City Council Meeting   2/13/2024

I'll call our Tuesday, February 13th City Council meeting to order.

Mayor Reed.

Present.

Council Member Jones.

Present.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

Deputy Chief Pollard.

Here.

Here.

Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to come before you in prayer.

We thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to convene as a city and move forward as a city together.

We ask that everything that happens and transpires here today helps to move us forward in a greater way.

We ask that our discussions, even if we disagree in strategy, will still be seen as purposeful and polite and that we can move forward even if we disagree yet again in strategy because I believe that we all have

The same golden purpose when we unify here and that's to make Harrisonburg a better place and to continue to build a better burg in the friendly city.

In your name we pray.

We have no special recognitions this evening.

We'll go straight to our consent agenda.

Any items placed on the consent agenda shall be removed and taken up as a separate matter, if so requested.

Second.

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

We'll now go into our public hearings.

Item 6a, Consider a request from Harrisonburg Redevelopment, Housing Authority to rezone 715 North Main Street.

Thank you, ma'am.

Adam Fletcher, Director of Community Development.

An item I have before you hit this evening is a rezoning at 715 North Main Street.

The request is from M1C, M1 General Industrial District with conditions, meaning it has proffers associated with it, to rezone the site to the B1 Central Business District, again B1C, as the applicant has submitted proffers.

The property, located quite near the intersection of Washington Street and North Main Street, is bounded here in red.

The hatching on the property itself indicates that the property has proffers associated with it.

But you can see in this area of the city, a lot of these properties that have frontage along North Main Street are zoned M1.

And the properties that are to the north behind the property are zoned R2, the light green color there.

They have frontage along Madison Street.

When we look at the long-term plan for the city with regard to the land use guide,

You'll see a lot of hatching in this area and this is because we're really reaching the northern limits of the downtown but also the extension of North Main Street, the North Main Street corridor where we're looking to extend

are opportunities for mixed use for residential and both non-residential uses along that corridor.

It is within a corridor enhancement area that speaks in comprehensive plan to aesthetic street trees, parking, street aesthetic itself, buildings and sort of the massing of buildings along the street signage.

A lot of different things as these are major corridors into the city.

And then what you're capturing then to the north there in the red properties is property designated neighborhood residential

which really has a multitude of different types of residential housing, so single family, duplex, townhomes, multi-family, all different types of density, so really is a combination of different types of residential.

And the aerial photograph here, this is a quite developed area of the city, well known of course being this very near our downtown, just outside of what many people casually think of as the downtown.

In fact, for a long time, our comprehensive plan designated West Washington Street is sort of that northern boundary for a number of years before we extended that mixed use designation along North Main Street.

But the property, again, here has been developed for quite some time and has been utilized.

Well, I'll get into actually the zoning after a few photographs here.

A photograph here taken from North Main Street just looking at the property itself has a residential structure on the property and has been there for a number of years and then just another image here showing the property on the northeastern side.

Adjacent to the property, this graveled area that you see here in the foreground extending to the rear is an alley so that is not on the property itself but it is an alleyway that provides access to the rear properties also along Madison Street.

So the property does have somewhat of a unique history of zoning.

I will not go back decades, but at least in the modern times here, at least past 2000, the property was rezoned in 2002 from M1 to R2.

So the property is currently zoned M1, but it was rezoned back in 2002 from M1 to R2.

And then eight years later in 2010, it went through another rezoning, reverted back to M1 from the R2 to the M1 conditional

And it was part of a larger plan of development because the property owner at that time also requested three separate special use permits to make the use that has been known there for quite some time, that vine and fig operation to be in compliance with the zoning ordinance.

There's three special use permits that were approved, included to allow for reduced parking, to allow for a charitable and benevolent institutional use to operate on an M1 general industrial district property,

and the third was to allow for a boarding and rooming house.

And those three special use permits is what allowed the Vine and Fig operation to operate there for quite a number of years.

Part of the regulations of boarding and rooming houses that is built into the code itself requires that every year in the month of October, so before the end of October, October 31st, that the property owner contacts the city and does an annual inspection to make sure they're in compliance with the property maintenance code and other codes.

The property was in compliance for a number of years but unfortunately lost its boarding and rooming house special use permit because as the code states that if they fail to have an annual inspection that becomes null and void immediately and they fail to do so after 2018 so the special use permit specifically for the boarding and rooming house had lost its opportunity to continue to have that higher occupancy because of the loss of the special use permit and because of the new plans for this property

by Strength and Peers, that's really what caused the need for the rezoning itself.

So they could have applied for a special use permit to continue operation of a boarding and rooming house to go through that process.

But because of the combination of the conversations that we had back in November and December about recovery residences and the ordinance amendments changes that we were proposing at the time to allow recovery residences

They wanted to go that route because Strength and Peers is hoping to utilize this property as a recovery residence.

The recovery residence is permitted by right.

So if the property is rezoned to be won, and if you all later this evening, not during this agenda item, but later this evening take up the action with regard to the Zoning Ordinance Amendment for the recovery residences as was discussed by table a few months ago, that makes way for Strength and Peers to begin their operations for a recovery residence.

So that is what is causing the need for the B-1 rezoning request.

B-1, of course, is a very desirable zoning district because it allows for both residential and non-residential uses.

So B-1 request does bring it in line with the COMP plan's land use guide for how we hope that that corridor is utilized.

With regard to proffers, they have proffered three.

Those three proffers are before you on the screen.

The first is associated with whether or not a traffic impact analysis would be required for the rezoning and they had proffered themselves basically out of the necessity to do one, which is also a good insurance policy even for the city because it's stating that

All uses that would operate on site would be limited to that 100 vehicle trips in a peak hour.

So if there ever is a proposed use on the site that would hit that threshold that necessitates a TIA, they actually had to come back and rezone it.

So they have limited themselves to that knowing that they have some very specific plans for the use of the property.

The second is that drive-through facilities would be prohibited.

Another somewhat best practice for areas that are oftentimes looked at for residential and non-residential mixed use

We gave them the suggestion to consider removing that and they have done so, so no drive-through facilities would be allowed on the property.

And the last is associated really with about the concept of massing properties buildings close to the public street.

What proffer number three is stating here is that no parking lot would be located between the building and the public street.

What you'll see in the minutes that you reviewed in the minutes was that there was a bit of conversation about this specific proffer at Planning Commission because oftentimes what you see is that this proffer, when suggested by staff, it says no parking lot and it includes travel lanes and drive aisles.

The magic word here is that they did not use the word including, they used excluding, which means that they left theirself the permission to be able to at least have a drive aisle

to cut across the property to get to the rear of the parcel.

Now, with this particular request, staff did not have major concerns with this because we're talking about a very small piece of property, a very narrow and width property, and a planned use that really does not really necessitate the need to have dry vials in front of the residential structure.

So we did not see this as a negative thing with the proffers that were being submitted and had no concerns with that.

We offered our favorable recommendation to Plain and Commission, who then in turn offered a favorable recommendation to you all.

Thank you.

So the alley is not part of the property.

The drive-out is on the north side of the building there, then that wraps around the parking lot in the back.

Most likely they would be using the alley, yes sir.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

I'll open this item up for public hearing.

Anyone who wishes to speak, please state your name and address.

The House Authority is the owner of the property that was proposed for rezoning and Strength and Peels, represented by Nikki Freili, is going to be the leaseee.

This is a lease purchase agreement that we have with them.

So at the end of the lease term, they have the option to be able, well, the goal is for them to be able to own this property at the end of the term.

and the property owners.

Unless we decide to purchase it early, which we could do.

But this property is located just two blocks from our main office.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Virginia Haverty, I'm a resident of Harrisonburg, and I was just wondering what's going to happen, what effect will this have on the people that are using that residence as temporary housing, and what effect will it have on the people that are living there.

Anyone else?

CNN in person.

One moment.

You are now live with City Council.

This item is what I have been warning of from the start of our discussions about recovery residences.

For those of you who didn't know the Vine and Fit project, it is poignant, it is sad, I don't know if it was the current pictures, the food forest is gone, the innovative things happening in the backyard are gone,

that housing is gone and now we have people displaced from community being put under supervision there.

This is what I warned of.

This is a loss to the city and we have to think about is this the picture of the trajectory of Harrisonburg, the trajectory that I warned of?

to the people in the audience as you look at this, think about what you could have done over here to prevent what we're seeing, prevent people from being put under supervision and into the poultry plants, as opposed to being a leader in the state and in the country in terms of innovative practices.

And I'm sad that the Vining Big Project, while it was still going,

who succeeded in institutionalizing some of the great things that they were doing so that people outside of that project could do those things as well and could become support, material and political support, to have more of that, to have that be the picture of our community, where we have a resilient enough community that people don't get displaced and don't have to be put into treatment in the first place.

It's a sad day, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

One moment.

Thank you.

I will close public hearing on the side.

Well, strength in Pierce has really been an example of your organization in our city.

providing an immensely needed service that often folks aren't willing to step into.

And to be a whole and healthy community, we need people who do that, who provide that service.

The people that Strengthened Peers are working with are our residents.

They are in our community.

People that deserve our support and care.

And so I'm excited that they have the opportunity to move into this facility.

Yeah, I agree.

Nikki and I have worked together

over the years and I know this is something that Strength and Peers has been wanting to accomplish.

And so it's good that we get the opportunity to empower our organizations that are doing the work every day.

And so I think that this is a great opportunity for Strength and Peers.

Like you said, it's a couple of blocks down from

I think this is a great opportunity, a great partnership between HRHA and Strength & Peers.

I do wonder about

the temporary house that are currently and have been in the past living there.

I'm sure there's a plan in the works for how to and many may be unhoused and also have addiction problems.

So I'm sure that's from the same population.

of folks that we are all so passionate about helping.

So I just trust that Strength & Peers is thinking of what to do in that case.

And we're all about making sure that people have housing and also have resources and access to those resources.

So knowing the history of your organization and the reputation, I know that I can trust that those folks who are currently living there will be taken care of.

and I appreciate what you're doing.

I think that's one reason why we can trust strength and peers.

They've already figured that out.

I mean, there's no way that, I mean, I know, I know you and I know there's no way that they haven't thought about that.

I don't want to reiterate the obvious, but I will.

Dany.

I would want you to be insulted because we know that you take care of folks.

That's what we trust them to do for that city, right?

I will know just so you know the red buds that are on the property in the back are trash plants from my backyard.

I'll be happy to see new owners of that.

Well, I do feel the sadness of the demise of Vine and Fig.

And it's unfortunate if that was a result of lapsing of the inspection requirement for boarding houses.

But as I understand it, there was also some more deliberate transition going on.

And the good news is it's being passed on to a very worthy organization in strengthened peers.

I love it that Strength and Peers is a local organization.

We'll get to the recovery house item later in the agenda, as Adam mentioned.

Yeah, I'll move to approve.

The rezoning of 715 North Main Street, which is currently M1C to B1C.

Second.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

Congratulations.

Good job.

I will go into our regular items.

Dear friend, Dr. Downey is here.

Thank you, Mayor Reed.

I really appreciate members of the City Council.

I really relish this opportunity to come before the Council and update you about all the great happenings at Blue Ridge Community College.

As you know, Blue Ridge transforms the lives of the students we serve and supports economic development in the city and in the region.

We couldn't do it without your ongoing and wonderful support

I want to thank you for pointing board members Sandy Hernandez and John Butler who represent the city very well on our local board.

I also want to thank Andy Banks and his staff always whenever there's a question or that I have or any problem that needs addressing city staff are always there to help support us.

You may not realize that of all the city residents who attend higher education, 32% of them choose Blue Ridge Community College for their post-secondary education.

The College works closely with your economic development team, Brian Schull and Pierce McGill.

We're delighted to provide education and workforce training support for regional economic development projects.

And I'm fortunate to serve as a board member of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership Regional Economic Development Authority with Jane Langston, who works very closely with your economic development staff as well.

I can't say enough about our partnerships with Harrisonburg City Schools.

Two Blue Ridge Community College faculty members serve on the school board.

which I think is really amazing.

We continue to offer exceptional dual enrollment opportunities for Harrisonburg High School students and our career coaching program is well thought of in the school.

And we continue to enjoy a large percentage of Harrisonburg High School graduates who attend Blue Ridge Community College as their first choice of post-secondary education.

We are excited to partner with Dr. Richards to expand our career coaching program to Rocktown High School when it opens in the fall.

