In this week's issue of Seven Days, starring local musician Jim Rooney on the cover...

• A loophole in Vermont law means downloading child porn is illegal, but merely viewing it is not. Lawmakers are looking to change that.
• Two contests for the South Burlington City Council could determine the future of a number of big issues there, from the F-35 to a development freeze.
• Some local students are attending high school in Québec, with tuition assistance from Vermont.
• Trouble sleeping? Maybe you need to have someone watching you sleep at the Sheraton Burlington.
• In Fair Game: Doug Racine made his career on fighting poverty, but now he's the unlikely lead pitchman selling Gov. Peter Shumlin's welfare cuts. Plus, how can you fight the influence of super PACs? Give more money to the parties themselves, of course. 

Find your copy on newsstands, at sevendaysvt.com or in the App Store.

UPDATE POSTED BELOW:

The Democratic machine that helped elect Miro Weinberger mayor of Burlington and pushed Gov. Peter Shumlin to a landslide victory last fall is humming again.

And by humming, we mean dishing out the nasty to its political enemies.

The Vermont Democratic Party has fired off two missives in the past week aimed at Ward 2 city council candidate Jane Knodell, an old-guard Progressive hoping to reclaim the seat she held for 14 years. She's facing Democrat Emily Lee, a neighborhood activist and vice president at Merrill Lynch.

Last Friday, the Dems issued a press release attacking Knodell (pictured) for voting against a symbolic resolution supporting the decriminalization of marijuana in 2009, and for saying during a recent candidate forum that she couldn't remember a single vote on which she differed from Republican former councilor Kurt Wright.

Then, on Wednesday, the party went after Knodell for what it called a "golden parachute" she's receiving during a leave of absence from the University of Vermont, where she served as provost and will return as a professor in 2014. As Seven Days reported last week, and the Burlington Free Press expanded upon on Wednesday, Knodell will be paid her salary of $270,000 through June — when her contract as provost was set to expire — followed by 12 months' pay at the professor's salary of $150,000 during a year's leave of absence.

"Knodell's golden parachute sounds like an elite, big-city retirement plan, not one that comes from an organization like UVM that exists to serve Vermonters — and that receives taxpayer money to do so," Burlington Democratic Chair David Scherr said in a statement. "At a time when tuition is going up and budgets are being cut, it is hard to understand why Knodell would choose to profit from a golden parachute at the expense of workers and students."

Progressive City Councilor Max Tracy, who is managing Knodell's campaign, hadn't seen the press releases until Seven Days asked him for a reaction to them on Wednesday, but he responded forcefully.

"We had every intention of bringing a positive, issue-based campaign that emphasized Jane's unbelievable record of public service and her ability to execute for Ward 2," he said. "Unfortunately, party hacks have decided to take it in a decidedly negative direction because they realized there was no way that Emily was going to be able to match Jane's tremendous amount of service to the Old North End."

The second-in-command at the Burlington Free Press newsroom has landed a new gig.

The Freeps reports that Associate Editor Mike Kilian has been named executive editor of the Gannett-owned Daily Times of Salisbury, Md. Kilian will also oversee eight weekly newspapers and the website Delmarvanow.com.

He starts the new gig on March 4, the Freeps reports.

From the story:

Kilian joined the Burlington Free Press in fall 2010. In Vermont, he planned and edited coverage recognized in Best of Gannett, Associated Press Media Editors and Sigma Delta Chi contests, including First Amendment work on Vermont’s embezzlement scourge and on poor oversight of search warrants, breaking news and features coverage of Tropical Storm Irene, and online coverage of the nation’s first fatal shooting at an Occupy encampment.

Executive editor Mike Townsend lavished praise on his number two — in a gruff, terse newsman sort of way.

“I am proud of Mike. He will be missed at the Free Press,” said Burlington’s executive editor, Michael Townsend. “He was the best assignment editor I’ve ever hired.”

Incidentally, if you're wondering where the heck Salisbury, Md., is, it's here.

