The Burlington Free Press du lieu suivant : Burlington, Vermont • Page 1

B3 fa VOTERS SPEAK Douglas drops plan to tap Education Fund VERMONT IB UIEflPER BY TIE WAY How to find bargains 'jtf on the sopes, weekend fie $udtngton Jffree fire. Thursday, March 9, 2006 A Local Custom Serving Vermont for 179 years www.burlingtonfreepress.com 50 cents 3 Mm 1- I Mudpuppy victim of lamprey control Meet the mudpuppy SCIENTIFIC NAME: Nec-turus maculosus WHAT IT IS: Vermont's largest salamander Biologists concerned for state's largest salamander salmon and other Lake Champlain fish and enrages anglers who say it is damaging efforts to restore fish populations in the lake. To kill lampreys, the state Fish and Wildlife Department periodically treats Lewis Creek and the Winooski River with a pesticide. The chemical usually kills some mudpuppies, too. That has some scientists worried See MUDPUPPY, 13A 0 HABITAT: LiVeS Only in Courtesy Jim Andrews, Middlebury College water, at the bottom of streams and weedy ponds WHERE IN Lower reaches of rivers feeding Lake Champlain; Connecticut River APPEARANCE: A foot long or longer, with feathery external gills; blunt snout; flat tail LIFE SPAN: 25-30 years DIET: Small fish, crayfish, aquatic insects, worms, fish eggs BEHAVIOR: Elusive bottom dweller, most active at night.

better political judgment when it came to choosing a home? Scientists say in Vermont the foot-long mudpuppy lives almost exclusively in the lower reaches of rivers leading to Lake Champlain. That's precisely the habitat of the sea lamprey, an eel-like nuisance species that sucks blood from lake trout, By Candace Page Free Press Staff Writer WATERBURY Consider the hapless mudpuppy: Ugly, short-sighted, slimy and secretive. And those are its luckier attributes. Vermont's largest salamander can't help its unappealing name, perhaps. But couldn't the amphibian have used Progressives jump-start machine to propel IQss Missing Vt.

teen might have been in N. J. casino Maitland case For more information on the case of Brianna Maitland, go to: Bring Brianna Home: www.bringbrihome.org Vermont State Police: www.dps.state.vt.us New Jersey State Police: www.state.nj.usnjsp .1, Family uncertain if Brianna Maitland, who disappeared from Montgomery 2 years ago, is woman on surveillance tape By Sam Hemingway Free Press Staff Writer Police in Vermont and New Jersey are studying a Jan. 17 surveillance video from an Atlantic City casino that might show missing Sheldon teenager Brianna Maitland playing cards and accompanied by an older, balding man. "It looks like her, but we really can't be the judge of 1 mmmmmssstsf Cf If I something like this," Ve State Police Detective Lt.

Brian Miller said Wednesday. "The familv is the the Black Lantern Inn restaurant in Montgomery the night of March 19, 2004- Her car was found backed irito an abandoned house a mile west of town the following day. A police investigation and several searches of the Montgomery area failed to uncover clues about her disappearance. Maitland's parents, Bruce and Kelley Maitland, did not respond to phone messages requesting comment Wednesday. The couple moved from Franklin, to New York last year.

Miller said the woman in the video clearly did not appear to be in any distress. New Jersey State Policje released information about the video this week and appealed for information about the whereabouts of Maitland or the other people depicted in the video. Miller said police were first alerted that Maitland might have been at Caesars See MISSING, 10A QLENN RUSSELL, Free Press Bob Kiss, mayor-elect of Burlington, stands Wednesday with City Hall in the background. Complacent party rises from the dead to keep City Hall only one who MaK'sind can tell for sure. They've looked at the video and they aren't sure." Detective John Donegan, a missing persons investigator with the New Jersey State Police, said Maitland's parents told him some of the woman's mannerisms did remind them of their daughter, according to an Associated Press report.