I'm also privileged to serve as a board member for the On the Road Collaborative, which is working hard to introduce middle school and high school students in Harrisonburg to a wide range of after-school, hands-on career classes.

As you know, that program is having a huge positive impact in partnership with Harrisonburg Public Schools and introducing young people at an early age to the importance of career development, which is all what Blue Ridge Community College is about.

And I was happy that a group from Harrisonburg High

and Harrisonburg Middle School came to Blue Ridge Community College on Saturday from on the road collaborative and we hosted them on the campus and showed them a tour of our career and technical programs as well as told them a little bit about higher education in general and our excellent cost-effective transfer program for those students who choose to start out at Blue Ridge and then transfer to a four-year college.

I've provided you each with a packet of information to review at your leisure

The packets include our fast fact sheet, our annual report, handouts that highlight the statewide success of the Fast Forward Rapid Workforce Training Program, as well as our legislative priorities in the VCCS, which document that community colleges receive 52 cents on the dollar compared to the universities in the state, despite the fact that we educate almost half of the population, and that Virginia

provides us funding that is 77% of the states offer more funding to their community colleges than Virginia does.

So those are both indications perhaps that were a little bit underfunded, but more importantly that the dollars we are allocated were very efficient because I think our reputation in the community for the impact we have and across the state is very high.

The last handout highlights the regional economic development impact of Blue Ridge Community College based on a study by an organization called Lightcast.

They found that the college added over $23.5 million in income to the regional economy last year and that we were responsible for supporting one out of every 54 jobs in the region that are produced.

but I always think that the real impact of Blue Ridge Community College centers around the lives that we help improve through education and opportunity and the businesses and industries whose employees are educated and trained thanks to the work of our excellent faculty and staff.

So I want to thank you again as a city council for the support you provide me personally and that you provide my staff and my faculty and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

enrollment's good.

We were up about 8% last year over the previous year.

So almost at pre COVID this year, it looks like we're going to be up another additional 3%.

But by far the fastest growing part of Blue Ridge Community College is the short term workforce training programs in welding, truck driving, pharmacy technology, which is a brand new program we just started and other health care programs like CNA and medical coding.

Those are growing at a rate of about 12 to 15 percent a year, so for the last couple of years.

So that short-term training, Blue Ridge Community College, our students, 85 percent of them go part-time.

Whereas many four-year colleges and universities in the region have a predominance of full-time students.

That means, in my view, that most of our students are working while they're going to school and overcoming tremendous life challenges trying to balance everything.

We have several partnerships with JMU so one is the grant we received from the state to help Merck expand their resources so

That's a very large program.

We're in year three of that grant program and have already met all of the benchmarks of that program and continue to help not only Merck but other manufacturers in the region.

We have a partnership where JMU students who are on their waiting list come to Blue Ridge for a year but live in JMU housing and that partnership called the Bridge to Madison program and the students have really been excited about that.

We're about to work with JMU on the lab school in Rockingham County.

So we're going to see how we can contribute to the career development of young people in Rockingham County through that partnership.

Do you connect up with them?

Because I know the presidents connect.

I know you all connect.

Do you also connect with EMU and Bridgewater?

Yeah, we connect with AMU and all four of the presidents meet once a year at least, usually the day of the, where we present to Harrisonburg a chamber.

And we get together in the evening with our spouses.

And it's really an opportunity to, over the years, we've gotten to know each other really well.

So the four presidents really interact a lot and start programs and services.

Can you talk a little bit about the workforce training you guys do?

Because I know there's a free workforce training program for folks at a certain income level on it.

Yeah, it's a partnership where students within 400% of the poverty level pretty much can go for free for these high demand programs that really can transform their lives in just a couple of months.

So you have a handout in there about the fast forward program that you can look at.

Those are the programs I mentioned earlier in commercial driver's license truck driving where there's a tremendous need in the region and we're not talking about cross country truck drivers.

Most of our graduates get hired by local companies and stay local and do truck driving as a profession.

We have welding program and we try to partner with the

Career and Technical Center does a great job with both high school, career and technical training as well as adults.

So they also have a welding program so we try to work together with them so we're as much as possible in sync and not stepping on each other's toes.

Then I think the fastest growing, as I mentioned, are in the healthcare area.

This pharmacy technology program that we just started, we think it's going to be a game changer because there is such a drastic shortage of pharmacy technicians.

And anytime you go to a pharmacy and wait in a line, part of the reason is because there's not enough pharmacy technicians to support the pharmacists that are doing the work.

So those are all great programs that in a short period of time can bring people from poverty into the middle class.

Many of those students then choose to stay and get an associate's degree, which can even move you up further.

I think it really speaks to kind of your critical and unique role that you play here as a higher education institution.

The speed with which you can respond to economic and employment needs here is critical.

and I think that's, you know, you certainly are under a statewide reputation for being, you know, one of the top notch community colleges we have in the state.

But the ability to quickly respond and get programs up and running is so critical for our local businesses here.

And, you know, JMU being the largest institution, you know, plays a different role in that because they can't quite move in the speed that you can do to get these programs running.

You know, it's interesting, and I bring this up every once in a while,

I think the census report showed about 70%, almost 70% of every high school graduate here stays in this area after about 10 years.

So they either stay here or they're returned here.

And so the folks who are walking out of the high school are our workforce and you guys provide a particularly strong bridge for them to enter directly into the workforce or continue their education and it's just a critical, critical

Program we have.

Thank you so much.

Great.

I had a question.

Sure.

When I taught at Spotswood High School, there was a program for students with disabilities where several of my students would attend part day at the K through 12 school and then go to

Blue Ridge, can you speak to that program if it's still in existence?

Yeah, it's a great program called the grad class program.

And the way it fits into our mission is we believe that it's a population that's underserved in terms of workforce training.

And so the school division provides the curriculum for these students until age 22, I believe.

But they come to Blue Ridge and we provide some workforce opportunities for them across the campus and in different programs.

And so that when they graduate from the grad class program, they're trained so that they can do different jobs in the community.

So it's been a wonderful partnership.

It's ebbed and flowed over the years in terms of the number of people.

But the Rocking County, I think, has put more effort into it so that I think there was going to be students starting out at Broadway High School before they transitioned to us.

And so I think it's going to be even a stronger partnership going forward.

Thank you.

So thanks for mentioning that program.

Well, I just wanted to recall the child care education program.

That was one of the things we partly funded with ARPA funding, correct?

So that is filling a really critical need both for the recipients of the child care and the people being employed in that field.

I appreciate that so much and that program we just grew into an associate's degree program.

It's just so vital that people in the community who are providing child care services have the education and training that makes their work so impactful.

So we're really happy to have that program.

I've been studying the labor market participation rate and one of the biggest factors for less people participating in the workforce is because of child care challenges.

So, you're a fantastic person.

I mean, if you know Dr. Downey's demand, if you had a magic wand, how can the city help you help more people in the city or in the city and in the region in general from an economic development standpoint or just the folks that you know that live in Harrisonburg, right?

What can we do to partner with you, whether it's through Brian and Pierce or through the school system or

and more creative ways because at the end of the day, the more we can establish a stronger workforce, the better we can take advantage to Councilman Fleming's point, our youth and build our own workforce.

We've got great state institutions with great benefits and city institutions in the school system with great benefits and we can churn out great people and educate them here as well.

I don't want to put you completely on the spot.

So if you want to email me, you can.

But sometimes I'm sure people like you got something in your pocket.

You support us so much.

And so I think the biggest factor is helping us spread the word because there's still so many people who don't understand fully the range of options that we provide.

They think we only do transfer education or they hear about one program like aviation maintenance technology or

or Electronic Technology.

And they don't realize how those programs fit into the economic development of the region and help produce jobs as well as sustain those jobs.

So you guys do a lot already.

But helping me spread the word, supporting the other higher ed institutions in the region, the four of us work really well together.

And I want to continue that kind of partnership.

Higher education is going to become a very challenging environment in the next decade.

There's fewer people being born and so that birth rate means fewer people going to college.

Fortunately, this region is growing.

So as long as we continue to grow, there will be more people coming to the region and more people taking higher ed as an option.

But we need to work together as higher ed institutions along with the technical centers and K-12 so that we're all working in synergy and not against each other.

And I think in the next decade in other regions, I think you'll see

a lot of infighting across institutions and I think here because of the way we partner with one another and because of the support of this city council and other government bodies, I think we have a really good foundation for cooperation rather than competition.

Okay, one more though real quick.

What's the relationship like with the others?

When I go places, I say we have 10.

But go deeper if you don't mind.

Tell me about it.

Sure.

We have really strong relationship with higher ed up and down the 81 quarter.

Some more than others, I think.

I always think of the four because we've been together.

Of course.

We're close proximity.

Yeah, in the proximity.

But Mary Baldwin University, sort of outside the footprint of the city, but closer to Stanton.

We really work well with them as well.

They have a wonderful new president and I've met with him and we're trying to form partnerships with them as well.

So I think educators in general in the Valley are cooperative and work really well together.

I've often said to employers, we'll start any program you want us to start.

There's not an issue of

We need this training.

Why won't you start it?

The thing that holds us back from starting it is we don't have enough people entering those professions.

I always use the example.

When I first became president, we started a paperboard gluing and die cutting program because there's cardboard box manufacturers in the region that really need people trained in how to glue that box together and how to cut it out.

It's a fascinating industry.

So we were able to hire a faculty member with the help of our educational foundation.

We were able to get the equipment with the support of the industry.

And the only thing with the reason that program wasn't successful, we could only attract one student to it in the two years that we had it going.

So there's just a lack of awareness of the wide range of jobs available.

That wasn't the right program at the right time, but we never cease trying to respond to the needs of business and industry as they come to us and say,

You come every year and we don't hear enough from our Howard Ed, but you're here.

And also thank you for allowing the kids

to come visit you.

You do not turn away our young kids when they want to cut in.

It's their favorite field trip.

So besides the overnight trip, but yeah, that is, you know, that's the favorite.

But they do enjoy coming to Blue Ridge.

So thank you so much.

Thank you all.

OK, we'll go to 7B.

Madam Mayor, the item here I have now is the preliminary subdivision plot for the project known as Bluestone Town Center.

The preliminary plot has multiple subdivision ordinance and design and construction standards manual variances.

I won't go into a great deal of detail about all of those.

Of course, all of that information is in your packet, but if you have specific questions, please let me know, but I'll hit the highlights.

As you know, the Bluestone Town Center was a project that was thoroughly discussed through 2022 and then was approved in February of 2023 when the property was rezoned from

R1, B2 and R3 to the R7 master plant community.

So everything in this image, the zone that is in the color purple is the property that is planned for the Bluestem Town Center.

The preliminary subdivision plot we're talking about here this evening

impacts 63.65 acres of the property because it's impacting three different parcels, but what they're really preliminarily subdividing is only 28.31 acres of the 99 somod acres that's out there.

So the area that I have outlined here in red is the area we'll be talking about.

When the images are shown with the subdivision plate, the image is going to be reversed, so we'll be looking in a different direction, and I'll talk to this when we get to that point.

But as is always the case, north is up in these images.

So you can see a lot of different zoning classifications in this area.

Predominantly R1, which is the yellow area.

And then we have some commercial properties.

Zone B2 and the orange color that are along Erikson Avenue.

And then you're picking them up there along the 42 corridor.

And then some R3 properties off of Hidden Creek Lane, which includes some single family homes and apartment units off of South Bogla Drive.

Long term plans for this area, you're seeing a lot of different colors here.

So a lot of the dark green in the upper right, that is of course, Hillendale Park, even picking up parts of the golf course.

The property itself is designated low density mixed residential.

And you see that we continue to plan for commercial uses along Erickson Avenue and then the purple colors are public properties.

Of course, that is the Harrisonburg High School and Bluestone Elementary School.

And the aerial photograph, the area we're talking about here this evening is undeveloped, has been predominantly farmland for a long, long time, ever since it's been in the city.

It was annexed in the city in 1983 and was part of Rockium County before that.

Okay, as indicated, so now we have reverse direction.

So north is page bottom left hand corner.

But from this image here is garbage church road, and you're looking at the section of the property that they would be preliminarily subdividing.

So what we're talking about here this evening is they would be preliminarily

Subdividing to dedicate the public street, one private street, 106 town home lots, 38 single family home or manufactured home parcels

along with two multifamily lots, five common area parcels and three stormwater parcels which are intended for the stormwater management areas.

