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Harrisonburg sorts through tons of plastic, paper and pent-up demand for more recycling options

Since single-stream trash and recycling service abruptly stopped last spring, Harrisonburg officials have examined how to best spend taxpayer dollars for waste collection and recycling. For now, Patel said, an employee-managed recycling collection center is the best option, and there is no plan to bring curbside pick-up back to the city anytime soon.

Instead, the city is trying to figure out how to expand voluntary collection options.

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Fresh and local and all grown-up: a look at a movement with staying power

You hear about the local food movement and buy fresh buy local, but can you put a figure on the local food economy in our area? Nearly all of the restaurants in downtown Harrisonburg source locally grown food for ingredients on their menus. Harrisonburg City Schools have a $100,000 budget for locally purchased foods for school meals that come from within 100 miles of the city. Andrea Early, executive director of school nutrition for Harrisonburg’s schools, says that serving local foods helps kids make that connection between the food and who grows it. She hopes that by educating kids about healthy eating they will make healthier choices as adults.

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.

Wave or ripple? Voter registration numbers in Harrisonburg on an ordinary path to the mid-terms.

By Jeremiah Knupp, contributor With the upcoming midterm elections dominating the national news cycle, voter registration numbers around the country are soaring. Over 800,000 people signed up on National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25, according to Nonprofit VOTE, who sponsored the event. State election officials have said that registrations are up this year over …

Independent council candidates are running from the right and left in this fall’s election

This November, Harrisonburg voters will choose two candidates for city council out of a field of five: two Democrats, three independents but, for the second straight election, no Republican. A Republican last ran for city council seat in 2014. 

Still, two of the independent candidates – Frank McMillan and Carolyn Frank – have embraced certain conservative philosophies, such as wanting to reduce the tax burden. A third independent, Paloma Saucedo, is running on a progressive platform. 

That has the Democratic candidates – Chris Jones and Sal Romero –  facing independent opposition from both ends of the political spectrum. 

Hello Harrisonburg, we’re here to inform you

To those of us who live here, Harrisonburg is a lot of things – growing, increasingly diverse, quirky. But above all, it’s home.
Earlier this year, several of us who have an interest in news and have chosen to live in Harrisonburg – or to return here – began discussing ways we could help our community.
What emerged was the foundation for The Citizen: an online news organization that will provide, without a paywall, in-depth coverage of community issues and information we need to know to be active and informed participants in this democracy. We are driven by curiosity, not any political philosophy. And our goal is to not just explain what happened, but to provide a clearer picture of why and how using any and all tools available to us.

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