Former governor Howard Dean has been getting plenty of ink in his home state this week. As he and former campaign staffers prepare to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the speech that launched his 2004 presidential bid, we in the Vermont news media have used the opportunity to take a stroll down memory lane.

Here at Seven Days, we got ourselves in the mood by throwing "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" in our CD player, watching that weird Michael Jackson documentary and dusting off our old "No Iraq War" lawn signs.

We also gave Ho-Ho a call to ask him about the big anniversary. But one thing we and seemingly every other Vermont reporter neglected to ask him: "Would you run again in 2016?"

CNN's Peter Hamby evidently didn't make the same mistake. He caught up with Dean at the Netroots Nation conference out in San Jose and learned that Dean "would consider another run for the White House."

The founder of the Vermont Health CO-OP is stepping down as board chair as part of an effort to convince skeptical state regulators to reconsider a recent decision denying the CO-OP a license to sell insurance.

Mitchell Fleischer, the CEO of private insurance and investment firm Fleischer Jacobs Group, says he's ceding his position to minimize distractions as the federally funded CO-OP tries to bounce back from a scalding decision issued by the Department of Financial Regulation last month that accused the fledgling CO-OP of mismanagement and financial instability.

In that decision, DFR commissioner Susan Donegan rejected the CO-OP's application to sell insurance on the federally mandated health care exchange set to launch in January. Using federal funds allocated by "Obamacare," the CO-OP would offer a member-owned alternative to the only two companies currently licensed to sell insurance on the exchange: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and MVP. 

For now, those plans are on hold. Donegan has said the CO-OP has two choices — submit a new application for licensure, or appeal DFR's decision to the Vermont Supreme Court. Neither could realistically happen quickly enough to let the CO-OP join the health care exchange this year. So the CO-OP's leaders are banking on a third approach: convince Donegan to reopen her decision. 

But the CO-OP needs to make significant changes to have any chance of winning over Donegan. The questions CEO Christine Oliver and Fleischer (pictured) found themselves asking themselves, Fleischer says, boiled down to: "What can we fix? ... And can we get all of this done in the next month?"

Fleischer's resignation — which came officially on June 13 — is part of that plan.

After 30 years on the job, Rutland Herald chief photographer Vyto Starinskas says he was let go and his job eliminated Tuesday afternoon.

According to several people with knowledge of the situation, Starinskas was not the only Herald employee laid off Tuesday, though Seven Days could not immediately confirm the details. Neither publisher John Mitchell nor state editor Rob Mitchell returned calls seeking comment late Tuesday.

"Today I packed up my stuff at the Rutland Herald for the last time because my job as Chief Photographer was eliminated for financial reasons by the newspaper, along with some other jobs," Starinskas wrote on Facebook. 

Reached Wednesday morning, Starinskas confirmed the situation but declined to speak about it further, explaining that he was still processing the news.

According to the Herald's web site, Starinskas was one of three staff photographers for the paper. Its sister paper, the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus also employs two photographers.

Starinskas struck a positive tone in his Facebook post, writing that he had a "huge smile" on his face when he left the paper Tuesday — just as he did when he joined it in 1980.

"I was so privileged to be able to touch the hearts of so many Vermonters who let me into their personal lives to be shared with the Rutland Herald," he wrote. "I am so excited by my future and saddened by the job eliminations and the impact on people's lives. Thank you Rutland Herald readers for all the wonderful years. One bad day isn't going to wipe that smile off my face."

We'll update this story when more information becomes available.

One of Vermont’s — and the nation’s — most talented and provocative young journalists died in a Los Angeles car crash early Tuesday morning, BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone reported Tuesday evening.

Michael Hastings, who moved to Vermont at age 16 and graduated from Rice Memorial High School in 1998, was just 33 years old.

Hastings was best known for a June 2010 Rolling Stone cover story that quoted aides to Gen. Stanley McChrystal criticizing Vice President Joe Biden and other White House officials. After Hastings' story broke, McChrystal was immediately summoned back to Washington, D.C., and stripped of his command of American forces in Afghanistan.

Hastings won the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting for the story, upon which he based his second book, The Operators. 

