EXCERPTS FROM BLURT,
THE SEVEN DAYS STAFF BLOG
Final Tab for the Burlington Mayor’s Race? A Record-Setting $201,309 BY PAUL HEINTZ
In the closing days of the most expensive mayor’s race in Burlington’s history, two of the candidates — and one political party — continued to pour cash into their campaigns. New filings show that Democrat Miro Weinberger, who won by 20 percent, raised $16,469 and spent $25,050 in the last week and a half of the race. The Vermont Democratic Party spent another $8,631 on his behalf during that period. In total, Weinberger and his party raised $143,940 and spent $140,118 on the campaign, dwarfing all previous records. Close to $50,000 of that was spent on a heated four-way race for the Democratic nomination last fall. Republican Kurt Wright raked in $11,694 and spent $18,074 in the campaign’s final days. In total, he raised $60,358 and spent $58,261 on the campaign, receiving no help from the state GOP. Independent Wanda Hines raised and spent just $2,930. Though she came in a distant third, Hines certainly got the best bang for her buck. She spent just $5.80 per vote, while Wright spent $15.55 and Weinberger spent $24.15 per vote.
BY ANDY BROMAGE
State Won’t Buy the .vermont or .vt Domains — at Least for Now BY KEN PICARD
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SEVEN DAYS
The state of Vermont has no plans to shell out $185,000 to own the Vermont name — or, more accurately, the .vermont or .vt names — at least for now. That’s the word from Secretary Lawrence Miller at the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development about plans by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to start issuing new top-level domains — including .vermont and .vt — later this year. Because of the internet’s exponential growth, ICANN recognized several years ago that it was only a matter of time before it effectively ran out of usable addresses in the Domain Name System. Glenn Ravdin, a marketing and branding expert with the consulting firm 2NS of South Hero, and other tech professionals are urging state lawmakers to protect the dot-vermont brand and warned what might happen if some unscrupulous party scooped up the .vermont or .vt suffixes. “While the cost seems steep — $185,000 — it’s a fraction of what we might have to pay later to get it,” Ravdin wrote to legislators. “And the risks of misuse are very real. Syrup with no maple content at all can have a maple.vermont web address. Cheese from anywhere can carry a .vermont URL.”
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LOCAL MATTERS 17
A right-to-die bill was near death in Montpelier on Friday after failing to make it out of committee by the midsession “crossover” deadline. The Senate Judiciary Committee was expected to vote on the contentious “death with dignity” bill last Friday morning following an emotional three-hour hearing two days earlier. But the vote was canceled because one of the committee members, state Sen. Alice Nitka (D-Windsor), was hospitalized Thursday evening after falling six feet off a staircase. Nitka’s absence didn’t change the bill’s fate. She was opposed, as were two other members of the fivemember Judiciary Committee, and a 2-2 tie would have effectively killed the bill in committee. But committee chairman Sen. Dick
Sears (D-Bennington), who opposes the bill, canceled the committee vote anyway — and held firm despite pressure from Gov. Peter Shumlin, a “death with dignity” supporter, to let the full Senate debate and vote on it. The only hope now rests in attaching the bill to another piece of legislation moving through the full Senate. Sears says it wouldn’t surprise him if someone tried it, but warns that 16 of the 30 senators are “solidly against.”
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
“Death With Dignity” Bill on Life Support
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