Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week — the first of the 2013-14 legislative session. Got something newsworthy for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, January 7

• At 7:30 a.m., the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce and Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation hold a joint 2013 legislative breakfast at the Sheraton in South Burlington. Gov. Peter Shumlin and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger will address the biz crowd.
• Gov. Shumlin holds a rare Monday morning press conference, 11 a.m. on the 5th floor of the Pavilion Building in Montpelier.
• At 1 p.m., Burlington Mayor Weinberger holds a press conference on an unannounced topic.
• The Burlington City Council meets at 7 p.m. On the agenda: a proposed city charter change banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines like the ones used in the Newtown school massacre. Also, Mayor Weinberger will ask the council to approve extending Paul Sisson's appointment as interim chief administrative officer while hizzoner takes more time to search for a permanent CAO. 

Rest of the week after the break...

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Huddled around a conference table at Montpelier's Capitol Plaza, the 23-member caucus selected Sen. Philip Baruth (D-Chittenden) as majority leader and Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison) as assistant majority leader. Both were elected by voice vote — without opposition.

Baruth's selection as the party's consensus-seeker and enforcer signaled a remarkable turnaround for a relatively junior and liberal member who distinguished himself last session — his first — as a voice of opposition and, at times, obstruction. But Baruth's fellow senators appeared to accept the Burlington Democrat's pledge to put the priorities of the caucus before his own.

Oh, and nobody else wanted the job.

After nominating Baruth for the post, Sen. Bobby Starr (D-Essex/Orleans) — a longtime conservative Democrat from the Northeast Kingdom — said that despite their philosophical differences, he believed Baruth to be "a great guy" and "a great communicator."

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But with seemingly just one candidate in the running — Sen. Philip Baruth (D-Chittenden) — the real behind-the-scenes jockeying appears to be elsewhere: namely, committee chairmanships.

With the retirements of Sen. Sara Kittell (D-Franklin) and Sen. Vince Illuzzi (R-Essex/Orleans) last year, the chairmanships of the committees they led — agriculture and economic development, respectively — are up for grabs.

On top of that, Sen. Ann Cummings (D-Washington), the longtime chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, says she's giving up her chairmanship. Cummings, who unsuccessfully challenged Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell for his leadership job last year, cited health issues in her decision.

"My health right now is fine, but the last two years have been very high-stress for me," she says. "Both myself, my family and my doctor thinks that the stress of the last two years during the session played a role in my health issues."

Here's the newsy stuff in this week's commemorative 12/12/12 edition of Seven Days...

• Librarians at Burlington's Fletcher Free Library are adapting to a changing job — which includes responding to the many homeless people that hang out in the library every day.
• With an app called SeeClickFix, the city of Burlington is taking a new approach to fighting curbside litter with the public's help.
• Meet Liz Miller, the former Department of Public Service head who now faces a tall task as Gov. Peter Shumlin's incoming chief of staff.
• In Fair Game: If Green Mountain Power execs didn't want journalists arrested on Lowell Mountain last year, what took so long to exonerate Barton Chronicle publisher Chris Braithwaite?
  
  And while the governor and two mayors visit a Florida air base to hear the F-35, learn about why a nearby, conservative-minded city is lukewarm towards the new jet.

Library photo by Matthew Thorsen

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.

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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.

In this week's dead-tree edition of Seven Days...

• A developer wants to build up to 300 new apartments in Burlington, but some neighbors aren't thrilled with the plan.
• Burlington voters authorized $6 million in borrowing to fund waterfront improvements. What's on the way? Bike path repairs and improvements, 125 new parking spaces and a realigned Lake Street.
• A greener way to fuel your furnaces and vehicles: Central Vermont's first facility blending used cooking grease with heating oil and diesel fuel is now open.
  
  
• This week's cover story: How Ric Cabot and Darn Tough Vermont saved the last hosiery mill in New England. The Cabot Hosiery sock sale continues this weekend!
  
  
• And in Fair Game, Paul Heintz takes a closer look at the shakeup coming to Gov. Peter Shumlin's cabinet. Plus, lawmakers gun for House leadership positions, the Burlington Free Press loses subscribers and two Burlington TV stations get new owners. 

Peter Hirschfeld over at the Vermont Press Bureau has a good story today about the guy who helped make that happen: 26-year-old Nick Charyk, director of the Vermont Democratic House Campaign. Here's a little snippet:

Effective recruitment is the kind of labor-intensive undertaking for which professional staff is usually needed. Charyk spent much of 2011 embedding in Republican districts he believed Democrats could win, or in Democratic districts where outgoing officeholders would leave open seats.

“I sat down with as many people as I could, had coffee, developed a list of people, five or 10 people in town that might make great candidates and worked hard to recruit them,” Charyk said. “The metaphor we use is find out who built the Little League field, and go talk to them first.”

We've made this point before — a couple of times — but it's worth repeating: You just can't win if you're not putting up good candidates. I mean, duh. But really.

Anyway, check out Hirschfeld's story. Two-thirds of it is posted on the Press Bureau's blog. But you should really go buy a copy of the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus or the Rutland Herald. Because, hey, newspapers are totes dying, right? And someone's gotta pay Hirschfeld's salary.

The media spotlight last night focused on the statewide races and that Obama guy, but there were some spirited races on the local level, as well. The big wins Democrats showed at the top of the ticket trickled down to the Legislature; as it stands Democrats added two seats for a "supermajority" of 96 seats in the House of Representatives, while Progressives picked up a couple seats and Republicans lost three. The 22-8 split in the state Senate in favor of the Democrats appears it will hold, although each party holds a seat, for now, that could still change.

For the most complete results page, head over to Vermont Public Radio's elections page. The Secretary of State's unofficial results site once again lagged behind local media outlets on election night, and currently shows only about 75 percent of precincts reporting results.

With the caveat that results are still unofficial, here's how some of Vermont's other interesting races shook out.

Vermont Democrats went wild as newly-elected State Treasurer Beth Pearce took to the stage late Tuesday night in a crowded ballroom at the Burlington Hilton.

As Pearce settled into her victory speech, the crowd went even wilder. But it wasn’t just for her. To the side of the stage, a television tuned to CNN was flashing some pretty big news. “I think I just heard that Obama won Ohio,” Pearce said. “Boy, I hope I got that right.”

She did.

This was a night of euphoria for Vermont Dems — up and down the ballot. Within minutes of the polls closing, the AP called it for their top officeholders: Gov. Peter Shumlin, Sen. Bernie Sanders (an independent who caucueses with Democrats) and Congressman Peter Welch. And Vermont once again sent Obama his first three votes in the Electoral College.

In the race Vermont Democrats focused on the most, Pearce handily defeated Rutland’s Republican city treasurer, Wendy Wilton, by a 52 to 41 percent margin.

But the biggest surprise of the night came when Burlington’s own Doug Hoffer (pictured above), a Democrat and Progressive, defeated 32-year Republican state Sen. Vince Illuzzi 51 to 45 to become Vermont’s next state auditor.

In a speech as low-key as his win was unexpected, Hoffer — a self-employed policy analyst running in his second race for state auditor — concluded by saying, simply, “I’m going to get to work.”