With regard to the multifamily lots, they are looking at 83 multifamily dwelling units on lot 145 and then 63 multifamily dwelling units on lot 146.

The 63 multifamily are those that are planned for senior housing.

So all of the lines here shown are the public streets.

A nice network that this layout is in line with their master plan that was approved last year.

So they are in line with their master plan.

And then the private street, which for all intents and purposes is going to very much function like a public street and really to the user, they'll probably know no difference.

But it is a private street that connects the two public streets.

There are two subdivision ordinance variances, one associated with lots not running on public streets and then another with regard to deviating from requirements from easement dedication requirements.

The subdivision ordinance variance to 10242 subsection C, that is an error there should be 10242, not 43 subsection C. This is with regard to townhome lots that do not have public street frontage or some other of the parcels, random miscellaneous parcels that do not have public street frontage.

As a requirement of the subdivision ordinance, when you create new parcels, those parcels must have public street frontage.

But as many of our townhome communities across the city have received this variance, this was one that was anticipated, of course, when we looked at the master plan and one that gets approved quite often as we have many of our townhome communities in the city that have townhomes that do not front on public streets.

They are fronting on private streets.

And I'm going to speak a little bit more to this as I get a little further into

the presentation, but all of the parcels that are circled in red, those are all town home watts that would be created but would not have public street frontage.

Of course what you're also looking at here are town homes that do have public street frontage and do not necessitate that variance to deviate from that requirement.

So many, many also have that public street frontage area.

And then this blue area is just a parcel that's a common area that also doesn't have public street frontage.

with regards to deviating from easement standards.

Part of the subdivision ordinance requires that when you're dedicating new parcels, you're creating new neighborhoods that you create easement spaces for things like television cable, many of the different utilities that go into

Spaces on private properties, power, for example.

These are areas that are usually along the frontage of the property, so 10 feet behind the front property line or the public street right of way.

And then they're also centered on property boundaries, so five feet on one private property and five feet on the other.

There's a very standard, very standard layouts for easements.

They have met that requirement in many, many lots that are being created.

And what you're seeing here, the most easily seen viewable space where they're meeting that is the standard layout here where all of these yellow areas around those perimeters are shown where those easements are dedicated.

There are portions that are not meeting that standard, also not uncommon in its own home development.

So this is a unique layout for some of our easements, but accommodating all of the needs in one that was anticipated.

So we do not have a concern with that deviation.

with regard to the actual street construction and right-of-way dedication to other requirements that they would like to deviate from is from 10241A and 10261A.

This is with regard to the actual right-of-way dedication, so the width of the area owned by the city and then the pavement widths of streets.

and Laura Dent.

These variances that we're talking about, you've now heard a few times because we are promoting narrower streets, narrower linguids, and might be something that comes out of our new zoning ordinance requirements as we continue to work on that.

So these are deviations from code sections that we do not have concerns over.

There's also a deviation to an entrance location from its position with regard to a public street intersection.

It's a very minor deviation.

It's a separation, typically of 50 feet from the public street intersection to this entrance location, and they're requesting two and a half feet of deviation rather than 50 to 47 and a half.

So another that we do not have concern over.

in the plaid itself.

If you really want to get into the specifics, they have the typical road section as shown.

I'm not going to go over this, but it is on the plaid itself.

You have the opportunity to look at that.

And it really breaks down all the different street networks that they're going to have and the widths and everything.

So that table is provided on the plaid itself.

They're dedicating public access easements, which is great because these are areas that, of course, gives opportunity for the public, the general public, to be able to cross access as well.

So that private street that I mentioned earlier has a public access easement over it, and there are other areas shown on the plan that they're also providing public access easement.

So as I noted, for the general user of this area, they would not know really any difference between that they're on the private street and they have that public ability to just cross over that space.

One thing that came up during the plodding phase that did not get discussed during the master planning and the rezoning was this area right here, which we're very grateful for them to be able to provide this public access, which will shorten the distance for pedestrians if they would like to utilize the shared use path and to get out to the public street area along Garbage Church Road because a user, if this gets plodded the way it's shown here, would have to walk along this private street and then down to Garbage Church Road

This provides a short access way that if the city would like to come in later and build a public sidewalk, we can do that in that space.

So a request that we had made, and they were fine and accommodating, so we're grateful to that as well.

Now going back to a few of the, actually multiple of the town home lots that did not have public street frontage.

So I really want to focus in three key areas and they're shown here on the screen.

So the two yellow areas, those are lots 61 through 91.

These lots would front on what would essentially be a parking lot.

It does have a private street name, and this is very common.

You see this all across the city, where many of our townhome lots have frontage along a, what appears to be a parking lot, but it does have a private street address.

So this is a very common layout, and we are supportive of.

The area that I've circled in red, so those parcels that have, really it's a land separation between the edge of those property boundaries and the public street right of way.

to one driving down the street, they're going to look at these townhomes and not realize that those lots actually do not front on the public street.

The applicant has hoped that they would be able to have those front facades of those lots front away from the public street, internal to the whole development.

So they would be fronting on a private parking lot

to the rear of those units.

Staff disagrees with that approach and we have made the suggested condition and Planning Commission also agreed that part of the condition of approving the lots to not have public street frontage is with regard to specifically those 10 lots that the developer be required to reverse their facades and ensure that those front facades are fronting on the public street.

We believe it's important to a component of the overall layout of the property and to incorporate

that community feel that those units actually have those front facades along the public street.

There is an elevation will change that will occur when you're out there.

This is not this course.

We're just looking at two dimensions here.

But when you're out there, when they're out there grading, there will be a separation between where the townhomes will sit

and where the public street will be, so there will be some elevation change.

Not uncommon that you see this also across the city.

Areas that have elevational change with townhomes fronting along the public street include those along Old Windmill Circle.

On the northern sections of the city, some along Diary Lee Avenue and another off of Bluestone Hills Drive.

So if you're familiar with the townhomes that kind of overlook the mall area, they're up on a hill, there's an elevational change there with those townhomes that front along the public street.

A concern that staff didn't have, a concern that was significant enough that we suggested the condition that this variance be approved only with this condition.

And that's the way we've made our motion for approval of the preliminary subdivision plan.

So, within the red circle now, it's the, as it came to you proposed, it's facing North, in essence, left.

These units here, the fronts are looking away from the public street.

We want them to be reversed and look at the public street.

And we offered our favorable recommendation to Plain and Commission and they in turn offered the same to you all again unanimously with the condition that was recommended by staff.

aside from the deviations we talked about, it meets all the requirements of the subdivision regulations and I'm here to answer any questions.

I know that the applicants engineers here this evening and other representatives I believe are still with us.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions?

Thank you.

Harrisonburg owner

LLC to preliminary subdivide three parcels totaling a sixty plus or minus sixty-two point five acre acres address as 1010 Garber's Church Road and sixteen forty-five Erickson Avenue as presented by staff.

Second.

That includes the condition that was offered as well.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

You may be familiar.

The resolution has been asked for by the developers behind the Mosby Road Development Project that has received approval from City Council.

The developer seeking financial support from Virginia Housing in the form of competitively awarded low-income housing tax credits.

Developments in revitalization areas receive points for project readiness.

Census Track 3.02 was previously a qualified census tract, which automatically qualified it as a revitalization area.

However, that designation may also be established through local ordinance or resolution.

Mark Slack on behalf of the Sears Foundation Development Team submitted a request that City Council adopt this resolution to establish the revitalization area for the site.

This will mean that their application receives additional points when considered at the state level for those LIHTEC credits.

And may also remind you that City Council has done this most recently for Bluestone Town Center as well as previously years ago for the colonnade in downtown.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Well, this just provides them access to state funds and grants.

Yes, actually, qualification and valuation of those census tracts is something that is a moving target at times and depends on the demographics, the income levels, and as the federal government identifies those and as our populations change, those census tracts also change.

It also happened in a part of the Northeast neighborhood.

The eastern portion of that along Hill Street used to be part of a qualified census tract and moved out

The irony is, I was like, no we need to move in.

We were like, can't people really start making more money?

It wasn't even a lot of people moving.

Actually it was no real development of change.

It was just truly people just growing and families growing and elevating.

So that was cool.

Good memory, Andy.

Motion.

Second.

Any discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Aye.

Item 70.

Good evening Madam Mayor, City Council, Tom Hartman, Public Works.

Here tonight with a project update for one of our ARPA pedestrian projects.

This specifically is our Stirling Street sidewalk project.

If you remember, you had allocated ARPA funds to allow us to start to construct

of Sidewalk along Stirling Street between Elizabeth and near Effinger Street.

Close a gap in the sidewalk network in the Northeast neighborhood.

When those funds are allocated, public works as well as community development staff went to work on engineering the project.

We developed 60% plans.

For us, that tells us, yes, we can build it.

This is where we can build it.

This is how things need to change.

And also, this is the amount of right of way and easements we'll need in order to, that will have to be obtained in order to construct the sidewalk.

from there.

We held an open house last summer at Sims to share the project with the community to say this is this is how we want to spend the ARPA funds.

This is where the South will go.

These are some of the changes that are going to happen along Stirling Street to a lot of South Walk to be constructed.

From there, we entered into the right of way acquisition phase.

At that point is when we've talked with some neighbors that didn't feel at this time they could participate with the city on the acquisition of the right of way.

We shared with them that they would be

compensated fairly for the right of way and easements that would be needed to construct the sidewalk.

However, at this time, they still didn't feel that there was enough advantage for them to partner with the city on the project.

That gave us pause because with ARPA funds as shown on the next bullet points, there are some timing constraints to utilize these funds.

Projects have to be under contract with, for our perspective, contract means with the construction contractor by the end of this calendar year.

and all the funds have to be expended by the end of 2026.

Knowing that we were having some delays in the right-of-way acquisition and the number of right-of-way acquisitions that we need to construct it, we didn't think we'd be able to get to that end of the year date with the construction contract for this year.

We reached out to the city manager and said, these are the challenges.

He said, why don't you look for some additional projects within the Northeast neighborhood where we could potentially redirect these ARPA funds and still

not closed, not do the scale project we could have done with Sterling, with the Sterling Street sidewalk, but do some sidewalk closing some gaps improving the neighborhood the best we can.

So with that public works went back, we did some homework, we came up with four different options that I'll present to you from there.

If not today, within the next month or two, if we could have some direction so that we could turn, thank you, so that we could keep our staff moving on this, but we're still going to work towards

We have to work towards the end of the year for the construction.

The properties that are shown you, there are still right-of-way impacts for the projects that are shown you.

However, HRHA, for the most part, is the adjoining property owner and we have a pretty good working relationship with them to be able to get the needed right-of-way easements to construct the sidewalks.

That's the only reason we feel like these are still achievable within this calendar year.

There are much more projects we could do in Northeast Day Bread, however we're still held to that one-year time frame.

So the first segment here is on Hill Street at Hill & Gay.

One little segment just closing the gap going from North on Hill down to Gay, improving the intersection with the new ADA construction ramp there.

Estimate here is about $100,000.

HRHA does own the parcel that we'll be fronting with the construction.

Next project is the remnant of the Sterling Street sidewalk project.

This connects to the sidewalk close to Effinger and goes out to Gay Street and makes the connection.

Again, this is a little bit longer than the previous segment, but it does require some additional right-of-way, one HRA parcel and one other privately owned parcel that we've had some discussions with, so we reflect there is a relationship there where we won't have an issue if this is one of the segments selected.

The third one is a little bit bigger project.

The street that I connect to is Kelly, where it's at Hill Street, or that's Lincoln, excuse me.

Hill is just to the west.

There's a small segment of sidewalk that it will construct along Kelly, and then it'll bisect this HRHA parcel, connect into Ralph Samson Park, and then connect to the existing walking trail that's within the park.

It kind of makes this little bit of an angle going through that parcel because of grading.

goes down the hill so we'll have to run the slope a little bit to make sure we can make this an ADA compliant path.

We think this is a valuable connection.

We think this is a valuable connection because residents that live in the northeast neighborhood on this side, if they want to get to the park, they have to walk down to Sims, walk down Sims, go through Sims parking lot, then up to get to the park.

versus here, it's a more direct connection right into the heart of Samson Park.

So we like this idea.

This is a little bit bigger project, a $250,000 cross-estimate, but we think it could be.