Kilian tells the Freeps that he wants to increase enterprise reporting in Maryland  and will "aim high" when it comes to investigative and "First Amendment" reporting. He also says he'll expand the use of social media at the papers.

Kilian did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday evening, and an email came back with an auto- reply message that said he was out of the office until Wednesday, February 20.

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, February 18

• At 11 a.m., Channel 17 airs its legislative issues show, "Conversations With Your Legislators." Today's guests: Reps. Kesha Ram (D-Burlington) and Patrick Brennan (R-Colchester). Stream it live.
• At noon, Vermont Public Radio's "Vermont Edition" hosts Burlington-based immigration attorney Leslie Holman discussing the prospects for achieving real immigration reform this year. Listen live.
• Gov. Peter Shumlin is in Montréal today. At 2:30 p.m., he's in a private meeting with Québec Premier Pauline Marois, and at 3:20 p.m. both will sign a "cooperation agreement" between Vermont and Québec. Of note: the advisory says the leaders will pose for photos but take no questions. Mon dieu!

It was famed Vermont activist and author Bill McKibben who led the 35,000-strong "Forward on Climate" march in Washington on Sunday. But it was the scores of uncelebrated Vermonters who helped infuse the largest-ever outpouring of its kind with a vocal mixture of hope and fear.

Three buses filled with students from the University of Vermont and from Middlebury and St. Michael's colleges made the 23-hour round trip along with three more buses carrying Vermonters of all ages. They came to urge President Obama to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would pump oil extracted from Canadian tar sands 1700 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. Tar sands oil is an especially carbon-rich fossil fuel that, opponents warn, could push the climate crisis to a tipping point.

But the rally alongside the Washington Monument and a subsequent march around the White House were motivated by more than the Keystone project. There were loud and urgent calls for investment in clean forms of energy, making the event feel at times like a wonky exercise in lobbying. But plenty of raw emotion was expressed on a bitterly cold afternoon.

"I don't want to bring children into a world they can't live in," said Corinne Almquist, a Middlebury vegetable farmer and Nordic ski instructor who plans to become a midwife. "Climate change is the biggest issue of all. It affects everything."

Gary Beckwith of Richmond also expressed worry about how a hotter, more tempestuous planet will affect the lives of his own three children and "all the children of the world." But climate change "isn't just about the future," said the inventor of a bus that runs on solar energy. "It's about today. It's happening now."

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Six weeks before he won reelection to a second term last November, Gov. Peter Shumlin rode a state-owned airplane to a campaign event and failed to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the trip.

On September 27, Shumlin flew from Berlin's Knapp State Airport to Newport State Airport and then on to Lyndonville's Caledonia County Airport to take part in a series of economic development announcements, according to Shumlin chief of staff Elizabeth Miller. 

After completing his official duties, the governor was flown to Middlebury State Airport and then driven to a house party in Lincoln to raise money for his reelection campaign, Miller says. The Agency of Transportation, which operates the Cessna 182, billed the governor's office $332.76 for Shumlin's air travel that day.

After Seven Days inquired about whether Shumlin used the plane to travel to campaign events, the governor's office said it had decided to ask the campaign to reimburse taxpayers for the final leg of that day's trip, which the AOT says cost just $65.80.

"That seems to me to be the right thing to do," Miller says. "We've also asked AOT that in the future, should the plane be used by our office, to bill us by leg, so that if such expenses need to be reviewed, we can do that."

The September 27 trip was one of five plane rides taken by Shumlin since he was elected governor — all of which took place between August 30 and October 25 of last year, according to records provided by the governor's office. The total cost of the flights amounted to $1671.32.

Why the sudden uptick in plane travel last fall?

"The governor didn't know that there was a state plane for use until last summer," Shumlin spokeswoman Sue Allen said in a written statement.

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Nobody walked away happy, but everyone lived to fight another day.

That was the sentiment on all sides Thursday at the conclusion of the Vermont Senate's epic, three-day struggle over the state's role in end-of-life choices. 

