Church Street Merchants Aren't Digging Construction Project

Sweetwaters owner David Melincoff has been watching with trepidation as a disruptive Church Street Marketplace construction project creeps toward his restaurant's front door. And now he's fighting to delay the dig that's scheduled to rip up the pedestrian mall's City Hall block for much of August.

Melincoff collected more than 700 signatures in less than a week on a petition he's circulating — on the social action website Change.org, no less — that calls for the lower-block portion of the project to be postponed for a month.

He fears that the noise, dust and unsightliness associated with the electrical rewiring work will hit Sweetwaters hard.

"August is our busiest month of the year," Melincoff explains. It accounts for 17 percent of the restaurant's annual sales and 32 percent of its net income, he calculates. And a majority of summertime diners choose a table on the Church Street portion of Sweetwaters' sidewalk cafe, he says.

"What's happening, in effect, is that they're jackhammering our dining room," Melincoff declares.

Sweetwaters' business will be off by as much as 50 percent as a result, he warns. And that will whack the wait staff right in the wallet, with employees' combined income likely to drop by $60,000 or more, Melincoff says.

Marketplace director Ron Redmond says city officials are striving to mitigate the project's effects up and down Burlington's four-block-long retail epicenter, but suggested it was unlikely the project would be delayed. He notes that work on the Church Street trench stops each weekday at 4 p.m., and construction fencing is scaled back at that time, which means "the outdoor restaurants should be fine for the dinner hours." Construction directly in front of individual outlets on the Marketplace does not last for more than seven business days, Redmond adds.

Soundbites Extra: Polka Edition

Some weeks, there are simply too many nifty music tidbits to fit in our li'l weekly music column, Soundbites. And sometimes, said nifty tidbits just come in way past deadline. (Friday, people. Friday.) 

In any event, to fill the void and keep you up to date on all the news that didn't fit for print — or came in late … FRIDAY, DAMMIT!— here's a quickie extra edition of Soundbites.

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PUMP UP THE VOLUME

The July 3 party at Speaking Volumes has become something of an Independence Day-ish tradition in Burlington. And with good reason. Now entering its sixth year, the annual bash behind the eclectic secondhand shop on Pine Street is a great off-the-beaten-path alternative to the madddening throngs along Waterfront Park and other locales around the Queen City, and a cool spot to catch the imitation bombs bursting in air.

Also, the party routinely features some great local musical talent, with this year no exception. Rocking for freedom this time around are danceable Afro-pop outfit the Move It Move It, vowel-challenged EDM duo Principal Dean & Snakefoot Are FRNDS, spacey apparitional popsters Parmaga and — always a crowd pleaser — "special guests."  

New CEDO Director Wins Grudging Support From Burlington Progs, Faces Challenges

The Burlington mayor's office and the Community and Economic Development Office, both located in City Hall, share a connection that is symbolic as well as physical. CEDO is in fact a creation of the mayor, having been established by Bernie Sanders in 1983 as a means of implementing progressive plans for the Queen City.

This signature initiative on the part of the city's socialist leader became the catalyst for many of the Progressive Party's proudest achievements. And with the exception of two years of Republican rule in the mid-'90s, CEDO has always been run by prog-ish figures — first, Peter Clavelle (who went on to become mayor); then Michael Monte, who held the post both before and after the Republican interregnum; and most recently Larry Kupferman, who ran the office during most of the Kiss administration. So, losing control of CEDO has been almost as traumatic for the Progs as losing the mayor's office.

The era formally ended last night when the city council approved Mayor Miro Weinberger's nominee Peter Owens (pictured) as CEDO director. The vote was unanimous, with all three Progressive councilors affirming their support. Behind the scenes, however, some Progs were unhappy that one of their own, CEDO housing director Brian Pine, was passed over for the job.

Vince Brennan, a member of the council's Progressive trio, said in an interview on Tuesday that Weinberger need not have gone so far afield to find a highly qualified replacement for Kupferman; Owens is an urban designer in White River Junction. "We could've gotten somebody right in our own backyard," Brennan said in reference to Pine, a Progressive former councilor who has worked at CEDO for almost 15 years.