This would be a 10-foot wide asphalt trail, except for the little five-foot sidewalk that we would connect on Kelly.

If we bring it up there, we think this would be a good one.

So, Tom, since we're, I'm sorry, ma'am, since we're chatting, I'm not known to do this, I'm just asking.

I'm no engineer, you and I, I've never done this to you.

I've noticed a long time.

Can we go to the basketball courts from there too?

Potentially.

Because that would be the other natural walking.

I think that's definitely an option that we can work with parks on.

Once we get this, again, with the ARPA project for Stone Institute, we had $566,000 allocated.

If this was the selected one,

We maybe could add a few tentacles on this trail to connect the different amenities within the park.

Working with Parks and Rec on that.

What are those courts in the illustration there?

Is that the basketball you're talking about?

I don't know if I can do it anymore without a little help.

Might not make it up now.

And this would provide an old weather surface.

Deanna R. Reed, Dany Fleming, Laura Dent, Monica Robinson, Nasser Alsaadun, Laura Dent, Monica Robinson, Nasser Alsaadun, Laura Dent, Monica Robinson, Nasser Alsaadun

This one we don't fill is able to be done within time frame because if you've been out there, there are some great challenges.

There's retaining walls that go into joining into some of these properties.

I think here there's this driveway is elevated.

There's retaining wall through here.

Um, these are all individually owned parcels.

So we'd have to negotiate with every individual.

And that just not that it wouldn't couldn't be done if we had time.

We just don't have the time.

Unfortunately, thank you for checking.

Yeah, we wanted to.

It was a good idea.

We want to look into it, but, um,

If we had more time, we could definitely entertain it.

That's a big walking little strip right there.

And I was just just concerned with the number of kids that are walking up and down the street.

On the list, that's not the goal.

But I gotta do it.

When people pass away, when we line up that way,

It makes it extremely difficult because everyone's getting out of the car into the street versus people getting out of the car into the sidewalk.

That's kind of a communal area.

That's right.

Right.

Focus down on the cars and right on the street there.

And after school to pick up.

And we have 566.

That's something just real quick related to Sterling.

So, you know, kind of the project that, you know, you looked at, wasn't able to come together, but that's still a particularly important corridor to address for safety access.

You know, it's really a, you know, key to getting folks across market

Spotswood.

It's pretty well traveled.

We got really creative in the design of it already.

We were taking on-street parking away from a majority of that stretch in order to take the improvements into the street instead of going into the property with the sidewalk.

Most of the property, I think the trickier ones were ones that we were already taking parking away.

So we wanted to limit the amount of ride we were going to take anyway, but still even the smaller portions that we would need.

R. R.

the roadblock and we know we need to try to find a way to redirect these funds the best we can.

Once we get this done, then we'll have to get back in the toolbox and figure out what strategies we can come up to.

Because that is a valuable sidewall connection.

We're currently engineering to reconstruct the signal at East Market and Reservoir Street to take the span wires away, add new crosswalks, add new pet buttons to make that a safer crossing for pedestrians.

because we know from the northeast neighborhood they want to be able to walk their kids to school.

That's an important intersection.

So now once we get the intersection we want to be able to get them in the neighborhood and get them safely to that intersection.

and we have 566.

Well done, Tom.

I mean, I love them too.

We can touch and I mean that's one thing that we have been Consisted in is getting as many projects done with the money and so you're talking about significant impact with sidewalks and connecting From the street to the parks.

I mean I and we're coming under 566 so we still have a little bit to play with but I I appreciate first the work that you put into it

as quickly as you did.

But for me, this is significant of filling in those gaps that need to be done in the neighborhood.

I'm very pleased with the work.

Thank you.

And that gives us a little extra money to play with as far as trying to configure the best way to deal with the do we want

for the adults who maybe want to go, um, walk on the path and the youth that want to cut down to the basketball court.

So, um, it'd be perfect if you could connect them from my backyard because everybody starts at my backyard.

It seems like it cuts down through the court.

There's actually a little path.

Yeah.

So, I mean, we can, he's, he's looking for direction.

I'm hoping we can give him some direction.

This makes a significant difference in the Northeast.

Yeah, could we?

I'm ready to move.

So, I think this is fantastic.

I think certainly what you've identified are just some of the gaps.

R. R.

We want to make sure that we're addressing a lot of these pedestrian gaps in Northeast Harrisonburg that have existed since it was set up.

We need to step into that.

Fantastic work that's done here.

I'd like to think about maybe having staff take a look at that funding

and what other ways we might be able to think about leverage some of that $566,000.

I'm not suggesting at all that we abandon what you've identified here, potentially, as what we move forward in Northeast neighborhood is plans of how we might address kind of ongoing needs there with pedestrian safety.

I think we have maybe a little bit of time for you to be able to make that decision.

And I'm not suggesting that this isn't priority number one or the project that we go with necessarily.

I'd like to see us take a look at and have staff take a look at that 566 and kind of give us some ideas of how we might leverage that money as well.

I know what you're saying, but I'm going to ask that you defer to me, Monica and Chris on this because Monica and I live in the same neighborhood.

So, and Chris did.

And the only reason why I'm asking is because staff did it to the point where we still have money left over.

So there is money that we can.

I mean, we're not using the whole five 66.

But what you have presented is very significant in the neighborhood.

And I don't know if we can.

Agreed, agreed.

And I think it's important.

I'm sorry, Chris.

I think it's important to that we this to me and I wasn't in with the original.

not being used for the Sterling Street project might be set aside for some of the potential and likely cost overruns of several of the major capital projects we've got going the fire station, the splash pad, the skate park even.

So I mean if there's some combination of if this is 466, would 100,000 left over being enough to make a difference or do you want to patchwork the sidewalks?

I'm not in agreement with this money being set aside to be used to fill the gap or fill in need in some of the other ARPA projects.

I think it's important that we listen to the people.

We live in this neighborhood and I think to say that

We're going to wait to see what is needed somewhere else kind of implies that it's an afterthought about what we actually want and what I want is I want to see physical improvements in my neighborhood and I think that council voted about the ARPA funding and that whatever we choose to do from that point forward should be in the line with what the original vote, the original vote

I like the fact that we have money left over and if we can, if we need to look in other opportunities in the neighborhood, we can because we got a hundred thousand dollars to play with.

But I can't see, I mean, I don't see how we not do this.

And that's why I asked you to defer to the three of us.

So.

Everybody was doing good.

I was listening and learning.

So, I want to talk about the 100,000.

Yes, that's your fault.

So, I mean, I don't think we're arguing about whether we should do this or not, even if Dany's saying do it maybe a different way.

Because there is a thought of, so two things I gotta say.

keeping ARPA money with ARPA projects is I do think that's the right thing to do so if we let's say just hypothetically the hundred thousand came up when we were doing homeless shelter in the fire department and we needed to use that money right then I think that our city manager would replace those funds and not cheat the Northeast neighborhood I can say that I feel at least I think mentally that's how he would operate because

every time I called him and asked him to patch a hole over there he did it instantly that day or the day it was not raining so he agrees with the fundamental infrastructure problems that are there because that's like their real job as far as city staff so I think that they're doing the right thing they're agreeing that we're doing the right thing I want to still put more money towards it like for an amenity you know because this stuff should have been done

In fact, had they done it right, we would still be able to use the alleys properly because they invested in the neighborhood the right way.

Because our new staff always is like, don't close the alleys, don't try not to sell them and so forth.

Because all those things could be beneficial with the connectivity of the neighborhood and now with more people walking in the neighborhood.

We could really be fruitful from that.

Saying all that to say, if

Very rarely are people in agreement with the right-of-way and, well, I mean, that's why we're here right now.

So if people are asking for these infrastructure changes and not putting up a fight, because they know these should have been there for the last 100 years, at least the last 75 or 60, I think you gotta do it.

I don't think we really have a

and I

people before us did.

There's no way we can pass on this.

Yeah, because then it's not because it's not even, you know, the Harrisonburg local tax dollars and paying for this, the Harrisonburg federal tax dollars.

So if you can get your tax dollar back, yes, spend it.

and if we can give it back to the people who we know in some cases it was stolen from, you really ought to be excited to give it back.

So that's kind of where I'm at.

I mean, people came to us about some of the other projects as well.

And again, unless we pledge to use funds that we have right now and with so many other projects, I really wouldn't want Andy to do that.

You know what I'm saying?

So even if we said, oh no, no, no, we're still spending the $600,000

North East neighborhood because of the cost overruns.

We would already be hedging our own beds against ourselves, you know?

If we go liquid now, we start spending money now.

So I hope that makes sense because I think the only real conversation should be around 100,000 at this point.

And if we're not looking for staff to make a recommendation on that, I think we should be recommending staff or go back to the list, you know?

And we look at that because I think that's the more fair way to do it.

is here.

We probably already voted on one.

We just need to remind her.

That 566 was was designated for the North Houston.

No, no, no.

I'm just thinking we probably already have a thing.

We need to come prepared for it.

That you know for this really the dedication is the 566 whatever if there's a hundred thousand

A good chance that might be an overrun as well, right?

So that 566 is really, I think what we'd be saying is dedicated towards this project group and it's not a hundred thousand dollars to kind of pull out, I would think that might be the way to think of it.

Could I make a motion?

It's not off by a hundred thousand on sidewalks.

Well, right, and you may find some other work that needs to happen there.

So I don't disagree at all that

about doing the work, it was really looking at what's the best way to use those dollars and throw other ways to get the work done and leverage those dollars elsewhere.

Second.

That sounds right.

Okay.

Councilman Joe, second it.

85.

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Mayor Reed.

Good work.

Oh, thank you, Madam Mayor.

This is an issue that's been before council several times.

It's a zoning ordinance amendment to allow recovery residences under our zoning ordinance.

and at the December 12th meeting of council, some questions arose from council members regarding the change of the definition of family which would include allowing minor children of residents of recovery residences to stay there with their parents and council.

You understand they had concerns about that.

I certainly did when I first heard it and I guess in a sense it's never

You can't argue that's a good thing for a child to be living in a recovery residence.

But in the context, after looking at this and then talking to a lot of different people, in the context, it is an overall, I think, positive thing for the child and the parent.

And it's certainly better than most of the other options.

So just to refresh Council's memory,

We're talking about the recovery residences.

And really, to a large extent, a lot of that oversight from that agency is checking to see if recovery residences are credentialed by one of two non-profit entities that are recognized in the state code.

and that is Oxford House and the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences.

Both of those organizations have very long detailed requirements for recovery residences and again they go through a credentialing process with proposed recovery residences.

The Department of Behavioral Health looks at that and then if they meet the credentialing they're certified.

So as to the issue that came up earlier about children being at the residences, first let me say none of the recovery residences in the city of Harrisonburg now or as far as we know none of those planned will allow children.

There are actually very few in Virginia that do.

I think far the Virginia Association of Recovery Residences currently has three houses in Virginia.

where children are allowed and those children have to be no more than five years of age.

And again, just to refresh Council's memory, there are requirements under the building code that are applicable here as to space.

The bedroom has to have at least 75 square feet for the first person.

And then any additional occupant of that bedroom, there has to be 50 square feet per person.

And that would include a child.

And under both organizations,

the child must reside in the room with the parent.

So again, Var has three houses and the children must be no older than five.

Oxford House, it looks like they have a total of eight in Virginia and the way Oxford House works their process is they'll have a house that's designated to allow children, not all, certainly not all of them do, but no more than two other residents can have children

and then no more than two children per residence.

And so far, based on what we saw, no residence has had more than three children.

And they also have age requirements.

Can't be older than 12 years of age if it's the same sex as the other individuals, right?

We resided in the house and not older than eight if they're the opposite sex of those residing in the house.

So with that, I also spoke to the director of the Office of Recovery Services, which is the office within the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health that oversees the recovery residences.

And she was overall positive about the idea of a child being able to stay with the parent in the recovery residence.

But she did confirm that at this moment, there really are no regulations in place through the state.

Governing Children in the Residences.

Again, the state agency is going to defer to the credentialing entities there.

There are two bills pending in the General Assembly that affect recovery residences.

One is a requirement, a reporting requirement to the state of any serious injury or any death that occurs in a recovery residence.

And I'll note that VAR already has that requirement.

And Oxford House may as well.

wasn't able to locate that in their documents.

And that feels so far as still alive.