He was no stranger to dangerous assignments. After volunteering to serve as an Iraq war correspondent for Newsweek at age 25, his fiancé, Andi Parhamovich, was killed when a convoy in which she was riding was ambushed. Hastings wrote about her death in his first book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad.

A contributor to BuzzFeed and Gentleman’s Quarterly and contributing editor to Rolling Stone, Hastings shifted his focus in recent years to domestic politics, where he made quite a stir.

When he pressed then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s spokesman on the Benghazi attacks last September, the aide memorably told him to “fuck off.” Later that fall, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel grabbed him during an interview, Hastings wrote, "clearly trying to intimidate me with a threat of physical violence."

Though Hastings lived in New York City with his wife Elise Jordan, he told Vermont Life earlier this year that he continued to consider Vermont his “spiritual home.” That Vermont Life story — and a cover photo of Hastings on the Burlington waterfront — remains on newsstands today.

Earlier this year, Seven Days included Hastings in a roundup of national journalists who hail from the state. He spoke with VPR's Neal Charnoff in this 2008 interview about his first book and to WCAX-TV's Keith McGilvery about the McChrystal story in this 2012 profile.

In one of the most entertaining local stories about the reporter, Rice student Alta Viscomi chronicled a March 2012 speech at his alma mater, during which Hastings recounted being stripped of the senior class presidency after using the term "shagadelic" during announcements. He also, allegedly, compared his high school principal to Jabba the Hutt.

In a statement, Hastings' editor at BuzzFeed called him "a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered, from wars to politicians."

Hastings, to be sure, will be missed.

Mexican farmworker leader Danilo Lopez has scored two high-profile supporters in his campaign to fight deportation and stay in Vermont.

On Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders sent a letter on Lopez's behalf to the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, asking the agency to reconsider its decision to send Lopez home to Chiapas on July 6.

"Mr. Lopez has been a farmworker in Vermont for five years," Sanders wrote. "He has an excellent reputation as a worker and has been involved in organizing efforts for a group of approximately 1500 farmworkers in our state who do not have legal status. ... I respectfully request that you look into this matter at your earliest convenience..."

Congressman Peter Welch is drafting a similar letter to ICE on Lopez's behalf, says spokesman Ryan Nickel, and will send it by the end of today.

On Monday, Lopez (pictured) made a last-ditch attempt to halt the deportation, sending ICE a petition signed by 1000 supporters along with 20 personal letters asking the feds to exercise "prosecutorial discretion" in the case. The letters from Sanders and Welch add weight to Lopez's appeal but he still lacks the one signature that might matter most: that of Sen. Patrick Leahy.

As debate over federal immigration reform raged in Washington Monday, Leahy spokesman David Carle said Vermont's senior senator had not decided whether to go to bat for Vermont's best-known undocumented immigrant.

"Senator Leahy’s staff in Vermont and on the Judiciary Committee have been exploring for the best way that Senator Leahy could help," Carle said via email.

"It's a qualified vindication, at least at this point," said Mark Mitchell, who was ousted by the union's board of trustees last Wednesday by a vote of 10 to six.

On Monday came word that the board had voted 10 to seven at an emergency meeting to reverse its own decision and bring Mitchell back onboard — at least for the time being.

"After lengthy debate and review of the facts before them, the Board voted this afternoon to reverse its initial decision and reinstate Mitchell as Executive Director, pending an independent, third-party investigation, which will be launched immediately and could last up to a month," union spokesman Doug Gibson said in a written statement. "The board voted to place Mitchell on administrative leave, with pay, for the duration of the investigation."

According to Gibson, legislative director Steve Howard and operations director Kathi Partlow have been tasked with running the union's day-to-day operations until the situation is resolved. 

We'll have more on the story in this week's Seven Days.

A Williston massage parlor that provided sexual services for money has closed.

As of Monday afternoon, Harmony Health Spa had two pink flyers taped to the front door that read, "Health spa permanently closed." A sign outside displaying the spa's name and hours of operation had been removed, as had the neon "open" sign that previously hung in the front window.

Harmony Health Spa was one of three businesses outed for prostitution and potential human trafficking in the June 5 Seven Days cover story, "Unhappy Endings: Getting a Grip on Vermont's Asian Sex Market." The other two — River Spa in Burlington and Seiwa Spa in Essex Junction — closed following publication of the story.