Owens, who says he's a registered Independent, suggested in an interview last evening that "it wouldn't make sense" for the new Democratic mayor to pick a Prog for a post that's seen as expressive of an administration's political identity.

Burlington City Council Neither Supports Nor Opposes Bed-down of F-35

Three Vermont Air National Guard officers (including Col. Joel Clark, right) sat silently at a Burlington City Council public hearing last night as speaker after speaker after speaker denounced the proposed basing here of the F-35 supersonic fighter jet.

Afterward, however, the local military brass expressed satisfaction with the council's decision to neither support nor oppose the bed-down at Burlington International Airport. Councilors instead voted unanimously, after a 90-minute debate and 90 minutes of public comments, to put questions to the U.S. Air Force regarding the F-35's potential impact on public health, real-estate values and the regional economy.

Mayor Miro Weinberger backed the successful resolution, which also calls for an F-35 to be brought to Burlington to demonstrate the degree of noise the plane produces.

Grazing: Wine on Tap

Gut instinct might tell you to stay away from wine in a box, but you’d only be half right: Boxed wines have been improving, though some are still god-awful.

Wine in kegs, however, are way ahead of the game. Often, restaurants must eat the cost of wine that oxidizes in the bottle, such as a slightly unusual varietal opened for a glass pour and never ordered again. This is partly why many wine-by-the-glass lists tend to resemble each other. (K-J Chardonnay, anyone?)

Enter kegged wine. Even if the clunkiness of a beer keg seems at odds with the elegance of wine, tapping vino in an airtight container keeps ruinous oxygen at bay and a batch of wine fresher, longer. It's also eminently "green," cutting down on glass waste.

Weinberger Taps Hanover Urban Designer to Lead CEDO

Looking out over the Burlington waterfront Thursday afternoon, Peter Owens recalled his years in the mid-1980s as "a bright-eyed twenty-something" working as a young urban designer in the Queen City. Bernie Sanders was mayor, the Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) was brand new, and Owens was helping to plan the city's revitalization.

"At that point, this was all vacant wasteland," Owens said, pointing from the Burlington Boathouse toward the now-bustling waterfront.

Owens was in town nearly three decades later for Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger's announcement that he'd tapped Owens to lead CEDO, the city agency responsible for a broad swath of the mayor's agenda — including continuing the revitalizaiton of the city's lakeside property.

Calling Owens "a collaborator and listener who's committed to building community," Weinberger said the urban designer from Hanover, N.H., would be charged with restoring CEDO to a role as "think tank and innovator." The mayor said he's hoping the city council will confirm Owen to the $90,000-a-year position at its June 25 meeting with a start date of July 9. In the meantime, outgoing CEDO director Larry Kupferman, whose reappointment Weinberger declined to consider, will remain on the job.

Owens grew up in West Hartford, Conn. He holds a degree from Middlebury College and a Ph.D. in environmental planning and urban design from the University of California, Berkeley. After his time in Burlington in the mid-80s, Owens moved to the Bay Area and worked as an urban designer, eventually becoming a senior planner with the Presidio Trust. He and his family moved to the Upper Valley in 2002, where he now serves as a principal at his wife's landscape architecture and planning firm.

Weinberger first met his nominee when the future mayor was presenting a development project to the Hanover Planning Commission, on which Owens serves, though the two do not know each other well. Owens was recommended to Weinberger by several mutual friends, the mayor said.

Owens, who has two high school-aged children, plans to rent an apartment in Burlington to comply with the city's residency requirement for department heads, though his family will remain in the Upper Valley.

Owens called his new gig "a dream job" in which he would work for "a dream mayor."

"I love this city. I'm not bullshitting," he said. "It's deeply engrained in my psyche."

Photos: Top right: Owens (l) and Weinberger (r). Above left: The mayor's team walking toward the Burlington Boathouse.

Burlington Superintendent Jeanne Collins Holds on to Her Job

After months of harsh criticism, Burlington School District superintendent Jeanne Collins can breathe a sigh of relief: The BSD school board voted 9-5  late last night to extend her contract until 2014.

