Category: Harrisonburg Issues
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How a pattern of harassment complaints eventually forced a Harrisonburg landlord to pay
In the mid-2000s, Sarah Morton, a young attorney, and Vanessa Keasler, a law clerk and soon-to-be attorney, joined the Harrisonburg office of Blue Ridge Legal Services, a nonprofit civil legal aid organization. As they began picking up cases, they discovered a pattern of complaints against one local landlord mistreating his tenants, particularly women. It would take over a decade of work, along with their team — and the intervention of the U.S. Justice Department — before that pattern would result in consequences for the landlord, Gary T. Price.
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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.
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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.
