Category: Harrisonburg Issues
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City looks to add 15 new firefighters for new station. And there’s a plan to cover those salaries for 3 years.
The Harrisonburg Fire Department will move ahead with plans to add 15 new firefighters over the next year so they can begin training staff for the new fire station near EMU’s campus that is slated to open in January 2024. But the city might not have to cover their salaries until 2026.
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Harrisonburg could benefit from tweak to new law about room taxes
The Virginia General Assembly created a new law last year to ensure travel and accommodation intermediary sites — like Expedia, Travelocity and Kayak.com — pay the proper local tax rates on lodgings to cities like Harrisonburg. But the law left something out: a requirement to tell localities how much of the bill goes to local taxes.
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Community Perspective: City should focus on making Harrisonburg more user friendly
A community perspectives piece submitted by Bob Pippin
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A divided Capitol ‘forces you to the table, to be more reasonable and then negotiate’
With the Virginia General Assembly more than a week into its session, Republican Del. Tony Wilt said he’s hopeful divided government can yield legislative results and even some toned-down rhetoric. Wilt, who represents Harrisonburg in the House of Delegates, answered a range of questions in this in-depth Q and A.
City schools to keep mask requirement but local districts look ahead to one day lifting them; Plans for high schools’ programming evolve
While the requirement to wear masks in schools will remain in place for the foreseeable future, the Harrisonburg City School Board voted Tuesday night to allow administration officials to explore adopting a path to safely remove the mask mandates — but with some big caveats.
Acclaimed Furious Flower Poetry Center to create living, digital archive of Black poetry’s past, present and future
Thanks to a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, academics at James Madison University will soon begin digitizing records to create a “living archive” for the internationally recognized Furious Flower Poetry Center.
Area Red Cross needs blood – and people
While the Central Virginia Chapter of the American Red Cross needs blood to address a shortage in the area that includes Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, it’s also in need of people who are willing to lend a hand at blood drives without rolling up their sleeves to donate.
Amid ‘stunning surge’ in COVID cases, city shifts meetings back online
The city council approved an emergency declaration Tuesday, sending public meetings back online for at least a month and raising the alarm that the community’s sharp increase in COVID-19 cases will further strain an overstretched health care system.
