This Week's Issue: Untangling Vermont's Health Care Exchange; Union Busting Allegations at SMC

Happy Wednesday, people. Here are the news and politics stories you'll find in the latest edition of Seven Days:

• Vermont's new health care exchange goes live in less than two weeks! In this week's cover story, Ken Picard follows five households and professional "navigators" to untangle how it will work for average Vermonters.
• St. Michael's College fired two longtime custodians, and the campus isn't happy about it. Was it a case of union busting?
• A Vermont-born political strategist is playing a major role in one of the biggest races of the year in Virginia. Some observers think he may feature in the next presidential campaign.
• In looking to revitalize its downtown, is St. Albans turning its back on a piece of history?
• And in this week's Fair Game: After an ineffective 2013 session, Vermont's gun control advocates aren't going away — now they're even hiring a high-powered lobbying firm. Plus, why are F-35s okay for Vermont if missiles aren't?

If those links aren't your style, read these stories in print or on the Seven Days app.

Cover illustration by Michael Tonn

Morning Read: Protesters Rip Up 9/11 Memorial Flags at Middlebury College

Middlebury College students marked the 12th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks yesterday with a display of 2,977 miniature American flags in front of Mead Chapel. The memorial, organized by the school's College Republicans and College Democrats groups, has happened every 9/11 for nearly 10 years, according to the Middlebury Campus.

This year, though, things went awry.

The Campus reported that five people ripped the flags out of the ground and tossed them into trash bags because they were planted on sacred Abenaki ground.

This Week's Issue: Augmented Reality, School Calendar Reform and a Booted Reporter

This week's Seven Days has something new attached to it: augmented reality! Now you can interact with the old-fashioned print edition with the help of a smartphone or tablet. All you have to do is download the Layar app and scan whenever you see the little symbol, and the page will come to life. In the screenshots below, you'll see what happens to the cover...

With Layar, dancers start to dance across the paper! Whoa! We are living in the Harry Potter universe, people.

Once you're done with that, there's lots of good news and politics content for your consideration, too.

• What has Champlain Valley parents peeved? A proposal to shorten summer vacation and redistribute those days to "intersession" periods during the school year.
• The South Burlington City Council election held earlier this year was unusually contentious, and it may have included a campaign-finance violation by the council's chair.
• In Fair Game, Gov. Peter Shumlin wined and dined fellow Democratic governors and big-money donors in Manchester last weekend — but our own Paul Heintz got thrown out. (See the post below on this blog for more on that.)
• The long-dormant, waiting-for-redevelopment Moran Plant on Burlington's waterfront isn't good for much these days, but at least it makes a good muse for these artists.
• In this week's WTF column, we try to find the Indiana Jones-worthy story behind a "sacred" space that threatens to turn Norwich cadets to dust.

This Week's Issue: Bike Thefts, Crowded Sidewalks and Harry Potter

This week's Art Hop issue is on newsstands now. But fear not, news junkies! We've got the usual bunch of news and politics, too. Here's what you'll find:

• Bicycle theft is a never-ending problem in Burlington. Would a police registry help?
• Massage parlors around Vermont were busted for offering sexual services earlier this year. This Chinese spa in Barre fell under intense scrutiny, too — but it's totally legitimate.
• Pine Street sidewalks (where they exist) always get claustrophobic during the Art Hop in Burlington. Why won't the city close off parts of the street?
• Dartmouth College students have fanned out across the Upper Valley, finding immersive, mesmerizing stories for an online literary project.
• A University of Vermont professor is drawing the lightning bolt-shaped line between reading Harry Potter books and the politics of young Americans.
• And in Fair Game: Leahy, Sanders and Welch weigh whether to support President Obama's proposal for air strikes in Syria.

Gun Play Across from a Burlington Elementary School? It's Legal in Vermont.

Police have responded 29 times in the past year to incidents on the single block of Spring Street opposite the Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler in Burlington's Old North End.

Principal Bobby Riley insists both the school and the neighborhood are safe, but Jeff Sherman, a resident of one of the units in the 69-85 block of Spring Street, describes conditions there as "pretty bad." The sense of danger has grown in the 12 years he's lived there, Sherman says.

In February 2011, a domestic assault spilled onto the street in front of the elementary school, whereupon a man fired a shot that didn't hurt anyone. The students were on vacation that week, but Wheeler went into lockdown to protect the staff inside.

