Tag: Rockingham County
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City infection rate is by far the state’s highest, for reasons that are unclear
After a sharp increase in local COVID-19 cases over the past week – including an outbreak at the long-term care facility Accordius Health that has infected 81 residents and left 10 dead – Harrisonburg has by far the highest per-capita rate of cases in the state.
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Denton building’s future sparks protest, uncertainty among council members
Concern about the fate of the Denton building in downtown Harrisonburg drew about 50 people to Court Square Thursday to protest the county administration’s interest in purchasing the historic building, which houses Larkin Arts, a bail bonds office and apartments.
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Keys to stemming rising jail population could be in the numbers. The question now is how to find them.
While the local jail population continues to grow, the record-keeping systems used by law enforcement, the courts and other pieces of the local criminal justice system remain stuck in the past, complicating efforts to understand what’s driving that population growth or to begin addressing it. Within a year, however, new insight into local criminal justice trends could be coming from two different sources.
Drowning in milk: The plight of a family-owned Virginia dairy farm
Dan Myers steps out of his white Ford F-350 and onto the muddy ground just as the morning light begins to illuminate his family’s dairy farm, Walkup Holsteins. In the partially-covered pavilion in front of him, more than 30 pregnant dry cows lay on beds of straw and wood shavings. At the milking parlor on the other side of the farm, Dan’s wife Charlotte, 77, and their daughter Teresa Callender, 53, are around halfway through milking the cows, a process that they started just after 5 a.m.
City’s population estimate declines for the first time in more than 40 years
For the first time since Gerald Ford was president, Harrisonburg’s estimated population has decreased – if only ever so slightly. According to figures just released by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center, Harrisonburg’s July 1, 2018 population was an estimated 54,606. That’s 83 fewer people than the July 1, 2017 estimate of 54,689, a decrease of 0.2 percent.
One woman wanted to expand her daycare to address the area’s ‘childcare desert.’ She got blocked by her own driveway.
Even though available childcare remains scarce around Harrisonburg, only nine applications for special permits to expand child-care facilities have been filed in the city and Rockingham County since 2015.
Looking For A Home
“Residentially impaired” is how Dylan Thompson describes his living situation at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. The church rotates with 15 other places of worship in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County that take in homeless guests as part of Open Doors.
