Category: Harrisonburg Issues
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A pandemic and protests have ramped up interest in city budgeting. Here’s The Citizen’s guide to Hburg’s spending
Continue with the plan for building a second high school? Reduce funding for the police department? The combination of the pandemic’s economic ripple effects and calls for social change out of this summer’s protests have sparked questions and deep-seated opinions about how the city of Harrisonburg spends its money. Residents have been bringing up budget issues in city council meetings, at rallies for racial justice and on social media.
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Just how much of a surprise was the decision to scrap the Atlantic Coast Pipeline?
Last Thursday, a Dominion Energy media relations representative talked with The Citizen for 22 minutes about the future of the long-debated and controversial Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which just a few weeks earlier had cleared a major hurdle in the U.S. Supreme Court. There was no hint of what Dominion and Duke would announce three days later.
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Lightsabers and a little loneliness: How Hburg kids have been coping with the pandemic
The Citizen has covered the pandemic’s effects on Harrisonburg from many angles — how it has afflicted those who have had the virus, slammed local businesses, impacted city finances — even how it’s changed the way we interact. But we’ve mostly covered adults’ points of view and wanted to know how kids in the community have been affected. So we commissioned a student contributor to find out.
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Required masks and alternating school days is the plan … for now
The plan for reopening Harrisonburg city schools in the fall by having students alternate days in the buildings won the school board’s unanimous approval Tuesday. But school officials are bracing for it to change right up until schools start Aug. 31.
JMU Board votes unanimously to change three building names honoring confederate officers
Following a unanimous vote by the James Madison University Board of Visitors, the names of three confederate officers – Stonewall Jackson, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Turner Ashby – no longer grace buildings on campus. The decision was made Tuesday during a virtual meeting of the board.
Another financial effect of the pandemic: international students’ only employment options
As a lesser-publicized consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges and universities stopped paying for certain on-campus work-study jobs when classes shifted online in March. For many of these students, the checks that were supposed to come until May abruptly ended two months early, creating a cash crunch for those students — and uncertainty about regaining those work-study positions in the fall.
No fireworks? No problem. Soccer, swimming, sun and a Declaration of Independence reading mark Hburg’s July 4 weekend
With Harrisonburg cancelling its annual Friendly City Fourth festival and fireworks display due to the pandemic, area residents found other ways to commemorate Independence Day — some with and some without social distancing.
Great Community Give success boosts Massanetta Springs operations for now
The scenic grounds in the shadow of Massanutten Mountain just east of Harrisonburg are quiet now, the way they have been since the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down in mid-March. However, last week’s Great Community Give fundraising event, an initiative of The Community Foundation of Harrisonburg & Rockingham County, provided a bit of relief.