Board commissioners Keith Pillsbury, Haik Bedrosian, Ben Truman, Alan Matson, Kathy Chasan, Dave Davidson, Ed Scott and Bernie O'Rourke all gave Collins the go-ahead for another year on the job. (Had the board voted down her contact extension, Collins would have been job hunting in 2013.) Jill Evans, Rebecca Grimm, Paul Hochanadel, Meredith Woodward King and Erin Kranichfeld voted against retaining the superintendent.

The vote came after months of heated allegations of racism in the Burlington School District, and criticism centered in recent weeks on Collins. Her opponents  — who included activists from the minority community, some students of color, and City Councilor Vince Brennan — accused the superintendent of responding too slowly to these allegations, and called repeatedly for her replacement. Collins' supporters rallied in recent weeks, citing her long record of achievements in the district (including establishing the state's first magnet elementary schools) as reasons to keep her on.

Dubie: "No Clear Path Forward" If Vermont Air Guard Doesn't Get The F-35s

Faced with mounting community opposition to the Air Force's proposed stationing of 18 to 24 F-35 fighter jets at Burlington International Airport, Vermont Adjutant General Michael Dubie moved another step closer to advocating on behalf of the new striker fighters, warning that he sees "no clear path forward" for the Vermont Air National Guard (VTANG) if the F-35s are based elsewhere.

"The way we see things now, there is no plan B" if the F-35s aren't based at Burlington International, Dubie said. "We may not close our doors, but we will be dramatically smaller." Such a loss, he argued, would spell fewer local jobs, money and other resources for Vermonters. Currently, VTANG has an annual budget of $50 million and employs 400 fulltime workers and 700 parttime workers.

Speaking to an audience of reporters and more than two dozen Guard members at Camp Johnson in Colchester, Dubie pointed out that Vermont's "legacy" fleet of fighters, already 26 years old, is due to "time out" — that is, be mothballed — sometime between 2018 and 2020 and the F-35 is its only replacement. Vermonters should not expect a "cafeteria-style menu" from the Air Force from which to pick a new replacement aircraft. Larger aircraft, such as cargo planes or drones, are not likely to be based here due to the size of the Burlington runway and other air space considerations.

"If we don't get a fighter aircraft," Dubie added, "my current professional opinion is that we're going to be much smaller." 

Leader of Progressive Jewish Lobby to Speak on Mideast Conflict

"Emotions run high when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of the United States in helping to resolve it," Burlington's Ohavi Zedek synagogue says in announcing a talk tomorrow (June 13 at 7:30 p.m.) by the leader of a progressive and increasingly influential Jewish American lobbying group.

Strong responses — pro and con — can be expected when Jeremy Ben-Ami (pictured), founder and president of J Street, outlines what he regards as a just and achievable resolution of the seemingly endless confrontation in the Middle East. The talk will also serve as something of a homecoming reception for Ben-Ami. He lived in Burlington for much of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, for which he served as national policy director.

While J Street's call for a two-state solution and removal of some Jewish settlements may generate controversy at Ohavi Zedek, its position appears to be gaining ground among mainstream U.S. politicians.

F-35 Supporters Running Ads Downplaying Noise Concerns

More than 125 Vermonters — some of them well-known business leaders — have signed on to a newspaper advertisement in support of basing the Air Force's F-35 jet fighter at the National Guard station at Burlington International Airport.

The ad downplays opponents' concerns about the noise the planes would generate and emphasizes what the signers say would be the economic benefits of deploying up to two dozen F-35s in the Burlington area.

Decibel levels likely to be experienced by many nearby residents would exceed safe thresholds for a total of only six minutes per day, states the ad, which ran in half-page form in Sunday's Burlington Free Press and is scheduled to appear this week in South Burlington's Other Paper.

Calculating that it takes 30 seconds for a departing F-35 to soar out of hearing range, the ad says six of the planes would take off at 9 a.m. and again at 2 p.m. every day. Retired restaurateur Gary Farrell, who says he wrote the ad on the basis of information provided by the Vermont Air Guard, suggested in an interview on Monday that "most people are inside buildings during those times — working or going to school."