This Week's Issue: Natural Gas, Intervale Angst and a Look at Lisman

After you're done with the big cover story about the future of Burlington's urban farmers, dig into this week's news and politics stories:

• Sure, there's that pesky lawsuit and the everpresent street toughs, but neither is stopping Church Street's merchants. Business is booming on Burlington's pedestrian mall, with just one empty storefront left.
• Also in Burlington, here's a familiar refrain: Work on the new waterfront skate park has been delayed... again.
• Cheap natural gas might be the biggest reason Vermont Yankee is shutting down — and that's good news for Milton's NG Advantage, which trucks natural gas to off-pipeline businesses.
• Not everyone gets to go back to school. Learn how Saint Michael's College is helping first-generation students adapt to higher education.
• And in Fair Game, Paul Heintz tries to figure out just what Bruce Lisman is up to with his advocacy group, Campaign for Vermont. Lisman says he's not interested in elected office, but...

Get this issue now in print, at the links above or via our iOS app.

New UVM Fines Aim to Deter Marijuana and Alcohol Abuse

University of Vermont students caught on campus with drugs and alcohol this year are paying a price. With advice from a national group of schools, Vermont’s largest university is implementing new fines for students caught doing drugs, and upping the fines for those with too much booze on hand. And since UVM is a dry-halls campus, they apply even for students 21 and older.

Annie Stevens, vice provost for student affairs at UVM, says the new fines are intended to serve as a deterrent, not to make a mint for the university — though they’re likely to do both.

According to Stevens, UVM signed onto the National College Health Improvement Program two years ago. Founded in 2011 by then-president of Dartmouth College Jim Kim, the program includes 32 member schools collaborating to reduce high-risk drinking. UVM's decision to implement its new fines, says Stevens, was based on that program.

So, what are the fines? $250 for possessing a “common source” of alcohol — that’s 12 servings or more; $150 for empties found during routine Health and Safety inspections of dorm rooms; $150 for a student's first drug offense; and $250 for the second drug offense. The common source fine went up this year from $150, and all the other fines are new this year, Stevens says.

This Week's Issue: Fixing Shabby Burlington Apartments; New Cops Learn How Not to Be Racist

Happy Hump Day, everyone. Here's what you'll find in this week's Seven Days:

• Burlington code enforcement director Bill Ward runs a tight ship, holding landlords' feet to the fire to keep the city's housing stock up to snuff. And check out the sidebar to see tips for renters.
• Studies have shown racial bias in Vermont traffic stops. A police academy class is teaching new cops to overcome their internalized prejudices. 
• Public water is public water, right? Not in Essex or Shelburne — these towns are keeping nonresidents away from their beaches.
• No more dodgeball targets! Vermont gym teachers are reforming physical education to make it better for body and mind — for everybody.
• And in Fair Game: Vermont's congressional delegation is split on whether to cut off aid to Egypt amidst turmoil. Plus, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott's worries over the health care exchange, and media news from the Times Argus and Burlington Free Press.

Grab this week's issue in print, online or on the iOS app.

Embattled Goddard President Announces Departure, Citing Family Challenges

Barbara Vacarr, the embattled president of Goddard College, announced Thursday in a joint statement with the school's board of trustees that she will step down from her post in December.

"In this challenging time of national economic and enrollment concerns for higher education, I remain focused on the issues paramount to Goddard's mission," she said. "However, I have concluded that I must also pay more attention to the personal challenges facing close family members. Therefore, I look forward to working with the board in leaving the college moving ahead. I am grateful for the opportunity to lead such a wonderful institution."

Vacarr was the subject of a February 2013 cover story in Seven Days, in which staff writer Kathryn Flagg documented the president's struggle to turn the college around. While some community members praised her efforts to retool the school, others criticized the "corporate mentality" they say she brought to the hippie haven.

In a November 2012 letter sent to Vacarr and Goddard's board of trustees, Flagg reported, 46 faculty members complained about what they saw as a "pattern of unilateral decision making" at the school. 

Green Mountain College Joins Growing Divestment Movement

Green Mountain College today announced that it is divesting its $3.1 million endowment from fossil fuel companies, making the Poultney liberal arts school the fifth college in the nation — and the second in Vermont, after Sterling College — to endorse a campaign playing out on more than 300 campuses across the country. 

The goal isn't necessarily to hit companies like Mobil, Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell in the pocketbook; most divestment advocates agree that even the wealthiest universities won't make much of a ding in these corporation's profits by divesting. 

“I don’t think financially we can cripple them. They’re so big and so rich,” Vermont resident and environmental activist Bill McKibben told Seven Days in December, as the divestment campaign was gaining steam. Rather, McKibben said divestment represents an “inherently moral call, saying if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.”

GMC's board of trustees voted on Friday to immediately divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies targeted in the nationwide divestment campaign headed up by the environmental activism organization founded by McKibben, 350.org. Currently 1 percent of GMC's endowment is tied up in these companies, which collectively own the vast majority of the world's coal, oil and gas reserves.

"We see this as another step in an ongoing effort to connect our investment decisions with our ideals,” said GMC president Paul Fonteyn in a statement released today. "Investing endowment funds on the basis of social, economic and environmental criteria is one of the ways Green Mountain College expresses its values."