Category: Harrisonburg Politics
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Council endorses environmental plan, also learns historic Thomas Harrison house wasn’t Thomas Harrison’s house
An environmental plan that includes calls for upgrading the city’s recycling program and encouraging renewable energy received unanimous support from the Harrisonburg city council Tuesday night in front of a crowd of residents. The council also declined to approve more housing for chronically homeless citizens in the city’s North East end, approved two resolutions for Public Works to seek grant money for sidewalk and bike lane improvements and learned that the Thomas Harrison House might not have been Thomas Harrison’s house.
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Environmental committee will try to convince council to act on long-term sustainability plans
Community volunteers and city staff who are part of a key environmental committee will present their Environmental Action Plan to city council Tuesday, which the group says will serve as a blueprint for ways Harrisonburg can help save energy, money and the planet. As part of that effort to encourage the council to act, committee members are urging residents to turn out to Tuesday’s council meeting.
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Need to know who’s running and why? We’ve got Harrisonburg’s ultimate voter guide for the Nov. 6 election
Harrisonburg voters will be selected candidates on Nov. 6 for four offices: a U.S. Senate seat, the 6th Congressional District seat, two city council positions and three school board members.
The Citizen is publishing the Harrisonburg community voter guide produced by the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement and the students in JMU Professor Andreas Broscheid’s honors political science class, who developed the questions for the candidates and compiled all the answers.
Hburg council candidates reveal differences over priorities, ‘unpopular’ decisions and even scooters
As the five city council candidates wrapped up a wide-ranging forum Tuesday that veered from scooters and golf courses to schools and I-81, they had to answer one last doozy: What’s an unpopular decision that must be made for Harrisonburg?
The divergent answers to the final question revealed the competing philosophies and approaches of the five, who are vying in the Nov. 6 election for two spots on the council.
Council candidates try to connect with JMU students
The five city council candidates tried Wednesday evening to appeal to bloc of potential voters that often eludes them—especially in midterm election years. But even the students who showed up to the Traveling Town Hall stop at JMU’s Grace Street Apartments weren’t exactly sure, at least at first, how the city council affects them.
Phillip Wong, a junior psychology major, was one of the few students to ask any questions of the council candidates: Democrats Chris Jones and Sal Romero Jr. and independents Carolyn Frank, Frank McMillan and Paloma Saucedo. The five are vying for two spots on the council.
JMU students give job interviews to U.S. Senate, 6th Congressional District candidates
Facing more than 40 JMU students in Eagle Hall’s common room Wednesday evening, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart offered a brief pitch, then opened it up for students to throw it right back at him.
“No softballs,” he said.
Kelly Ryan, a freshman political science major, obliged. She asked Stewart about his call for blocking federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
Council candidates offer different philosophies in ways they should – and can – help immigrants
Saturday’s city council immigrant forum revealed a philosophical gap between the five candidates – not necessarily over political ideology – but more broadly in how they view the relationship between government and citizens. The candidates, who are vying for two seats in the Nov. 6 election, also differed over the council’s ability to actually affect certain issues, including access to health care and federal immigration policy.
In traveling town hall, candidates seek to appeal to JMU students – an untapped well of mid-term voters
Instead of only hoping JMU students show up to vote in the Nov. 6 Election, many of the candidates in the biggest races affecting Harrisonburg will bring their campaigns to JMU students on Wednesday, Oct. 10.
Candidates or representatives from Virginia’s U.S. Senate race, the open 6th Congressional District contest and those running for the two spots on Harrisonburg city council will embark on an old fashion barnstorming tour by bus – bus-storming? – to three JMU residence hall areas. It’s being billed as a Traveling Town Hall complete with free pizza and the candidates’ best talking points. Each candidate will have between five and seven minutes to address the audience of first-time or relatively new voters.