The closure of Harmony Health Spa comes days after the building's owner, Tom Booska, was charged with knowingly allowing prostitution to occur on the premises.

Last Tuesday, in response to the Seven Days exposé, Williston Police Chief Todd Shepard hand-delivered a letter to Booska from Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan warning Booska that he could be held criminally liable if authorities found evidence of prostitution on his property.

The next day, Williston police visited the massage parlor and confronted two customers leaving the premises. Both admitted that they had received sexual services there in exchange for money. Booska is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday morning.

Donovan said Friday that the two customers who confessed to paying for sex will be asked to testify against Booska and not be charged as "johns." Likewise, Donovan reiterated his longstanding policy that women providing sex for money will not be charged as prostitutes if there is evidence they are the victims of human trafficking.

More on this story to come...

Police have finally taken action against one of the Asian massage parlors outed by Seven Days for prostitution and possible human trafficking.

On Thursday evening, Williston police charged Tom Booska, owner of the building housing Harmony Health Spa, with knowingly allowing prostitution on the premises. He was cited to  appear in court next Tuesday.

Williston Police Chief Todd Shepard says police went to the massage parlor on Wednesday and spoke to two customers leaving the spa who said they received sexual services in exchange for money.

The day before, Shepard hand-delivered a letter to Booska from Chittenden State's Attorney T.J. Donovan warning the landlord he would be held criminally liable if authorities found evidence of prostitution on his property.

"He was allowed some opportunity to do something about it and it was still continuing on Wednesday," Shepard said.

The investigation was a response to Seven Days' June 5 cover story, "Unhappy Endings: Getting a Grip on Vermont's Asian Sex Market." The article documented prostitution at three Chittenden County massage parlors: Harmony, Seiwa Spa in Essex Junction and River Spa in Burlington. The latter two have since closed.

Shepard also said that Williston police had reported zoning violations at the spa to the town planning and zoning director after it learned the women were living on site. According to Shepard, Booska received the notice of violation and was actively seeking apartments to house the women when he was charged.

UPDATED below with more comment from VSEA board members.

The ousted executive director of Vermont's state workers union said Thursday afternoon he was blindsided by an unjust firing and plans to fight his dismissal.

As Seven Days reported earlier in the day, Vermont State Employees Association executive director Mark Mitchell was terminated late Wednesday after a vote by the 5200-member union's board of trustees. Mitchell says he was informed of the decision at the end of a day-long board meeting held in executive session and was neither informed of the grounds for his dismissal nor given a chance to defend himself.

"There was no discussion, no warning, no due process, no cause," Mitchell said. "I was never allowed into the meeting to discuss what any of the concerns might be."

Precisely why Mitchell was fired remains unclear, though an email written Thursday by the union's general counsel and provided by a third party to Seven Days alleges that Mitchell "knowingly allowed the organization to violate numerous laws, exposing VSEA to liability."

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger today nominated a leading bike advocate and Progressive former city councilor to head the city's Department of Public Works.

The choice of Chapin Spencer, director of the bicyclist and pedestrian advocacy group Local Motion, likely ranks as the boldest personnel move of the Democratic mayor's 15-month tenure.

Spencer (pictured with daughter Zia) cofounded and has helmed a 14-year-old "inclusive-transportation" organization recognized as one of the most effective of its kind in the country. In his four years on the city council as a Ward 1 Prog (1998-2002) and in his work at Local Motion, Spencer has demonstrated the political instincts of a pragmatist as well as those of a partisan.

Weinberger emphasized those two aspects of Spencer's career during a press conference Thursday afternoon at a Department of Public Works garage on Pine Street.

"In nearly two decades of service to this community, Chapin has shown himself to be both a visionary who can push the community forward and a pragmatist who can deliver on-the-ground progress," Weinberger said. The department that Spencer has been chosen to lead is "responsible for our most basic municipal needs as well as our highest aspirations," the mayor added.

Asked about the political significance of choosing a Progressive, Weinberger said the selection "gives substance to the idea that we want to be an administration that appeals to a broad political spectrum."