State Rep. Greg Clark, a Republican who had represented Vergennes in the Statehouse since 2002, was killed in a car accident on Route 7 in Waltham this morning. He was 65.

The Addison County Independent reports that Clark was scraping ice off his car's windshield when he was struck by a passing car. More from the Addy Indy:

“It is shocking,” said Rep. Diane Lanpher, D-Vergennes, who had been Clark’s colleague in the two-seat Addison-3 Vermont House district for the past four years.

...

“Oh my God, he was such a nice man,” she said.

Indeed, Clark was known as a gregarious, conscientious man both at the Statehouse and in the halls of Mount Abe, where he built a solid rapport with other lawmakers and his students.

“When he stood up on the House floor, he would make a comment that was not only germane to the issue, but that also made everyone laugh,” said Lanpher of her colleague. Clark and Lanpher easily won re-election to new two-year terms earlier this month.

As you may recall, CNET's Declan McCullagh reported last week in a thinly-sourced story that Leahy had "quietly rewritten" legislation originally intended to require law enforcement officials to obtain warrants before accessing old emails. Citing anonymous sources, McCullagh reported that Leahy had flip-flopped and planned to back a new version of the bill "giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law."

Well, Vermont's senior senator put that rumor to rest Thursday when he presided over a unanimous Senate Judiciary Committee voice vote strengthening email privacy rules, as the New York Times reports:

Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the committee, was an architect of the 1986 law and is leading the effort to remake it. He said at the meeting on Thursday that e-mails stored by third parties should receive the same protection as papers stored in a filing cabinet in an individual’s house.

“Like many Americans, I am concerned about the growing and unwelcome intrusions into our private lives in cyberspace,” Mr. Leahy said. “I also understand that we must update our digital privacy laws to keep pace with the rapid advances in technology.”

In a front page story in its own paper, the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus disclosed Thursday morning that it was aware of a reporter's history as a convicted sex offender when it hired and assigned him to cover cops and courts.

Veteran Times Argus and Rutland Herald reporter Susan Smallheer writes that the reporter in question, Eric Blaisdell, "immediately disclosed his criminal history" to Times Argus editor Steven Pappas when applying for the job in June. Smallheer writes:

Pappas said he had checked Blaisdell’s references and talked to the N.H. Department of Corrections. Everyone said that Blaisdell posed no risk to the general public, was contrite, and was working hard to put his life back together.

Smallheer's story, which also ran in the Herald, comes a day after Seven Days reported on Blaisdell's criminal record. A Times Argus editor told Seven Days in that story that he had no knowledge of Blaisdell's criminal past and other top editors and managers declined to correct that statement.

The 27-year-old reporter was arrested in 2007 after New Hampshire law enforcement officials and an online vigilante group both caught Blaisdell conversing online with individuals posing as underage girls. Blaisdell pled guilty to three charges of using the internet to solicit sex from minors and served more than eight months in prison; he remains on probation.

Smallheer quotes Times Argus and Rutland Herald publisher John Mitchell defending his company's decision to hire Blaisdell:

“I applaud the efforts of the criminal justice system in fairly administering punishment to those who have broken the law and also offering an opportunity for rehabilitation,” said publisher R. John Mitchell in a statement to The Times Argus and its sister publication, the Rutland Herald. “This is an incredibly well supervised and restricted situation by the judge, the probation officer and a therapist, I am not going to second guess that process, am willing to participate in it and give it a chance.”

Smallheer quotes two national media ethics experts — one of whom, Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, was also quoted in the original Seven Days story — raising questions about the Times Argus's decision to let Blaisdell cover sex crimes and sex offenders. They also argue that the paper should have been more transparent about the situation with its audience.

John D. Haywood caught a flight from North Carolina to Burlington on Wednesday to tell a judge why St. Michael's College should pay him $50 million in a libel lawsuit aimed at student journalists.

Haywood (pictured) ran for president of the United States as a Democrat in the New Hampshire primary this year and blames a profile of him written by St. Mike's students for sinking his White House dreams. (Click here for background on the case.)

Students in Professor David Mindich's "Media and American Politics" class have been profiling lesser-known presidential candidates in every election since 2004, with the goal of giving voice to all candidates. Haywood complained that students grossly misrepresented his positions in the article, published on a college website 10 days before last January's primary, and says the errors cost him the race against President Obama. Haywood received just 432 votes, meaning he lost to Obama by a ratio of 115 to 1.

"Anyone who read their profile wouldn't touch my website with a 10-foot pole," Haywood told U.S. Magistrate Judge John Conroy on Wednesday. "Things they said about my positions are so extreme, so ridiculous."

In this week's print edition of Seven Days, you'll find these bits of news:

• In Fair Game: the new cops and courts reporter at the Times Argus is a convicted sex offender — and the TA doesn't want to talk about it.
• Vermont environmentalist Bill McKibben
  and his allies are pushing divestment as the next big weapon in the fight against climate change.
• Vermont's future medical marijuana dispensaries will likely face money woes in the face of high licensing fees, few patients and federal laws that consider them illegal.
• Speaking of pot: A former New York City prosecutor, now a Vermont Law School professor, has launched a new blog to examine drug policies, and their consequences, in the United States.
• One year after the Occupy movement, activists are turning to a new trend: offering free food to the needy.
• And just for fun, find out what Seven Days writers have on their wish lists for Vermont. (Paul Heintz wins the award for least practical suggestion.)

