Category: Harrisonburg Issues
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A Valley minister was set to get her vaccine. Instead, she says, hospital security escorted her out.
Christina Rivera, part of the senior lead ministry team at the Church of the Larger Fellowship, registered for a vaccine and received an appointment to receive it at Sentara RMH. When she arrived, Rivera, who is Latina, said she was denied the vaccine and eventually escorted out of the hospital by security.
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Board approves younger students’ return to school as early as March
Preschoolers through 2nd grade students — as well as 6th graders — could be back in classrooms as soon as March 22, as the Harrisonburg School Board voted unanimously in Tuesday’s meeting to approve a revised reopening plan.
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Buyers, beware
Nowadays, when a home priced in the $200,000-$300,000 range hits the market in Harrisonburg, you can expect a feeding frenzy. According to Scott Rogers, associate broker for Funkhouser Real Estate Group, 20 or more showings and 10 offers within a few days isn’t unusual.
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They pushed ahead with their dreams in a pandemic. Here’s what they’ve learned.
Despite all the uncertainty — economic and otherwise — that the pandemic created over the last year, some Harrisonburg-area residents chose to follow their dreams and turn their passions into businesses. While launching a new business is always a learning experience, even for seasoned entrepreneurs, doing so amid these conditions have inspired a unique set of lessons learned.
Nearly 11 months in, here’s how local businesses have survived the pandemic and what they’ve learned
When the pandemic hit the United States last March and government orders closed down many of them temporarily, most local business owners were trapped in a kind of economic limbo. To survive, some businesses shifted their business models. Others pursued government loans to keep employees on the payroll. But, above all, many local Harrisonburg businesses learned they could count on the community’s support.
‘A prophetic voice against racial and economic disparities’
Speaking to college students on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2015, Stan Maclin patiently, yet powerfully, explained the pervasive legacy of systemic racism. The group had crowded into a barber shop in downtown Harrisonburg, with sunlight filtering through the beige, lacy curtains. He traced America’s history of slavery and injustice up through the decades to policies in Harrisonburg, such as the urban renewal projects that razed the homes and businesses of Black residents in the city’s northeast neighborhood in the 1950s and ‘60s.But Maclin imbued his talk with optimism.
Hburg council offers chilly reception to jail expansion plan
Members of the Harrisonburg City Council expressed concerns about and, in some cases, outright opposition to a proposed expansion of the Middle River Regional Jail as the jail’s leader made his pitch Tuesday night. While the council didn’t take any vote on the issue, the discussion signaled that jail officials might have an uphill climb to convince Harrisonburg to kick as much as $1.2 million more a year for the city’s share of a nearly $40 million expansion.
The Virginia Breeze looks past pandemic doldrums
It’s a quiet January Tuesday at the public transit hub outside of James Madison University’s Godwin Hall, where in more normal times, students would be waiting with bags loaded for the Virginia Breeze to take them back home. These are not normal times, though; no one is waiting for the bus, and the only breeze around is the bitter winter sort.
