’s whereabouts at nearly any time, day after day.”

The ACLU-VT report pieces together all that is known, and not known, about surveillance technologies currently being used to track Vermonters’ location and activities, including their credit card, internet and cellphone usage, and driving habits.

The Vermont Health Co-op is no more.

Four months after state regulators denied the nonprofit's application to sell health insurance on the forthcoming exchange, the federal government pulled its funding Monday and ordered it to close. The co-op's board subsequently voted to dissolve itself, CEO Christine Oliver said late that evening.

"Without the financial support of our federal partners, it will not be possible to offer Vermonters the member-owned and member-governed health insurance option that will be available to Americans in many other states," Oliver said in a written statement.

Founded 15 months ago, the co-op sought to provide a third option for Vermonters slated to buy health insurance through the federally mandated health insurance exchange come January. But the South Burlington-based nonprofit's plans were derailed in May when the state Department of Financial Regulation denied its application to participate in the exchange.