For the last few months, Vermonters have been arguing over whether the Air Force should bring its new F-35 fighter jets to Burlington International Airport. 

Anyone following the debate should take a few minutes to read the F-35 story in this morning's New York Times ("Costliest Jet, Years in Making, Sees the Enemy: Budget Cuts") The Times does a thorough review of the F-35 project, which is facing increased scrutiny as we approach the fiscal cliff.

Why? Because each jet is now expected to cost up to $137 million to build. According to the NYT:

The jets would cost taxpayers $396 billion, including research and development, if the Pentagon sticks to its plan to build 2443 by the late 2030s. That would be nearly four times as much as any other weapons system and two-thirds of the $589 billion the United States has spent on the war in Afghanistan. The military is also desperately trying to figure out how to reduce the long-term costs of operating the planes, now projected at $1.1 trillion.

That's a chunk of change. Here's another eye-popping number: 24 million. That's how many lines of code are required to make these planes work. And they're not all "secured and tested" yet. The new general who's about to begin overseeing the project calls that "the gorilla in the room." 

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"We're talking," Illuzzi says. "That's all I can say on the record."

The longtime state senator, who's leaving the upper chamber in January after 32 years in office, says he would not become a full-time employee of the organization; instead he'd work on a contract basis. As such, he says he'd be able to continue in his part-time elected job as Essex County State's Attorney.

"It's a contracted position that reflects I have my own law practice and serve as state's attorney," he says.

VSEA spokesman Doug Gibson confirms that Illuzzi and the union are in discussions.

"It's not formal. He's talked with us and we've talked to him. Nothing's been signed or sealed yet," Gibson says. "I know the board and [executive director Mark Mitchell] have talked with him. I'm not sure there's a formal offer on the table, but they've talked."

VTDigger.org's Anne Galloway first reported news of the negotiations earlier Wednesday.

A Burlington Board of Health meeting Tuesday night on the effects of basing F-35 fighter planes at the city-owned airport was bookended by often-emotional condemnations of the plane's anticipated impact and by a military officer's assurance that the jets will prove to be good neighbors.

In between, three experts offered generally critical testimony on the likely health consequences of stationing up to two dozen of the fighters at BTV.

Noise produced by the F-35 "is probably going to be quite similar to what we have with the F-16" currently based at the airport, said Vermont Air National Guard Lt. Col. Luke "Torch" Ahmann, who has piloted F-16s for the past 12 years.

Dressed in a flight suit and clicking his way through a Power Point presentation in city hall's Contois auditorium, Ahmann said the F-35 will be louder than the F-16 in some locations near the airport but quieter in others.

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We'll see about that.

Meeting for the first time since their reelection at Montpelier's Capitol Plaza, Senate Democrats found plenty to bicker about: whether someone should moderate the meeting, when their next meeting should take place, and whether vote tallies in a leadership election should be released to the public.

"I hope the next two years go better than this," Sen.-elect David Zuckerman (P/D-Chittenden) muttered not-quite-under-his-breath from the back of the room.

The news of the day was that incumbent Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) easily fended off his sole challenger, Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington), for the Democratic nomination to that post. The vote, which reporters learned only after pressing reluctant senators, was 15 to 6.

Campbell still faces a challenge from Sen. Diane Snelling (R-Chittenden) when the full Senate reconvenes in January.

Skinny Pancake owner Benjamin Adler says that if he paid a "livable wage" to employees working at his airport restaurants, he'd have to charge $20 for a sandwich. "No restaurant pays their dishwasher $17.71 an hour," he tells Seven Days. "It's not sustainable."

Adler was reacting Tuesday to an avalanche of outrage prompted by a Burlington Free Press article, which reported that Burlington's mayor and board of finance had approved the Skinny Pancake's request for an unusual exemption from the city's livable wage ordinance. Burlington's ordinance requires that city employees and contractors receiving taxpayer funds pay workers a "livable" wage — presently $13.94 an hour, or $17.71 an hour if health insurance is not provided — unless they received a hardship exemption.

Adler lobbied for a hardship exemption and city officials approved one because Skinny Pancake says it would lose money on the airport venture otherwise. One reason for the special treatment: The Skinny Pancake and its sister restaurant, the Chubby Muffin, source almost all of their meat, cheese and vegetables from Vermont farmers and food producers. Adler estimates his restaurants spend $400,000 a year purchasing Vermont-grown foods — and will spend an additional $250,000 buying local food for the airport cafes.

The Free Press article also suggested — without saying explicitly — that Mayor Miro Weinberger's personal relationship with Adler and his brother, Ted, both of whom supported the mayor's campaign last spring, could have influenced the outcome.

Adler vigorously defended the exemption even as people who helped pass the livable wage ordinance back in 2001 warned that the move set a troubling precedent. Adler argues that the livable wage ordinance itself might need review. In spirit, he says he's "all for" guaranteeing a livable wage to people working on the taxpayer's dime. "But in practice, it's setting the bar so high that even a company like mine can't get near it. Is that the right bar to have set?" asks Adler, who pays himself "barely more" than livable wage standards. "Or is it too much money?"