There's also a budget amendment that's currently pending, which would provide funding for the Department of Behavioral Health to do a study to ascertain ways that that agency can better conduct oversight of the Oxford houses and the the bar residences.

and that if it goes through and there's funding, that report will be due to the Senate December of 2024.

So that may generate some other legislation.

I also spoke to the to the employee at our local DSS, who is the director of the Child Protective Services Office there.

She was very supportive of the idea of a child being to being able to go to a recovery residence with their parent.

They've actually placed parents with children and recovery residences elsewhere in the state.

She expressed that she would actually like to have one in Harrisonburg.

It would make things easier and there would be support services for the child here local.

She also confirmed that if there's a child with a parent in a recovery residence, then chances are very high that CPS is already involved.

That parent is already on the radar and they are working with that parent.

Again, she was supportive, certainly better for the child in most cases, not to be separated from the parent, which can be a very traumatic thing for

Not only the parent, but also, especially for the child.

And it's also an incentive for the parent to agree to go into a recovery residence if they know they can take their minor child with them.

And it's an incentive for the parent to stay there and to stay clean and sober and abide by the rules there.

Now, I also spoke to the deputy commonwealth's attorney.

He didn't have any opinions as to children, but there

There were at least one caller who repeatedly expressed that there were people who were being forced into recovery residences.

And the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office just confirmed that judges don't sentence people to recovery residences.

But judges may offer that as an alternative or a judge may as a condition of probation.

So you can

will put you on probation, but you must go into a recovery residence.

The person can always say no, which means they'll probably be spending some time in the jail.

So it's an option, but again, judges don't, don't sentence people to recovery to residences, recovery residences.

And he also emphasized that when a person does end up there through the court system,

It's always a low-level, non-violent offender who is not a danger to anyone and who is in trouble, is in legal trouble because of their addiction.

So again, overall support of the whole concept of recovery residences.

I did prepare a memo for counsel that goes into more detail that I attached to the agenda and sent out.

If you have, that may answer some other questions.

The CPS office did confirm that there's no real database that tracks incidents of child abuse or neglect in recovery houses.

And that's probably because there are so few children in the recovery houses in Virginia.

And again, chances are they're already working with the Child Protective Service worker.

So with that, I hope I address the concerns that Council expressed regarding children being allowed

to move with a parent into a recovery residence.

We also, since that meeting, tweaked the definition of recovery residence slightly.

And we did this because the state code has adopted a definition of recovery residence.

And then as of February 1st of this year, the Virginia administrative code now has a definition of recovery residence.

And that's in some of the regulations that apply to the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health.

and it's very short so I'll just go ahead and read it.

Recovery Residents is a dwelling unit that is certified by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services or for which the certification process has been initiated.

Number two provides alcohol-free and illicit drug-free housing to individuals with substance abuse disorders and individuals with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders.

And three,

does not include clinical treatment services.

A recovery residence must be certified by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services within 12 months of opening to meet this definition.

Now we included some of those concepts because with the state's definition we had a bit of a chicken or egg issue in that what our zoning ordinance originally provided

what we showed you is the definition was certified by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health.

They don't they don't certify the recovery residence until the recovery residence has been credentialed.

But as Nicky explained to me and not only this but many other things she explained to me about some of these

You can't get credentialed by one of these two organizations until you in effect up and running so they can check and on everything.

So only after you're operating can you get credentialed and therefore then be certified.

So we did include, it includes if the house

If the certification process has been initiated for the recovery residents, but we didn't want to leave it completely open-ended and have some operators keep saying year after year, yeah, we're working on it.

We'll get to it.

You've got to do it within a year.

And maybe that's too long.

Maybe as we go through this process, we'll reduce that.

And also, one thing I do want to highlight, that definition says, does not include clinical treatment services.

So these are not treatment facilities.

Anyone going into a recovery residence in order to get in there it has been clean and sober for a certain amount of time and normally they have finished some other more intensive treatment to get to where they are now so it's again there's not you don't have people who are actively using drugs or using alcohol at these locations they've been through

the earlier detoxification programs and now this is to help them stay clean.

I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Again, thanks to all the folks who are willing to take time and talk to me.

Well, I'll say one thank you for all the work that you and the staff have done

This is a lot of information that you put together and it's a complex issue to grapple with.

As I understand, the amendment proposal for the definition of family in adding recovery residences there is one because of how it is in state code and also because that will cover

There's a state code section that identifies a couple of different kinds of what I'll call group homes that are licensed by various agencies in the state and what that state code section says is localities you must consider these group homes as a family and So after some discussion we determined that the best thing to do was to add the recovery of residents

as defined as part of the definition of family.

I guess maybe just for some clarity, since we've discussed this in the past, we haven't kind of gone through the entire discussion we've had in the past, but some of this has come up because

It might be worth just kind of mentioning that a little bit.

You're absolutely correct.

But under federal law, the federal fair housing law and some other laws, folks who have an addiction are considered to have a disability under federal law.

And under federal law, you can discriminate against someone with a disability in numerous situations, but for our purposes, housing.

and so there have been a lot of court cases on the federal level, localities refusing to permit recovery residents and courts have routinely held under federal law, those must be permitted, notwithstanding anything that's in state law.

And the general rule

up to eight, you really can't say no.

When you get beyond eight, the locality can look at it more closely, again, with traditional zoning issues, you know, parking and things like that.

And what we've done is if you go above eight, it's a special use permit application.

So the council could look at where's it located, is there enough parking and things of that nature.

Well, I have a question about how the certification for particular facilities that would allow children would work because there are a few of them.

They have to identify the target audience or service that they want to provide and again the house has to be such that it has bedrooms large enough to accommodate the children and that sort of thing and Oxford House specifically limits it to two residents per house where they are allowed

Dany Fleming, Laura Dent, Nasser Alsaadun

So that's if we're that's only that only goes into effect if we're working through a lot more than eight people for a special use permit

Okay, thanks.

Since that was a major topic, I wanted to be sure we knew how that would be credentialed.

Thanks.

Thank you for all your work, as Councilman Fleming said.

They know they have to allow them, and so they just do.

And really that would fall to the Zodiac Ministry to make a determination that they have to have an accommodation under federal law.

especially when it comes to the number of residences.

That's right.

The ordinance protects us.

Any more discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

City Council before you this evening is a supplemental appropriation in the amount of $1.3 million.

This is for the purchase of property for the construction of the future Fire Station 5.

Maybe?

I don't really like this.

That's right.

Just double checking.

Madam Mayor, I have moved to approve the supplemental appropriation for the purchase of real estate as presented by the city manager for our illustrious project.

Any more discussion?

Vice Mayor Dent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Aye.

Council Member Jones.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, we will now go into other matters, comments from the public limited to two, five minutes, or matters not on the regular agenda.

Please state your name and address, and I will be timing, so it will be five minutes.

My name is Michael Snelfikeman.

My address is 1174 Westmoreland Drive in Harrisonburg.

And I don't know how you do this exactly, but I have the draft resolution to give to all the council members and other

officials for whom it's appropriate.

I'll put it right here for that to be right.

My remarks are going to be very brief because I want to get the resolution read.

But I want to say that this resolution has evolved and changed substantially as we were given feedback from meetings with individual council persons and with Rabbi Jeff and his companions from the synagogue in the dialogue sponsored by the mayor.

We have tried to forge a document that could succeed in getting passed by avoiding fixing blame in the resolution.

and by focusing on the relevance of the resolution for Harrisonburg where the war in Gaza is profoundly impacting people in our community.

And I think you can see the testimony to that by all the people that are here tonight.

And what they have to say will further reinforce the significance of the impact that it is having here in Harrisonburg.

That is why we've tried to concentrate on concrete goals.

People want concrete results.

They want the killing to stop.

They want the prisoners and the hostages to come home.

They want food, clean water, health care that is so desperately needed by the people in Gaza.

So as a result, our resolution focuses on concrete results and not on getting into arguments.

They don't need more arguments.

They need help.

They need the killing to stop.

Draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of hostages and prisoners, and the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Whereas the city of Harrisonburg is known as a city for all, and advocates for the dignity and safety of all residents, regardless of religion, race, or nation of origin, and condemns racist anti-Semitic or Islamophobic acts or speech.

And whereas, as a refugee resettlement city,

We intimately understand the human cost of war and the difficulty and pain of displacement and whereas local community members have relatives and friends from Gaza that were killed, injured, displaced, and gone missing in the Israeli bombing of Gaza and local community members have relatives from Israel taken hostage in Gaza and whereas we grieve for the terrible loss of life and the pain and suffering for the people of Gaza and Israel

In Israel, 1139 were killed and 4,834 wounded on October 7th.

In Gaza, 28,064 Palestinians have been killed and 67,611 wounded.

Whereas we recognize that the current crisis takes place within a long history, and that for a pathway to lasting peace and justice to be developed, the root causes need to be addressed with diplomacy.

Be it Rizal,

that the City of Harrisonburg urged the Virginia delegation, including Congressman Ben Klein, Senators Mark Warner, and Tim Kaine to do all within their power to bring about an immediate and long-lasting ceasefire to end the current violence and allow adequate and unimpeded humanitarian aid to all areas of Gaza.

Further resolved that the City of Harrisonburg urged President Biden and his administration to use

The federal government's diplomatic and appropriations powers to bring about an immediate and long-lasting ceasefire, saving Israeli and Palestinian lives, to allow adequate and unimpeded humanitarian aid to all areas of Gaza, and ensure the release of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages.

Further resolve that a copy of this resolution be sent to Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

Governor of Virginia Glenn Yonkin, U.S.

Representative Ben Klein, U.S.

President Joe Biden, and U.S.

Good evening.

I'm Laurie Merrow of 1539 Hill Press Drive, Mayor Reed and City Council members.

advocating for passage of this resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

And for this we are grateful.

Following the statements you removed enough to take time for each of you to respond verbally to the testimony and for this too we are also very grateful.

Listening and responding in a respectful way is not always easy when topics become controversial.

I heard each of you say at the last meeting that a city council resolution is not the way to accomplish what we want to see happen.

We do understand that you don't hold sway over U.S.

foreign policy.

And we are writing to our Senators, Congressman and President.

I received a three-page single-spaced letter from Tim Kaine the other day and also two and a half pages from Mark Warner.

I was heartened to see that they are now acknowledging the human suffering and the complexity of the situation.

but sad to see that they stopped short of advocating for a ceasefire.

On Sunday, they joined with most of the Senate to pass a bill giving another $14 billion in arms to Israel.

The conversation is changing, but we are so far from getting our elected officials to use their power to stop this unspeakable tragedy.

I also heard, oh, I didn't want to say that.

Okay, since your last city council meeting on January 23rd, well over 3,000 more Palestinians have been killed.

Two hostages have been freed.

According to many reports, we're on the verge of something much worse if Israel continues into Rafa with its current tactics.

In the same period, around 70 city councils around the country have passed resolutions regarding the Israel-Gaza war.

And these resolutions say various things, generally advocating for peace.

And yes, this is an unusual request to ask the city council to weigh in on foreign policy, but you can see that a growing number of city council endorsements will be heard in Washington.

It's a time when we need to apply pressure in all ways.

It's an emergency.

Unlike you, our local elected officials, our federal elected officials are subject to lobbying against support for a ceasefire from various sources.

So in that I mean to say, you are not subject to such lobbying.

So we are asking you to be clear eyed.

and to pass this resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Good evening.

My name is Teresa Kubisak.

I live at 91.5 Franklin and I'm here with words not of my own.

but of the great American martyr, Martin Luther King, whose legacy we honor during February Black History Month.

These words are excerpted from his speech at Riverside Church April 4th, 1967 during a dire emergency with war in Vietnam.

I quote, I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice.

The time comes when silence is betrayal That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony.

But we must speak.

We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision.

But we must speak.

Somehow this madness must cease.

We must stop now.

I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam.

I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.

I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam.

I speak as a citizen of the world for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken.

I speak as an American to the leaders of my nation.

The great initiative in this war is ours and the initiative to stop it

must be ours.

We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society when machines, computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people.

The giant triplets of racism, materialism, militarism are incapable of being conquered.

We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam

and Justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors.

If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality and strength.

without sight.

Let us heed the words of Martin Luther King.

Thank you.

Can I please ask that you not stand in the aisle?

We need to keep the aisles free.

So could you stay seated until you want to come up?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello.