A final 22-8 vote in favor of a stripped-down version of the original so-called "death with dignity" bill Thursday afternoon masked deeper divisions in a body that was essentially evenly divided on the matter. 

For the second time in as many days, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott found himself breaking a tied 15-15 vote on a crucial amendment. Again, he sided with a coalition of Republicans and Democrats who favored divorcing the state from the process of prescribing life-ending drugs to people with fewer than six months to live. Instead, the narrow majority opted simply to indemnify doctors and family members who take part in the process.

That approach was clearly unsatisfactory to those who have spent a decade fighting for a more comprehensive approach modeled on a landmark 1994 Oregon law legalizing physician-assisted suicide. But after losing another amendment fight Thursday, several such advocates voted for the underlying bill anyway, with an eye to improving it in negotiations with the Vermont House.

"I voted for the bill yesterday to make sure that it would keep going. Today I voted for it because if the bill were defeated, that would be it. It wouldn't go to the House," said Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison), the Health and Welfare Committee chairwoman who was among the original bill's biggest advocates. "I want the discussion to continue."

Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), the Judiciary Committee chairman who has fought the legislation for years, expressed mixed emotions about Thursday's outcome.

"I'd have rather seen the bill die," he said. "I don't think it's a victory for anybody. But I think the system worked as it was designed. All sides were heard and, in the end, the bill passed. I would've preferred it hadn't passed, but it did."

This just in: Lawmakers in Montpelier are churning out bills like mad. And some of them are just plain goofy. To that end, we're introducing a new feature for Off Message: Kill This Bill! A look at the worst, weirdest, silliest and biggest-waste-of-time proposals to emerge from under the Golden Dome.

To date, House lawmakers have introduced 280 pieces of legislation, while their Senate counterparts have offered 112 bills. Most of those will never even get a hearing, much less become law. Hell, some don't even originate with the lawmakers who put their names on them — it's routine for legislators to file bills at the request of constituents back home.

But that doesn't mean lawmakers won't spend precious time considering this stuff. Exhibit A: Tomorrow afternoon, the House General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee is set to tackle the pressing matter of what should be the state dog. For reals. Rep. Warren Kitzmiller (D-Montpelier) and many others are sponsoring H.171, "An act relating to recognizing as the state dog any adopted dog."

To which we say, kill this bill!

Vermont State Police are investigating the burglary of a Cornwall home rented by former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, according to State Trooper Evan Doxsee.

Swift says that when she returned from work at 7 p.m. Tuesday to the house she rents from Middlebury College, she found the front door had been kicked in.

"I immediately went back to my car, locked my doors and called 911," she says, adding that security training she received as governor came in handy. "Someone had obviously been through the house. There wasn't a lot to take. They did take a couple prescriptions and some cheap jewelry."

According to Doxsee, the thief or thieves rummaged through at least six rooms in the house. The trooper said he had no leads.

"I'd say it's a pretty ongoing thing throughout the entire county that people will break in, steal prescription drugs, loose change, very easily attainable items to sell," Doxsee says.

Grab a bottle of your favorite spring water and sit down with this week's print or digital edition of Seven Days, featuring these news and politics stories...

• The most interesting race of Town Meeting Day 2013 might be in Burlington, where former Progressive council president Jane Knodell and newcomer Democrat and banker Emily Lee face off in Ward 2's city council contest.
• As automatic license plate readers see more use among the state's law enforcement officers, legislators are considering a bill to regulate the technology in response to privacy concerns.
• This week's cover story: Famously free-spirited Goddard College has had its ups and downs through the years. Can new president Barbara Vacarr stablize the school without sacrificing its quirks?
• In media news, three well-read winter sports magazines make an unlikely home in Jeffersonville.
• And in Fair Game, Vermont's "death with dignity" bill lives another day in the Statehouse, while Vermont's congressional delegation wants answers from Obama on the use of drones.

Read it all on the new Seven Days app for iPad and iPhone.