When Sen. Phil Baruth (D-Chittenden) walks around the University of Vermont, where he is also an English professor, it’s not unusual for people to approach him with their complaints. He’s the majority leader in the Vermont State Senate, after all.

But the number of complaints spiked to around “10 times the normal rate” last week, the senator says, and the constituents approaching him weren’t students; they were employees of Sodexo Food Service, the French multinational company to which UVM and other Vermont colleges contract their dining services.

The workers, Baruth says, were complaining that Sodexo had informed them it would be cutting back many of their hours at the end of the calendar year, resulting in the loss of their health, dental and other benefits. They also alleged that the company had warned it would terminate any employees who went public with their complaints.

“They were told, pretty straight up, that they were going to lose health benefits and retirement,” Baruth says, suggesting that the Sodexo workers approached him in person out of fear the company might be monitoring their emails. 

In response, Baruth wrote a letter to Vermont Commissioner of Labor Annie Noonan requesting an investigation into the complaints.

“If true, these allegations would represent a very serious infringement on the rights of Sodexo workers not just on the UVM campus — where the company holds an exclusive contract for food services — but on various campuses of the state colleges as well,” Baruth said in the letter.

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* Updated below with new comments and video from Sen. Bernie Sanders. *

In his first public comments since last month's chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said Wednesday he's "still in the process of deciding" whether to vote in favor of responding with air strikes.

"It's obviously a very wrenching decision," Welch said. "I mean, I've strongly opposed the U.S. getting involved in the civil war in Syria. That tragedy is something that I don't think we can control. We can't micromanage the outcome."

But, he continued, "There's a new question as a result of [the chemical weapons attacks of] August 21st — and that is when the Syrian state uses chemical weapons in violation of an agreement signed by 98 percent of the countries, there's a legitimate and moral basis for punitive action."

The battle over local basing of the F-35 will soon return to a familiar arena — the Burlington city council. Last summer, councilors passed a resolution asking for more information about the planes without supporting or opposing the basing. But now F-35 opponents intend to introduce a resolution declaring the war plane unwelcome at the city-owned airport.

The four Progressives who plan to bring the resolution to a vote on October 7 face a difficult task. To win, they need to sway a majority of the 14 council members. Ward 7 councilor Tom Ayres, considered the most potentially persuadable of the seven council Democrats, said on the margins of a Wednesday press conference outside city hall that he will not vote for any resolution categorically rejecting the F-35. And that’s exactly what the Progs’ proposal would do.

But the plane’s opponents did wheel out a new political weapon on Wednesday. Three Democratic state legislators, including senate majority leader Philip Baruth (D-Chittenden, pictured), attended the anti-F-35 press event. Activists there argued that the Burlington city council has the power, as landlord of the airport, to prevent its tenant, the Vermont Air National Guard, from operating the aircraft on city property.

Baruth is the highest-ranking Democrat in the state to publicly oppose the local basing option. The Chittenden County senator has cracked the solid wall of Democratic-establishment support erected by Sen. Patrick Leahy, Gov. Peter Shumlin, Congressman Peter Welch and Mayor Miro Weinberger. Independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders also favors stationing the plane in Vermont, as do most local business leaders and thousands of Vermonters who have sent postcards to the Air Force urging the military to bring the F-35 to the Burlington airport.

This week's Art Hop issue is on newsstands now. But fear not, news junkies! We've got the usual bunch of news and politics, too. Here's what you'll find:

• Bicycle theft is a never-ending problem in Burlington. Would a police registry help?
• Massage parlors around Vermont were busted for offering sexual services earlier this year. This Chinese spa in Barre fell under intense scrutiny, too — but it's totally legitimate.
• Pine Street sidewalks (where they exist) always get claustrophobic during the Art Hop in Burlington. Why won't the city close off parts of the street?
• Dartmouth College students have fanned out across the Upper Valley, finding immersive, mesmerizing stories for an online literary project.
• A University of Vermont professor is drawing the lightning bolt-shaped line between reading Harry Potter books and the politics of young Americans.
• And in Fair Game: Leahy, Sanders and Welch weigh whether to support President Obama's proposal for air strikes in Syria.

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Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Monday criticized the White House's draft resolution authorizing the use of force in Syria as "too open-ended" and predicted it "will not pass as written."

While the senior Vermont senator said he hoped Congress would narrow the scope of the resolution, he expressed ambivalence as to whether he could support even a whittled-down version.

"I don't know the answer to that — and I'm trying to be as honest as I can. I have no question that the use of chemical weapons is heinous and contrary to everything since the Geneva Conventions," he said. "What I worry about is what happens next."

Leahy's comments came two days after President Obama abruptly reversed course and said he'd seek Congress' approval before launching retaliatory air strikes in response to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons late last month.

Leahy hailed Obama's decision to seek Congress' imprimatur, saying that, no matter the war or the president, "The point is, you need to go to Congress." 