Dahlia Abdallah, Davis Mills Drive, Harrisonburg.

Last time I was here before you, I introduced myself as a regular Harrisonburg resident.

Today, I'm speaking to you as a healthcare worker.

For the past eight years, I've worked with patients suffering from numerous conditions and ailments, pneumonia, broken arms, heart attack, sepsis, cancer, and many more even worse.

Every now and then, as I'm with these patients, taking their vitals or caring for their wounds,

I think to myself, just how lucky we are to have the antibiotics needed for pneumonia, the x-rays needed to see fractures, the cardiac catheters needed to see inside the heart, laboratories needed to detect infections, and the chemotherapy and radiation needed to treat cancer.

I marvel at the fact that our country is able to have these things and how much easier it's becoming to treat and cure patients in this day and age.

So in turn, it also frightens me

that Palestine has none of these blessings.

Forget the fancy X-ray machines and the automatic blood pressure cuffs, Palestine doesn't even have the hospitals to keep these machines in.

Israel has bombed nearly every hospital in Gaza, leaving doctors to treat the injured out in the streets, on the cold, dirty ground, using the flashlights of their phones when it gets too dark.

And the most brutal procedure that the Palestinian doctors have to perform is the C-section.

I don't know how many women here have had sea sections before, but at least I can say that each one of them has had some kind of anesthesia with the procedure.

A privilege expecting Palestinian mothers are not granted.

And for those that aren't familiar with sea sections, it's the process of surgically removing a baby from the mother's womb.

A procedure that involves cutting through at least five layers in the abdomen.

First the skin is cut, then the fat, then the fascia, then the muscle, then the peritoneum, and then finally the uterus where the baby is.

And each of these cuts are about 10 centimeters across.

And the average time needed to complete a C-section is 45 minutes.

Imagine telling someone that you're about to make a 10 centimeter long cut right into their gut while they're wide awake for the next hour.

That sounds like some medieval torture straight from hell.

But this is the reality for many Palestinian mothers.

Having to perform a C-section without anesthesia or sew a patient back up with a dirty needle or scavenge the entire town for insulin so the eight-year-old with type 1 diabetes can live is not something that doctors and patients should be doing

in the year 2024.

Not with all the advancement we have nowadays.

If America wanted, medications in first aid could be sent to Palestine before this day is even over.

But instead, America's top priority is how best to prevent these items from reaching Palestine.

The time for America to end its barbaric behavior is now.

Which is why we need you all to pass this resolution, save the Palestinian people, and restore America's honor and dignity.

Good evening, I'm Fernando.

I'm here to stand with our Palestinian brothers, but at the same time I'm also trying to draw a parallel between the situation in the Congo and the situation in Palestine.

So I'm trying to use just a memorandum that's last time we submitted to the White House and we also

requested that Mr. Biden would take some actions about declaring the genocide against the Congolese people.

So we, that memorandum, we did urge the White House to advance the efforts to lead the global recognition of the crimes of genocide committed against the people of the Congo in this 21st century.

We also refuted the deceptive argument that called everything that is taking place over there as civil war.

And we asked White House to consider that it was an occupation just as it is an occupation in the Gaza Strip for the Palestinian.

and we also did ask that the demonstration of Mr. Biden would speed up the prosecution of all criminals of the crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including crimes of unjustifiable war provoked by our neighbor, which is one of the best allies of the United States.

and we did claim for the creation of an international criminal tribunal or criminal court so the Congo and the related chambers so here you can find that the parallel is that this case of Palestine was taken to the ICC and the ICC had

expressed his fears of the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people.

He just takes the United States and some other bodies to recognize and to enforce some measure to hold accountable those who are

committing such crimes in the Gaza Strip.

So we also did ask that the Biden administration should enforce the mechanism of the establishment of a durable and lasting peace justice through truth and reparations for the Democratic Republic of the Congo victims and as you may

To be aware of, we have got a large population of the Congolese people in this area being directly impacted by the occupation of the land of its people.

Part of Goma, Ruchuru, Bemi, the rape has been used

numerous times as a weapon of war.

And we also did request that this administration supports democracy and good governance and supports maybe militarily to stop the invaders or the occupiers or the colonizers to leave.

and that exactly what the people of Palestine are asking in order that the humanitarian aid to be provided to the suffering people and those families that are displaced that are being forced out to leave their lands just because they are Palestinians and just because they are Congolese people and that should not be seen without

and Action.

So as I stand here, I'm just trying to express the same as the people who are victim of the crimes of genocide.

If the United States of America, through Mr. Biden, would be argued by this council here to

asked the resolution of number one, stopping those atrocities in proclaiming a permanent ceasefire.

And number two, to try to get to hold those who are committing those crimes against, as I say, accountable.

that would really make this nation, the United States, to stand in its role as a nation leading by example.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, I'm a little short.

Good evening, members of the council, Mayor Reed.

My name is Avi Stein.

I live at 889 Port Republic Road.

Should I say my apartment too, or just?

All right, so I am here to speak in support of this resolution, and I am also here because as you may or may not have been able to tell by my sign, I am a US Jew.

I am a member of Jewish Voices for Peace, which is an organization

that has been advocating for Palestine for many years.

I've been a member for about six now, and I know that there are concerns, there are valid concerns that I know have been expressed by many people, especially elected officials, that speaking in support of a ceasefire is equivalent to speaking against a Jewish population, to

anti-Semitism somehow.

And I just want to put that to rest and say that it's absolutely not true.

If anything, speaking for a ceasefire, speaking for this resolution is the most Jewish thing that anyone could do.

We have a saying.

We have a saying, and it goes, Sedeck, Sedeck, tiered off, which basically translates to justice, justice you shall pursue.

There's also a saying, a little bit newer, that all politics are local, which brings me to the second reason, which is in support of this resolution.

As an American Jew, as someone who has actually family in Occupy Palestine and Haifa, who were affected,

by October 7th.

I understand.

I have seen everything.

And I have also seen, while the Super Bowl occurred, a picture of a half mutilated body hanging off of a wall in Rafa.

And what I mean when I say that all politics are local, I mean that Harrisonburg has a Palestinian population.

Harrisonburg has a Congolese population.

Harrisonburg has a large Jewish population as well.

What's important is that we send a message.

Of course, it's just a symbol, but there's really no just anything about it.

Because what, in a time like this, what is more important?

What is more powerful than ideals?

What is more important than sticking up for the community?

What is more important than being there for each other?

So I very much urge the reading of this resolution.

I urge the adoption and I urge your continued listening and these public forums.

Hi.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Dr. Darun Jalil and my address is 753 Carson Circle.

I wasn't here at the last Council meeting but I did watch the live stream and I listened to the remarks that were made and the hesitations expressed by the Council and so I wanted to spend my time today addressing some of those concerns.

that you all expressed.

So the first point I'd like to address is the reluctance to bring this resolution forward because it is purely symbolic and holds no weight and can't be enforced.

What I'd like to ask the council is this, do you not attend ribbon-cutting ceremonies?

Do you not attend groundbreaking ceremonies?

Do you not attend vigils?

What was the renaming of Cantrell Avenue to MLK Avenue?

other than a symbol, a symbolic gesture.

So I think you all would agree that symbols have power and they evoke emotions and they convey a message.

So why is the symbolism of this any different?

Why do these, why do the acts that you engage in as a council member carry an inherent value and importance but this is, this ceasefire doesn't?

Why is it that one is a waste of time?

Please do reflect on this the next time you dismiss this resolution on the grounds of it being purely symbolic.

The second point I'd like to address is the hesitation to put forward this resolution because it may be unprecedented.

I'd argue that unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions.

What is happening today is unprecedented by all measures, unprecedented in terms of the number of press that have been killed, in terms of the number of bombs that have been dropped, in terms of the children that have been killed, and even in the acronyms that are used.

One acronym unique to this crisis is WCNSF, Wounded Child No Surviving Family.

This is an acronym that is used regularly in Gaza.

If these times are unprecedented, our actions must also be unprecedented.

I don't imagine that many issues have motivated such large numbers of people to come forward to a city council meeting at 9 p.m.

on a Tuesday.

So as leaders of our friendly city, I would like to remind you that every precedent that has been said was at one point unprecedented and until someone came forward and took action and you as our leaders, we are encouraging you to take that action.

And so this leads me to my third point, which is that we are uniquely positioned as the friendly city to push forward this ceasefire.

How can we, as the friendly city, the city that very proudly touts how we provide refuge to individuals escaping war, genocide, and violence, not support a ceasefire resolution?

I myself, as a two-year-old child, was brought here to the friendly city in the 90s as a refugee to escape the war in Iraq.

So what type of message does this send to the residents of the city?

How can you acknowledge the past suffering of these residents that they've gone through and not acknowledge the destruction and suffering that is being caused to hundreds of thousands of people today and for generations to come?

As leaders of the friendly city, it would really behoove you to consider what type of message this sends.

Don't think that inaction or neutrality doesn't send a message because inaction is still action and it does still send a message to your residents.

So, you have a push from many members of this community to vote on this resolution.

And it's not just Muslims, it's not just Arabs.

The diversity in this room reflects the diverse groups that all want this ceasefire.

And just because you have a few voices in the community who oppose this ceasefire resolution doesn't mean that you shouldn't vote on it.

Does every voice not matter here?

Our voices not all weighed equally.

If every voice is weighed equally, then the overwhelming push for a ceasefire would indicate that you should vote on this resolution.

and if a few voices of dissent stop you, then what does that say about the voices that you're paying attention to and what does that say about where you're giving an unequal amount of attention?

I mean, even the council itself, when it votes it doesn't have a unanimous vote.

You all just need majority rules and you're a council of five.

How could you expect a unanimous consensus from an entire city?

And like waiting on that, installing this resolution until you receive this unattainable goal is a little bit insulting to those who are trying to actually push for meaningful change.

And if the council is voting for majority rule, then the same principles should apply to the members of this town.

And so the final point I'd like to make is this.

When we collect money for causes, we say no amount is too small, and we don't diminish any small amount of money when it goes towards good.

When you're trying to garner votes for your election and reelection, does every vote not matter?

Do you not want to register every person to come and vote?

So why diminish any voice that advocates for peace and justice?

Why belittle the residents here so much by telling them their voices don't matter?

Why belittle yourselves in your role as a city council by saying you have no power to help?

Please recognize that the power of our voices and of your voices and of a collective voice when advocating for peace.

Even if Netanyahu doesn't hear this and he doesn't abide by the resolution know that your community members do hear and they do see and you owe it to your community and you owe it to yourself and to your heart and to your morality to stand up for something so basic and so human as peace.

Peace.

My name is Deanna Miller, 2951 Congress Creek Road, Harrisonburg, Virginia.

I come before you today to stand in solidarity with the people here and to urge the city council to pass the ceasefire resolution that calls for an immediate end to the violence occurring in Palestine, or at least of all hostages and prisoners, and the allowance of humanitarian aid to reach all areas of Gaza.

Now, who am I and why do I care?

I'm not Palestinian.

I'm not Israeli.

I'm just a trash truck driver from Chandler Valley.

But being born to a single black woman who instilled in me knowledge of self and the history and struggles of our people in this country, it makes it absolutely necessary for me to voice my camaraderie with the people of Palestine and the resistance while they suffer a genocide.

and also since his Black History Month, I'd be remiss not to bring to the council's attention how the freedom of black people here is tied to the freedom of Palestinians there.

From James Baldwin to Malcolm X, Angela Davis to Kwame Turei, some of our most prominent thinkers have always had the understanding that liberation movements are broad and black liberation in America are part of the same international struggle against imperialism, white supremacy and colonialism.

It was Paul Robinson and W. E. B. Du Bois in 1951 that first charged the United States government with genocide for the deliberate segregation, discrimination, and lynching of our people.

And now, South Africa is spearheading the charge of genocide against Israel and the International Court of Justice.

Who better to call out apartheid than a country that overcame its own apartheid 30 years ago this year?

It was Martin Luther King Jr.

that deemed racism, poverty by the way of capitalism, and war or militarism as the three evils of this society, all of which are also affecting the Palestinians, with America being the conspirator-in-chief.

These parallels of persecution continue to this day, with the Israeli Occupational Forces training American police with tactics to take down Black Lives Matter protesters into quell mass movements.

Hopefully this brief history lesson has been informative and inspiring, but how does any of this affect us here in Harrisonburg?