Maitland was 17 when she disappeared after finishing her job as a dishwasher at Ward by ward Candidate i Ward 1 I Ward 2 i Ward 3 i Ward 4 i Ward 5 1 WaK- 6 Ward 7 T015 Louie The Cowman Beaudln 5 20 19 22, IS, 8, 30 119 Kevin J. Curley 154 115 213 757 351 258 763 2,611 Bob Kiss i 467 456 i 637 550 676 546 479 1 3,811 Hlnda Miller 306 I 164 1 287 676 I 604 1 524 I 546 13,107 Loyal Ploof 1 6 11 1 14 10 7 4 68 By John Briggs Free Press Staff Writer A relentless grass-roots campaign that took the candidate to every corner of the city succeeded Tuesday in putting Progressive Bob Kiss in the Burlington Mayor's Office for the next three years. The effort wasn't easy. The campaign started late, lacked the presence of party bluebloods and lagged in fund raising. Nevertheless, Kiss' vic-.

tory Tuesday over Democrat Hinda Miller and Republican Kevin Curley was the "sweetest victory" for Progressives since 1981, when Bernie Sanders won a four-way race, said John Franco, a local attorney and GOP defies Bush, blocks ports deal residents," he said. "The values I was representing were nowhere else in that race." The result extended the Progressives' hold on the Queen City's top post, a run interrupted just once Republican Peter Brownell's two-year term from 1993 to '95 since Sanders' See MAYOR, 13A dead and in the tomb." Kiss said Wednesday that voters decided at the polls they like what the city has become over the past quarter-century and they understood that he would support those values. "I think sometimes we forget how important the character of Burlington is to Instant runoff praised, 13A 18 school budgets fail, IB Town meeting results, 2B longtime Progressive. "This was the Lazarus campaign," he said, referring to the biblical story of a man raised from the dead by Jesus. "In January, we were Notification credited with drop in Texas abortions spread public opposition to the deal and the GOP fears losing its advantage on the issue of national security in the fall elections.

The White House said the president's position was unchanged. "This is a national security issue," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, the chairman of the House panel, adding that the legislation would "keep America's ports in American hands." As the committee acted, Democrats on the other side of the Capitol maneuvered for a vote in the GOP-led Senate. Republican leaders are trying to block a vote on the ports deal through a procedural vote that could occur as early as today. That tactic is likely to fail, which could prompt Republicans to pull a lobbying reform bill from the floor in order to See PORTS, 10A By Liz Sidoti The Associated Press WASHINGTON In a congressional election-year repudiation of President Bush, a House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S port operations.

Democrats clamored for a vote in the Senate, too. By 62-2, the House Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports. The landslide vote was the strongest signal yet that more than three weeks of White House efforts to stunt congressional opposition to the deal have not been successful. Bush has promised to veto any such measure passed by Congress.

There is wide In Vermont Voters in nearly three dozen Vermont communities considered an advisory item on Town Meeting Day encouraging state lawmakers to support legislation requiring parental notification for minor females seeking abortions. The measure passed in 1 7 communities, including Enosburg, Franklin, Milton, St. Albans City and St. Albans Town. The measure was defeated in four communities, including Underbill, and tabled in eight other communities, including Berkshire and Franklin.

fell 11 percent to 20 percent more than the rate among the 18-year-olds did. "The law has definite behavioral effects," said lead researcher Ted Joyce, a Baruch professor of economics. The study was reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine. In the study, birth rates declined for all ages in the 15- to 18-year-old group. At the same time, the abortion rate among 18-year-olds See ABORTION, 10A an abortion, although a judge can usually grant a waiver.

Researchers at Baruch College at City University of New York studied the records of teen abortions and births for the two years before the Texas law took effect on Jan. 1, 2000, and for three years afterward. Abortion rates dropped for girls ages 15 through 18, even though the 18-year-olds were not subject to the law. The drop was more pronounced among the younger girls. Their rates By Linda A.

Johnson The Associated Press Abortion rates declined significantly among Texas girls though some received riskier abortions later in pregnancy after the state enacted a parental notification law, researchers say. The findings could have a strong influence on the abortion debate. Texas is the biggest of 35 states that require minors to notify their parents or get their consent before obtaining Printed in the U.S.A. WEATHER INDEX 1111(1! nun Business 5A Deaths 4B Opinion 8A Classified 4C Forum 9A Sports 6B Comics 3C 3C TV list 2C Corrections 2A Living 1 Weekend 1 Crossword Movies 2C Vermont IB For up-to-the-minute news, sports and entertainment, go to www.burlingtonfreepress.com Hi: 44 Low: 38 II 0 "-'40901 "01 001 Vol. 179, No.

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