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About 30 demonstrators rallied this morning outside criminal court in Burlington to denounce racism and voice support for an African American family involved in a July 1 fracas with Burlington police. The demonstrators held placards and chanted slogans such as "BPD — Stop police brutality!"

Susalyn Kirkland, 56 (pictured below), greeted the protesters following a brief appearance in court on charges of impeding a public officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. A hearing on her case was set for August 14.

"I didn't do any of that," Kirkland declared outside the courthouse on Cherry Street. "I don't know why they're lying," she said in regard to Burlington police. "They should be telling the truth."

Two of Kirkland's sons — Hassan Williams, 16, and a 15-year-old whose name is not being disclosed — are said by police to have attacked Sgt. Brad Trombley. The officer was responding to a complaint of BB guns being fired at a Spring Street home in the Old North End.

Like many prophets, Garry Davis was egotistical, single-minded and ... uniquely in touch with a higher truth. The Vermont-based founder of the World Government of World Citizens, who died in Williston last week at age 91, gets a full-scale, strongly sympathetic send-off in today's New York Times.

"His rationale was simple, his aim immense: If there were no nation-states, he believed, there would be no wars," the Times observes.

Davis, the longtime companion of local philanthropist and activist Robin Lloyd, launched his world government in 1953 from the steps of the Ellsworth, Maine, town hall. His organization has since issued some 2.5 million "world passports." 

Davis was a regular at public meetings in and around Burlington. He often took advantage of the Q&A portion to pitch his project. Seven Days profiled Davis in 2001. Last month, a new documentary about his life was released, entitled My Country Is the World, and the World Is My Stage: The True Story of Garry Davis. 

"Whether Mr. Davis was a visionary utopian or a quixotic naïf was long debated by press and public," the Times recounts. "His supporters argued that the documents he issued had genuine value for refugees and other stateless people. His detractors countered that by issuing them — and charging a fee — Mr. Davis was selling false hope to people who spent what little they had on papers that are legally recognized almost nowhere in the world."

It's clear, though, where the Times and writer Margalit Fox stand on Davis' unparalled act of chutzpah in declaring himself head of a world government.

"What is beyond dispute is that Mr. Davis’s long insistence on the inalienable right of anyone to travel anywhere prefigures the present-day immigration debate by decades," the obit opines. "It likewise anticipates the current stateless conditions of Julian Assange and Edward J. Snowden."

Read the full New York Times story here.

It looks like Rod MacIver will have to wait another month for his "day in court." The judge ordered a 30-day postponement in his lawsuit against the town of Shelburne and two of its police officers because they failed to show up in court on Friday morning.

As Seven Days' Charles Eichacker first reported earlier this week, MacIver is suing Shelburne and two of its cops after he was wrongfully issued a moving violation for running a red light. The 56-year-old Monkton artist and writer subsequently convinced a traffic court judge to dismiss his ticket after video from the police cruiser revealed that, in fact, he had not broken any law.

But MacIver is still demanding justice and has filed a $2000 lawsuit to make a point. He accuses the two Shelburne cops  — Officer Jason Lawton, who pulled MacIver over in December 2012, and Sgt. Allen Fortin, with whom MacIver later filed a complaint about Lawton's conduct — of being "deliberately deceptive and dishonest" and alleges that they lied under oath about what was on the videotape.

Neither of the two cops, both of whom are named defendants, showed up at the small-claims hearing Friday morning in Burlington. Instead, the town sent Burlington attorney Colin McNeil, of McNeil Leddy & Sheahan, as its sole representative. MacIver told the court that he had received written and verbal assurances from Shelburne Town Manager Paul Bohne III that the officers would appear.

Chittenden Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar granted MacIver's motion for a continuance, or 30-day postponement, and called the officers' absence "troubling." Noting that he didn't know how the case could be decided without their sworn testimony, Hoar further indicated that their absence from any future hearings would be "a mistake on the part of the town" and could potentially result in a "judgment by default" in favor of MacIver.

A handful of speakers urged a Burlington City Council committee Thursday evening to put some teeth into the city's livable-wage ordinance.

Adopted 12 years ago but largely unenforced, the ordinance became the subject of a heated debate last November after the Skinny Pancake was granted an exemption to the rule when it opened a new restaurant at the city-owned Burlington International Airport.

The ordinance requires companies receiving $15,000 in city contracts to pay their employees a livable wage — $13.94 an hour for employees provided health insurance or $15.83 for employees without. A 55-page report issued in April by City Attorney Eileen Blackwood found that only 23 of 160 companies with contracts subject to the ordinance were in compliance.

Thursday night, at the Burlington Police Department's community room, the council's three-member ordinance committee continued its review of the rule, with an eye toward improving its enforcement. But at least one speaker was displeased with the committee's progress.

Burlington Police Chief Mike Schirling said on Thursday he has apologized to two Burlington residents who had complained about BPD officers telling them early last Saturday that "Church Street is shutting down" and ordering them to leave the Marketplace.

Craig Mitchell and Dennis Ailor (pictured) — the two men confronted by a pair of cops — say they were causing no disturbance and were simply chatting with one another in front of Red Square at about 2:15 a.m. on July 20. The officers implied they were enforcing a curfew on the Marketplace, both Mitchell and Ailor told Seven Days.

"I felt degraded and disrespected," said Mitchell, who works as a DJ at Red Square. "I wasn't causing a scene."

Artist Rod MacIver ranted and raved at a Shelburne cop when he was pulled over last December for running a red light.

"I think you're completely out to lunch," he told Officer Jason Lawton. "What are you doing, smoking pot or something?"

Lawton ticketed MacIver, but after the artist reviewed a cruiser cam video of the traffic stop, it became clear his truck passed through the Shelburne Road intersection under a yellow light.