Well, according to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, $625,699 of the federal taxes collected from the city of Harrisonburg go to funding weapons for Israel.

Imagine for a second, what services could the city provide with that money?

Luckily for us, the US CPRS provided some examples, such as paying the salary of six elementary school teachers, having 217 children receive free or low-cost health care, providing 74 households with public housing for a year, or to help pay for the sidewalk projects we heard of earlier.

Those are just a few ways that money could better serve our community.

Some of you might say that a resolution is

Justice Symbolic piece of paper that doesn't bring about any material change.

And you're right, this piece of paper won't physically stop.

The boat load of weapons headed towards Israel.

What it will do, though, is change the moral and ethical landscape of the city, state, and country as we stand with others across this nation demanding a ceasefire.

The strength of people power has repeatedly influenced and changed laws that bring about a better quality of life and upholds the dignity of humanity.

Over 50 cities have already signed a ceasefire resolution.

Large cities like Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, Seattle, Washington, and Detroit, Michigan.

Also, cities smaller than Harrisonburg, including Carboro, North Carolina, Tallinn, Oregon, Hastings, Minnesota, and State College, Pennsylvania.

Maybe this was the revolution of values Martin Luther King Jr.

was speaking of.

Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from our sister in exile, Sadah Shakur,

Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other people's freedom as well.

The victory of oppressed people anywhere in the world is a victory for black people.

Each time one of imperialism's tentacles is cut off, we are closer to liberation.

My name is Iwana Rimbou and I live at 2951 Congers Creek Road.

Over the past few days, Israel has established a safe zone for Gazans in Rafa and then bombed it.

This is not the first time Israel has told a mass amount of people to gather at a location that is meant to be safe and then mass-cured.

There are people that want to write off any critical thinking about this by saying that the situation is complicated.

That makes the decision whether or not to act overwhelming and self-defeating.

Regardless of the events that transpired to this point, it is not controversial to say

that Gaza does not have the power to block humanitarian aid for Israel and there is no international crisis of Israeli refugees.

There is nothing grown up, wise, democratic, enlightened, or inspiring to rally behind here.

It is dark, ignorant, reactionary, medieval, and wrong.

Israel is going off the rails and dragging the whole world down a backward spiral of scorched earth land grabbing and spinning it as a religious conflict.

It is past time to stop this.

We are accountable to act and always we can stop this from happening.

We can't call it a foreign conflict and go about our lives because our taxes are the main funds for genocide.

It is no one's responsibility to tell you how to do it, yet you have people who are taking the initiative to act, who are willing to practically write the resolution for an immediate long-lasting ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian aid for Gaza, and the release of all hostages for you.

If you were to take this seriously, you may consult the councils.

Large and small cities and towns are doing this.

Instead of projecting fear onto the few who are brave enough to public your

publicly revealed their names and addresses to speak with you about it.

And if you are still hesitant due to some kind of restriction behind closed doors that we don't understand, speak on it.

You have no idea how much emotional labor has been done to consider all of your feelings.

It will not matter if we hear more bad news because we understand that there are far worse things to hear.

We have already heard no.

If we cannot guarantee that the money will come back to the community if it is not going to Israel, there are people who are working on that.

We can care about many things at once.

After all these eloquent speakers

I'm going to be pretty simple.

I'm Carol Snellfeichema.

I live at 1174 Westmoreland Drive in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Gaza is suffering more than 28,000 dead, 12,000 of them children, innocent children.

I awake in the night and I pray for Gaza.

But I want to speak out as loudly as I can to stop the non-ending massacre.

I literally can't believe it's happening and that no one is stopping it.

In fact, the planes that dropped the bombs are made in the United States with my tax dollars.

The bombs dropped on civilian populations made in the USA with our tax dollars.

How to stop this madness.

How to do all we can.

If more voices were raised, the genocide of the Jewish people, six million Jews, invalids, Jehovah's Witnesses, gays, maybe, maybe, just maybe it could have been stopped, or at least stopped earlier.

This is humanly done evil.

It is not a hurricane.

It's not an earthquake or a tornado.

It's humanly done, and it can be humanly stopped.

So we all need to raise our voice and cry out for ceasefire, for humanitarian aid, for release of hostages and political prisoners.

My cry is a start, but it's not enough.

Harrisonburg can join the cry to stop the madness, to use our tax dollars for Harrisonburg needs instead of for bombs that rain death on children and families in Gaza.

I ask you as our representatives on the city council to call for a ceasefire.

to stop the massacre.

Join not only Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit, but Iowa City, another small college town.

Atlanta, Georgia, St.

Louis, Missouri, Harbor Road, North Carolina, other cities in the south.

There are some 70 cities now calling for ceasefire.

The situation is urgent.

Every day,

Another 250 innocent people die a needless, humanly-caused death.

A death caused by my tax dollars.

A death we can stop from happening.

Hello, Council.

My name is Will Blosser.

I am a student of Eastern Midnight University.

And though I am a student of Eastern Midnight University, I am not a Christian.

But still, I pray for Gaza and Palestine.

This purely symbolic gesture comes from my own sight at the potential future we are witnessing.

A future where there are no Palestinians.

One year, two year, or three years could mean the total destruction of Palestine as a nation and a people.

and if we reach that future, if we reach that dark horizon, what will we say?

That a purely symbolic gesture was too much, too unfeasible or not worth the time?

What will our silence say in those future days that our current action could not assuage?

I will continue to pray and I hope you do the same.

and the mayor members of the city council.

Thank you so much for your service and I don't have anything to add.

I just want to emphasize a few things.

I know it's symbolic and I know we don't have power to enforce ceasefire or something like that but it does give a message and I agree with the speakers.

We have such an elegant speakers tonight and you saw their emotions and I know I got back to your point

We are capitalist society and we can translate that to money and vote.

And speaking of that, I want to thank our community who responded in one hour.

And you will see this in the day of elections.

We will not forget, you know why?

Because we are humans.

We are humans.

We are humans.

And what we see on TV, my friends and colleagues and esteemed city members,

You don't see.

We see kids are crushed.

We see kids raising the white flag and they are being shot.

They are wild, crazy.

We are going back to medieval age.

I am serious.

We got emotional.

I cannot focus.

I get away, my kids away from the TV.

Anything I can say is short.

It cannot be this.

So I am going to go back to this Manchotto.

This Manchotto said, if you stay neutral, injustice, you're part of it.

So your gesture is very strong.

Your gesture is saying to the politicians, the public are with ceasefire.

The public are with peace.

Please use your teeth and stop crying and picking in a Taniago.

Netanyahu is not just bad for Israel.

Netanyahu is bad for everybody.

Bad for America.

Bad for Palestine.

Bad for Israel.

I promise you, we want peace.

We want two states.

Since this is the prophecy, not the prophecy, President Bush said we want two states.

We worked on it.

Netanyahu came with the promise to kill the Oslo Accord.

And I know it, you know it too.

I know that you know it.

But I know, as one of the speakers said, you know, we have to look at balanced things.

Yes, I know.

Balanced things will not help.

Sometimes you have to take a strong action.

It has a price.

We never said that standing with justice is easy.

Standing with Justice is heroism because it takes so much to stand.

It's not easy and I'm not asking you

It's symbolic, it's humane, it's for both sides, not just for us as Palestinians.

My name again, I'm sorry, I miss that, I'm so emotional.

By now you know me, my name is Hassan Hamdan and I live in Mockingbird Drive.

And I said to myself while I'm talking here, I did not draft anything, there are actually seven reasons, seven major reasons why you should support a ceasefire and vote of it.

One, as one of the

Brother here said, we are the friendly city.

We are a city of refugees.

Most of the refugees, as Darun said, Dr. Darun, came from war-torn countries.

Many of them.

That's number one.

Number two, you are giving incentives, you are giving...

What do you call it?

Leading by example.

You are giving us who are active that your activism will pay off.

Just keep going this way.

That's number two.

Number three, because we are humans.

That's very important.

We are humans.

We stand with justice.

Anywhere.

With Congo.

with Africa, with South Africa, with African-American, with everybody.

We should stand with justice.

I am a professor.

And I tell my colleagues, we should preach, we should do what we preach.

We should lead by an example.

I cannot just teach something and I go do something else.

You know, this is important.

And again, I'm being emotional because I want you to feel what we are going through.

And we are going through a lot.

I don't know, I'm sure they are feeling, feeling this.

That's why they responded in one hour.

Eighty percent of my brothers and sisters came in one hour.

Just once said that they, we want fear.

And so thank you so much.

As we said.

So that's why, because they fear, we see something that you do.

Guys, it's brilliant imagination.

When a bulldozer goes over people's life, if that doesn't move you, what it does?

I know it's not.

I know.

You don't have teeth.

I know that.

But it's very symbolic.

You're telling the people in Washington, please do something.

You know today, the European Council, Borrell, said, you are breaking the taniyahu to stop.

And you're saying we need ceasefire.

Just use your teeth a little bit.

Stop the weapons, the shipping of weapons.

That's what we need to do.

Thank you so much, and I'm sorry for emotions, and I thank all the speakers on behalf of being a human.

I don't want to say Palestinian.

I want to say on behalf of being a human.

That's it.

I'm trying to be a human.

Madam Mayor, Council Members.

My name is Lauren Amar.

I live at 1157 Springfield Drive.

And I am a 14-year resident of Harrisonburg and the mother of three children who had the privilege of attending Harrisonburg Public Schools and living in the safety of Harrisonburg City their entire lives.

I just wanted to bring up today this poster that talks about a simple timeline of a child born the same year

that my son was born in 2007.

A child in Gaza at that time would have been born the year that Israel imposed a complete blockade of the territory.

The restrictions on Palestinians were on many things, including the movement around being able to leave the Gaza Strip or family members enter to visit them.

also restricted was gas for food, medicine, food, anything imported, and any type of trade.

At that time, many people relied on humanitarian aid to survive, and since then, the blockade has been in place and that need has only increased.

At age two of the cohort that my son was born,

Israeli forces killed 1,385 Palestinians, 318 of them were children in that year.

This was with US-funded airplanes, missiles, and bombs.

At age 5 in 2012, there was an 8-day attack, and two years later in 2014, 55-day onslaught, which killed 2,251 Palestinians, 556 of them were children.

At age 11, March 2018, that lasted a year and a half, people peacefully marched to the border of Gaza to the east and were gunned down, including the first aid responders that came to help them.

In May 2021, at age 14, if they have survived this long,

There was an 11-day attack where 2,030 Palestinians were killed.

At age 15, on August, 2022, a three-day assault on Gaza where 33 Palestinians were killed.

And that brings us to today, age 16, an entire life of horror and terror.

28,064 Palestinians

are known to have been killed over 10,000 of them children.

Israel is the largest recipient of US military aid.

The US tax dollars are not just funding the current massacres, but they have been funding it for a long time.

The entire lifespan of some of the people that are currently living in Gaza and dying in Gaza.

We know you're not making foreign policy, but that doesn't mean that we need to stay silent and accept what our lawmakers are doing that are making foreign policy and doesn't mean that we need to agree with what they're doing.

And for these reasons, I would like to encourage you to support a ceasefire, ceasefire now, and returning the desperately needed humanitarian aid that Gaza is totally reliant upon.

and the US has just cut funding for.

My address is 1150 Devon Lane in Harrisonburg.

I've been a Harrisonburg resident my entire life.

My family has been involved with the community my entire life and before I was even born.

I have been proud to say that I am a Harrisonburg resident for my entire life and I have told people that are thinking about moving here or just from another place entirely how honored I am to be a member of our community purely because of the diversity

and the advocacy that we have provided and harbored for my entire life and before my entire life.

I am appalled at the attitude that sits before me to say nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It makes me so upset.

All of you have families.

All of you might have children.

But all of you have somebody who loves you.

And you know what?

So does every person in Palestine.

Imagine not being able to go home to your families this evening.

They don't have anywhere to go home to.

Something that might be worse is being able to go home to your families this evening and tell them that you decided to say nothing.

That you are aware of what is happening across the world and you are saying nothing.

and you say that this is not the way to take action.

I was told in your city schools that you can make change in local politics, that this is the place to start.

I'm not saying that you will directly affect what is happening in DC and what is happening overseas, but I am saying that you can make waves starting here.

Madam Mayor, I have seen you march with us in solidarity.

as of July of 2022, I saw you.

