Tag: City Council
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Efficient buildings and encouraging electric vehicles on city’s next environmental to-do list
With the city’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory now in hand, members of the Environmental Performance Standards Advisory Committee are itching to connect community resources to start enacting the Environmental Action Plan’s next phases. Coordinating efforts to weatherize Harrisonburg homes and buildings, install more electric car charging stations and replace combustion engine school buses with cleaner versions are all on the to-do list.
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What are the next steps, challenges and opportunities in hiring a new city manager?
After City Manager Eric Campbell’s resignation last week, city council members are preparing to start the process of identifying qualities they want in Campbell’s successor. And while Campbell will finish out the year in that key role, at least one observer of local government said city leaders shouldn’t lose sight of Harrisonburg’s strategic plans during the transition between city managers.
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Community Perspective: Apparently, we were not clear before.
Community Perspective submission by Corey Chandler:
We have heard from City Council and members of the criminal justice system the exuberant amount of money the city and Rockingham County pays to house inmates in Middle River Regional Jail for the Department of Corrections. These DOC inmates are waiting for transfers to state facilities and are held at MRRJ in the meantime, at expense to both the taxpayer and themselves.
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Community Perspective: We Deserve The Truth
Community Perspective submission by Hilary Moore:
Truth is more than just the absence of lies. It is provision of all relevant facts in an unbiased and digestible manner. This is what our community deserves, particularly when the information presented is relevant to the current conversation about potentially dedicating $39.4 million of taxpayers’ money towards a jail expansion.
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Hburg officials add climate change goal as they revisit city’s long-term vision
City leaders added a commitment to address “climate change challenges” as one of it’s short- and long-term goals during their biannual retreat over the weekend. And their debate over that — as well as a discussion over the city’s diversity — revealed the challenge of crafting lofty priorities to be specific but not exclusionary.
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Council approves some businesses’ requests, but denies junkyard permit
Several local businesses, including a food truck and a townhome developer, got green lights for special use permits or rezoning, but the city council on Tuesday also denied a permit request for a junkyard.
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Council approves 4-cent property tax increase for new high school; Mayor says MRRJ expansion is ‘off the table’
The Harrisonburg City Council on Tuesday approved a four-cent increase on the real estate tax rate, which will help restart construction of the new high school — all part of the final version of the city’s nearly $295 million Fiscal Year 2022 budget. Also in Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Deanna Reed announced why a proposed expansion of Middle River Regional Jail is a no-go.
As an employer, Harrisonburg is close to living wage certification. What’s holding it back?
Leading up to the 2020 city council election, Ramona Saunders, leader of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Living Wage Campaign, began working with Democratic candidates to try to move Harrisonburg’s city government toward certification as a living wage employer.