A judge dismissed the ticket. But MacIver wasn't about to let bygones be bygones. He posted the video online, created a web site to shame the Shelburne PD and is taking the town to small claims court. 

Reporter Charles Eichacker covered MacIver's case in a web-only story for sevendaysvt.com. Click here to read it.

Here's video of the stop:

Barbara Vacarr, the embattled president of Goddard College, announced Thursday in a joint statement with the school's board of trustees that she will step down from her post in December.

"In this challenging time of national economic and enrollment concerns for higher education, I remain focused on the issues paramount to Goddard's mission," she said. "However, I have concluded that I must also pay more attention to the personal challenges facing close family members. Therefore, I look forward to working with the board in leaving the college moving ahead. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead such a wonderful institution."

Vacarr was the subject of a February 2013 cover story in Seven Days, in which staff writer Kathryn Flagg documented the president's struggle to turn the college around. While some community members praised her efforts to retool the school, others criticized the "corporate mentality" they say she brought to the hippie haven.

In a November 2012 letter sent to Vacarr and Goddard's board of trustees, Flagg reported, 46 faculty members complained about what they saw as a "pattern of unilateral decision making" at the school. 

Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and an unlikely group of liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans narrowly lost a bid Wednesday night to curtail collection of U.S. citizens' phone records.

An amendment to the annual defense appropriations bill would have rolled back powers granted to the National Security Agency by the USA PATRIOT Act, restricting the agency's collection of domestic phone records to "a person who is the subject of an investigation." 

Welch was one of 111 Democrats and 94 Republicans to back the amendment, which was sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.). The final vote was 205 to 217. 

In the days leading up to Wednesday's vote, the White House aggressively lobbied against the Amash amendment, dispatching members of the national security apparatus to Capitol Hill to talk lawmakers off the cliff. Though ultimately unsuccessful, this was the first major congressional effort to rein in the NSA's domestic surveillance powers since former agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified details of the NSA's wide-ranging phone data collection programs last month.

When you stage a coup, you better be sure to off the king.

That's the lesson two top lawyers at the Vermont State Employees Association learned Monday when their boss, Mark Mitchell, was reinstated as executive director of the state's second largest union.

Nearly six weeks before, the lawyers — VSEA general counsel Michael Casey and associate general counsel Abigail Winters — led a seemingly perfectly orchestrated effort to oust Mitchell. At the time, they told the union's board of trustees that Mitchell had "knowingly allowed the organization to violate numerous laws, exposing VSEA to liability," as Casey later put it in an email.

Their accusations led to Mitchell's swift dismissal. But just days later, the worm began to turn. A week after voting 10-6 to fire Mitchell, the board reversed course and voted 10-7 to reinstate him, put him on leave and commission an independent investigation into his actions.

On Monday, the union announced in a statement that the investigation had "determined that the charges against Mitchell do not warrant dismissal by this body." Mitchell, according to the statement, had been "invited to return immediately to his role as VSEA executive director." (The story was first reported by VTDigger's Alicia Freese.)

And what of those two lawyers?

Casey and Winters, the statement said, "have voluntarily resigned from their positions. They will leave VSEA on August 2, 2013 in good standing. VSEA thanks them for their years of dedication and good service to the union."

Voluntarily resigned? Kicked out to the curb? Not a single person associated with the union would return our calls Monday, so it's impossible to say which it was. But it doesn't really matter. The fact is, there's simply no way Mitchell and his accusers could work side-by-side after last month's putsch.

One party or the other had to go. 

As for not returning our calls, who can blame 'em? Just last month, we took the union to task for airing its dirty laundry in pretty much the sloppiest manner possible. That its leaders are clamming up and refusing to diverge from a single message — that the union's "committed to moving forward and making VSEA even stronger" — is perhaps a sign that they're serious about doing just that.

Updated below with comment from Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling and Vermont State Police spokesperson Stephanie Dasaro.

Burlington's deputy police chief was allegedly caught in a state police dragnet looking for drunk drivers early Sunday.

Vermont State Police issued a press release Sunday saying Andi Higbee, 44, was stopped around 12:09 a.m. while driving off-duty in the town of Sheldon for failing to use a turn signal while turning from Casino Road onto VT Route 105. He was investigated for operating under the influence, the release said, and subsequently arrested.

Higbee was transported to the St. Albans barracks for processing and was later released on a citation to appear in Franklin County Superior Court on August 12.

Burlington Police Chief Michael Schirling responded to the arrest in a press release. "Earlier this morning I was made aware that Deputy Chief Andi Higbee had been pulled over just after midnight by the State Police in St. Albans and subsequently processed for DUI. DC Higbee has been placed on paid administrative leave.

"No additional detail is available or expected today [while] we work to gather information regarding this personnel matter," Schirling added in the release.

The state police press release did not indicate Higbee's blood alcohol content. The Burlington Free Press reported Sunday that Higbee previously pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in 1999.  

Stay tuned to Off Message for updates on this story.

Update - Monday, 1:30 p.m.

Chief Schirling said Monday that he is hiring an outside investigator to conduct an internal review of Higbee's arrest to determine whether it violated departmental policies. Schirling said he has not selected the investigator yet, but hopes to by day's end.

Meanwhile, state police have still not released Higbee's blood-alcohol content. VSP spokesperson Stephanie Dasaro said Monday her agency generally does not release that information, though she admitted it has done so in the past. She said in this case it would not be released before Higbee is arraigned next month.

She also would not discuss whether Higbee had been served a notice of civil suspension, which if he had, would indicate that his breath test registered a BAC above .08, the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle. It is possible to blow under a .08 and be charged criminally, if there is other evidence of intoxication. But civil suspensions require a suspect blew .08 or higher. 

File photo of Andi Higbee by Andy Bromage