You were there and you spoke with us.

And I would hope that two years later, you were willing to stand in solidarity with your community that you support to say something, to make waves and to make changes.

What we were marching for in July of 2022 was not going to directly affect anything.

necessarily, but we still gathered in Court Square and marched.

And I don't understand why you won't do that with us today.

What do you lose by making a statement in support?

What do you lose?

Do you have personal bias, political bias, religious bias,

I would hope not as you sit in your seats today.

It is your responsibility to listen to the people of your community and to hear us and to hear our cries to support our brothers and sisters across the world who are dying.

Before Palestinians, those are people.

Good evening Council folks, Madam Mayor.

I wasn't planning on speaking tonight.

My name is Jade O. My address is 1826 Putter Court.

I wasn't planning on talking tonight, but I feel like a lot of my

Comrades and colleagues in this room have made me feel empowered to do so anyway.

So I'm a JMU student and I had nearly zero ties to Harrisonburg and I moved here only this past August.

But despite that, I was able to meet the wonderful community here at Harrisonburg and be able to organize with all these folks.

And I just wanted to share a few things that

This community is organized despite feeling the tremendous amount of grief and horror as we watch the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine.

Since December of 2023, we have done a teach-in, various movie screenings and discussion while enjoying Shirley's popcorn, art builds.

We organize a carpool to Washington, D.C.

to participate in the National March.

We've also been constantly contacting our elected officials.

We had a letter writing party, a walkout at JMU just the other day, where it

We are now creating a Students of Justice in Palestine chapter at JMU.

The MLK People's Day, we got to meet some folks through there and talk to people at the Friendly City Co-op.

And honestly, we've just been connecting with so many other communities within the Shenandoah Valley thanks to the

the resilience of the Palestinian people and seeing their cause and their struggle as interconnected with our own here in the United States of America, here within Harrisonburg, Virginia.

and I just wanted to say like we're all stakeholders even though it doesn't feel like we aren't.

We are all hurting very much from not even seeing a ceasefire and there are many of us who have awoken and see the interconnectedness of all of this thanks to the resilience of the Palestinian people and now seeing the resilience of the folks in Harrisonburg.

I wouldn't have been able to see this true beauty of the city of Harrisonburg if I

haven't gotten involved in this way.

My name is Abbas Road.

Madam Mayor, city council members, I don't know if you do know or don't know.

We are the only probably city where the Jews and the Muslims have been working together for the last two decades.

So during these unprecedented times, we need unprecedented help with passing this resolution because

There are not many cities out there.

We have no problem.

I hope the rest of the world and our country sees that things can be worked together as Jews and Muslims.

And we have to stop.

I mean, sometimes when I wake up, I don't go to sleep.

Because this is genocide, what is happening.

And you have to take the action.

You really do.

You know, number of my, number of speakers were emotional.

And these are the times to be emotional.

My name is Shama Med, 45, 45 Shen Lake.

I've grown up in Harrisonburg but I've been away for the past few years for college I am part of the SJP chapter of George Mason University and I have met quite a few Palestinian people I was away at school last meeting so I did not know that you guys did not pass the resolution but I would like for you to hear some of the stories that I've been told Every night in Gaza, especially in Rafa right now, there are drones flying over, not dropping bombs

but they are constantly humped.

There's a constant hump of drones and all it does is scare the Palestinians.

They do not sleep at night not knowing whether their house will be hit next with a bomb or not.

One of my very close friends, his six year old brother was shot down in the yard for being outside after, after I believe it was seven o'clock.

I don't understand how you could not pass some kind of resolution

after knowing about these things, because these things are not new.

We've been hearing about them for many, many years now.

It doesn't make sense to me to say we can't do anything, even if it is just symbolic.

You have to stand, you have to show where you stand, where our city stands.

It's heartbreaking hearing about these things.

Ever since November 7th, there hasn't been one day where I haven't had an update about something that's happened.

two days ago, two of my Palestinian friends had three of their family members killed.

Not while they were out on the street or anything, while they were being transported in an ambulance.

So for us to sit here and say, we can't pass a resolution because it's only symbolic and it has no meaning is absurd to me.

And I'm sure everyone else here would also agree.

My name is Vince Paishon.

I'm 1194, Dale Circle.

I've lived in the Shenandoah Valley my whole life.

To say that there is in power and symbolism is just ridiculous.

There's a ton of power and symbolic gestures, especially if it's coming from a good place.

It's the least that you could do.

It's literally like the bare minimum of what can be done.

I was reading a story today about the Red Crescent EMTs that went to rescue that little girl that was gunned down in her car with the rest of her family outside Rafa.

They knew they were going to die.

They knew that they weren't going to be able to save her.

but they did it anyways.

I can't even begin to wrap my head around that level of bravery and every day a Palestinian wakes up in Gaza, it's braver than anything that any of us have ever done in our lives.

Yeah, there's just no excuse for you all to be up here representing us and say that your voice doesn't matter on an issue like this.

It absolutely does.

It definitely does.

Yeah, that's all I gotta say.

I'm sorry.

We're going to take a quick recess.

Five minutes.

All right.

Thank you.

I would just... Some people may want to... You're aware of the issue that I would... Oh!

Oh, yeah, I am ready.

Yeah, I didn't have chocolate.

I was like, oh, I do.

So we appreciate everybody's time today to be open up the forum to us and listen.

Everybody came in with a lot of eloquent speeches, a lot of passionate speeches, emotional speeches, because it's just a time of heightened emotions and heightened political atmosphere.

And international politics, national politics,

It all affects everybody at the personal level in their houses, within the communities.

So I just wanted to take the time to thank you guys.

And previously, as I said before, we hope that you all

consider adopting the ceasefire resolution.

As Michael had read in the resolution in the beginning of the forum, is that all it's calling for is to stop the bombardment and assault on the Gaza Strip, right?

So we want to urge our politicians to stop supporting Israel through unconditional means of supplying military aid.

What all that does is when we give them a blank check where the Senate this morning passed a $93 billion taxpayer-funded bill to go to Ukraine and Israel in military aid and in other ways without any conditions is dangerous.

It's absolutely dangerous.

Excuse me, essentially I just want to ask you as the council members to reconsider adopting the resolution and continue to work with us to work with the residents to come to language that I would personally we don't think it's divisive but we can still continue to have that conversation.

We can continue to meet and we can continue to amend.

Most of Gaza is flattened.

Cities, buildings, neighborhoods, hospitals, schools.

There are 1.5 million Gazans who have been forced by bombardment and by Israel's calling of safe passages into the southern Gaza Strip into Arafa.

Arafa is about 25 square kilometers, I believe.

Harrisonburg is 17 square miles.

So imagine a 260,000 population that's a resident of Ruffa and 1.5 million other refugees who are living in tents, not the nice Coleman tents that we go camping in.

They're made of tarps, they're made of blankets, they're made of sheets.

And now Ruffa is being bombed.

and as you guys know, the President of the United States and other nations have called on Israel to reconsider to not do a ground invasion in Rafa, right?

Because that could be absolutely, it's a scary because those people are defenseless.

They're not doing surgical precision targeting of Hamas.

They're doing indiscriminate targeting of buildings, of schools.

We've seen that.

It's undeniable at this point.

So everybody that was very emotional, I want to make you guys just rest short that it's not a personal

It's nothing personal.

People are just speaking out of high-end emotions.

Even me right now, my voice is trembling because it's just an emotional time.

It's high-end that people's lives and families that live in Harrisonburg are affected, both Palestinian, both Israeli.

So that's the sooner we can call for ceasefire, the sooner everybody in Israel, Palestine, and the world.

can be at peace.

Peace is a way to go forward, but peace is not through violence and war.

It's through actually negotiation, opening up aid, working together, living in harmony.

I hope you guys don't necessarily feel

attack with a lot of the strong words, but strong words come from heightened places of emotion in these critical times.

Hello, my name is Danielle Alvaldez Alvarez and I live at 11A South Avenue and I'm a nursing student at Eastern Minute University.

I didn't plan on speaking to you today, I kind of have a fear of public speaking so I'm sorry if I stutter, but I had a point that needed to be made.

I want you to look around at all these young faces.

These are your future generation and we are being radicalized by the most

documented genocide in modern history.

We are seeing bodies lining the streets.

We are seeing surgeries happening without anesthesia.

We are seeing fathers carrying their decapitated infants in plastic bags.

We are also seeing Arabic-speaking children begging for their lives in English, in the language that they don't speak.

How sad is that?

That's all that I can think about.

I just want you to remember that this is the first election that I and many of my friends will be participating in and we will not forget this.

Good evening.

My name is Joseline Martinez.

I live at 1073 Lois Lane.

I am a third year student at James Madison University and a student of political science.

I don't think I have anything new to add to the conversation, but I did want to speak and I was very inspired by the people that joined us in this room.

Going back to just this Sunday, I got to spend four hours with my friends watching a sports game.

and then get home and find out that the Israeli government bombed a safe space, a supposed safe space with thousands, millions of Palestinians while everyone was distracted and I couldn't sleep.

and I couldn't make it to work yesterday and I could barely make it to class because I'm angry.

We're all angry and we're all sad and, as was mentioned before, the emotion is not being displayed right now and politics should be emotional.

If you're not angry, why are you not angry?

What are we not seeing?

What are we not sitting in together?

Because I'm seeing everything and we're all seeing everything.

And we're also seeing, I wasn't here at the council meeting where

it was said that this resolution is solely symbolic and that this is that this city doesn't matter in foreign affairs and I don't believe that to be true however if we are talking symbols I sit here and I look and I'm sure that some of you are members or have been members of organizations that hold many symbols and many ideals and if you're not angry if you're not sad and you're not upset

Which one of your ideals is this not hitting?

Why can't we pass this resolution?

Are you not here to be an advocate for your community?

Are you not here to serve the community?

As a community, sits here before you and it's not the first time that the community has sat here before you and told you that this is what we need to see.

That this little town matters.

Hello everyone.

My name is Sheikh Khaldaf.

60 East Hampton Court, Harrisonburg, Virginia, 221.

I came first time in this room and I have no any clue that what I have to say but I will just express my impressions.

More than 28,000 people

Palestinians are killed out of them more than 11,000 to 12,000 innocent children from the one day older than the 12 years old.

What they have the fault?

I have the question, what they have a fault?

Why they are killing?

Why does a 6 month child is killing in Gaza?

We have to take the action.

Please take the action.

Go for this.

Right now we are living in a United State.

I am also the citizen of the United States.

We are thinking that we are one of the superpowers in the world.

No doubt.

There is no doubt.

We are the superpowers of the world.

No one can beat it.

But, just keep in mind, God has his own decency.

Go for the history of the world.

Go for the 5000 years before.

There was a superpowers, great superpowers which they were saying that, oh, nobody can conquer us.

Nobody can ruin us.

They do it a lot of, they never say go for the good.

I mean, I am sorry my English is not good, I don't have a proper words.

When they started injustice, when they were not standing with the right people, God ruined them.

Go for the history read.

Be afraid for that day when this superpower may be somebody come if we are not going for the people who are in trouble we are not raising our voice God will ask us and maybe we have to afraid the day on that day when the God send somebody for this superpower please do something for the innocent people

Do something for the innocent people

Take a one bottle, take a little drop of blood from Muslim, take the little blood of Christian, take the little blood of Hindus, take the little blood of Jews in one bottle, shake only just one time, the color will be the same.

The color will be the same.

Over there, everywhere on the

On the floor everywhere there is a blood, there is a blood, that is a red blood.

Please do something.

Only we can say or we can request.

You guys are in Harrisonburg, one of the very respectable persons.

People elected you.

So listen for the people.

Hi, I'm Rosie.

I just don't know why people have to suffer for something they can't even do.

They have to be killed for something that they're not in charge of.

Innocent children are being slipped by the throat for nothing that they are in control of.

My name is Virginia Haverty.

I live at 458 West Wolf Street.

Thank you for holding this space for us today.

I've never been to a city hall meeting before.

So far I've only been to, I've lived in Harrisonburg for almost two years.

I grew up in Central West Virginia.

And I've only ever been to the school board meetings because for a year I was a special education instructional assistant at Waterman Elementary.

and all this to say that I'm just here to reflect what we've all heard today.

We saw, we had youth come up and speak, people that, what is it about 10 o'clock tonight?

They should be in bed, get ready to go to school tomorrow.