But after flying back to D.C. for a classified briefing in the Capitol on Sunday, Leahy told reporters assembled outside that the White House draft was "too open-ended" and would be amended in the Senate.

Leahy elaborated on those comments Monday morning, telling Seven Days that the resolution as written could empower the president to send ground troops to Syria — or elsewhere.

"It's the breadth of what he can do [under the draft resolution] that's the biggest concern now. I mean, there's nothing to stop sending military into Syria or into other countries. See, that's the concern. It's too open-ended. And I've told the White House this. But having said that, I'm not the only one who's told them. They're hearing it from everybody."

For the last several years, climate change activist Bill McKibben has been traveling the country encouraging colleges to stop investing their endowments in the fossil-fuel sector. But it looks like that message is a tough sell at Middlebury College, where McKibben is a scholar-in-residence. 

Yesterday, Midd released a statement explaining why it won't be withdrawing its investments from the fossil-fuel industry any time soon. In it, president Ronald D. Liebowitz explains that the school's administration and Board of Trustees took "a hard look" at pursuing a no-fossil-fuels investment strategy and decided against it. 

In his letter, Liebowitz touts Middlebury's existing environmental initiatives, which include the first-in-the-nation environmental studies program of which McKibben is a part. But Liebowitz also explains that Midd's nearly $1 billion endowment covers about 18 percent of the school's operating expenses. He describes the “fiduciary responsibility” of the school’s Board of Trustees to manage that fund with the bottom line in mind.

“If it is to continue to fund operations at comparable or increasing levels in the years ahead, the endowment must grow through new gifts and, especially, through the returns it earns on its investments,” he writes.

Fall is right around the corner. But until the leaves turn red and gold, people around Lake Champlain must contend with changing colors of a different sort: For the last two weeks, pea-green blooms of algae have been popping up in Missisquoi, St. Albans and Malletts bays.

“Mid-August through September is, unfortunately, what we in the business call ‘bloom season,’” says James Ehlers, executive director of the nonprofit Lake Champlain International.

Scientists have determined that early summer rain brings nutrients like phosphorus into the lake, and long stretches of sunlight facilitate photosynthesis, resulting in the pea-green film, Ehlers explains. 

“It’s not unlike April showers bring May flowers,” he says.

After you're done with the big cover story about the future of Burlington's urban farmers, dig into this week's news and politics stories:

• Sure, there's that pesky lawsuit and the everpresent street toughs, but neither is stopping Church Street's merchants. Business is booming on Burlington's pedestrian mall, with just one empty storefront left.
• Also in Burlington, here's a familiar refrain: Work on the new waterfront skate park has been delayed... again.
• Cheap natural gas might be the biggest reason Vermont Yankee is shutting down — and that's good news for Milton's NG Advantage, which trucks natural gas to off-pipeline businesses.
• Not everyone gets to go back to school. Learn how Saint Michael's College is helping first-generation students adapt to higher education.
• And in Fair Game, Paul Heintz tries to figure out just what Bruce Lisman is up to with his advocacy group, Campaign for Vermont. Lisman says he's not interested in elected office, but...

Get this issue now in print, at the links above or via our iOS app.

Two days after former governor Howard Dean traveled to Iowa to speak at a labor conference, the Burlington-based political group he founded laid off six staffers.

The group, Democracy for America, is run by Dean's brother, Jim. 

In a statement released to Seven Days, spokesman Neil Sroka cited the arrival of a new executive director as the reason for the layoffs. The news was first reported by the Huffington Post.

According to a source close to DFA, one of the six staffers cut from the organization was based in Burlington.

“We view this as a key moment in the fight for a more progressive country. This decision will help us grow our organization and expand our reach,” Sroka said in the statement. “We look forward to announcing new hires and campaigns in the weeks ahead as we double down on our efforts.”

Dean pictured at left with Attorney General Bill Sorrell. 

Michael Hastings, the acclaimed journalist who considered Vermont his "spiritual home" after spending parts of his life here, died in a fiery, early-morning car wreck in Los Angeles in June. The strange circumstances surrounding the crash and Hastings' history of reporting articles unfriendly to the powers-that-be prompted a flurry of theories suggesting that the incident was an assassination.

Now an autopsy report and an exhaustive newspaper feature have revealed new details about Hastings and the crash that killed him.

On Tuesday the Los Angeles coroner's office released its official report about the Hastings crash, declaring it an accident and noting that drugs were found in his system, but, in the coroner's view, they did not play a role in the crash. Via the Los Angeles Times: 

Coroner's officials said Hastings had traces of amphetamine in his system, consistent with possible intake of methamphetamine many hours before death,  as well as marijuana. Neither were considered a factor in the crash, according to toxicology reports. 

The cause of death was massive blunt force trauma consistent with a high-speed crash. He likely died within seconds, the report said.