The staff have had a hectic day of helping to clean up the mess and move much of the inventory out of harm’s way.  Even so, the shop is still open.  (Although customers should understandably pardon the mess.)

Belle, a Ragtime employee, said she was impressed with the response from the Harrisonburg Fire Department.  The HFD cleaned up much of the damage – even vacuuming up water – and, according to Belle, “made a bad situation kind of sweet.”

The staff expects the store to be dried out and back to some semblance of normal in about four to six days.  There are more photos and updates on the Ragtime facebook page.

Photo taken by and used with permission from Ragtime Fabrics.

T&E now processes meat for more than 100 farms, up from just a handful before the sale. The number of animals he slaughters has shot up 70 percent — during the worst recession since the 1930s.

Cloud sells local beef, pork, lamb and poultry out of T&E Meats’ store, but unlike Blue Ridge, he can’t make the business work without buying some beef from the Midwest and pigs from Pennsylvania. He can’t get enough locally, nor can he sell it at a price his longtime customers are used to paying.

“For 40 years it was the cheapest place in town,” says Salatin. “Now we’re trying to make it the best.”

Lohr, 38, was elected to his third term last November. McDonnell will set a special election to fill his seat in the Republican-leaning district when Lohr resigns. He will start his new job May 1. (WaPo blog).

Kate Queram reports in today’s Daily News Record:

According to [Harrisonburg City Public Schools Superintendent Don] Ford, cuts to the city school division are likely to top out at around $1.5 million, for a total budget of about $53.7 million.

That means that instead of cutting 38 full-time positions – the division’s worst-case scenario – the Harrisonburg School Board may have to cut just one.

The story also reports projected cuts to the Rockingham County School Budget around $3.5 million.

The two-year budget cuts $645 from public schools systems statewide.

But the long-term budget and revenue challenges (beyond 2012) remain unresolved. A column in today’s PilotOnline points out:

The spending plan they crafted pushes many pressing obligations into future years, and it dumps still more state responsibilities onto local governments struggling with their own revenue losses. The final product may keep Virginia afloat for a few months, but it can’t make the state seaworthy over the long term.

Another Dave, also a JMU alum with ties to the Valley, heads the Republican Party of Virginia. In late December, Dave Rexrode was named executive director of the RPV.

The bull was loose for about an hour and acted aggressively to officers and bystanders, said Public Information officer Mary-Hope Vass of the Harrisonburg Police Department. Officers shot the animal after instruction by its owners.

Harrisonburg police Sgt. R. Pollard told the Daily News-Record the bull was foaming at the mouth and appeared to be “in a deranged state” and that its owners told police to kill the animal when it was cornered in a backyard.

No humans were injured in the incident.

Vass said animals used to escape more frequently from in-town livestock sales, but after pressure from the city to improve security on holding pens, escapes are much less frequent.

Rockingham Livestock Sales could not be reached for comment.

Saslaw cited the example of a Harrisonburg man who took out a $1,500 car title loan, paid $380 per month for about a year, and after paying more than $4,700 he still owed the $1,500 principle. (New York Times)

In 2007, a case involving the Harrisonburg LoanMax was featured in Newsweek.

In 2006, Del. Matt Lohr received a $2000 campaign contribution from LoanMax. Lohr voted for Saslaw’s bill earlier this week.

The new owner, Lauren Berry is no stranger to downtown. “I’ve been bartending since I graduated from JMU in 2003, and the long hours and late nights were starting to wear on me,” she wrote in an email. “I was ready to do something different, and being a small business owner was something that I’ve been interested in for awhile. The right opportunity just hadn’t presented itself until now.”

She doesn’t expect much to change when they reopen. “Most of my time will be spent learning how the business operates, regaining the customer base, and getting a feel for what sells in the store, what doesn’t, and what customers are interested in seeing that wasn’t offered before. I’m looking into adding some fresh local produce at some point.”

Lauren hopes to have the door unlocked by April, but the exact date depends on licenses and other paperwork.

“I’ve heard anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, but I’m really hoping to be able to reopen by the end of the month. I know it’s going to be a lot of hours of work, but [previous owners] Dave and Tim have offered any help and advice they can give me in reopening. We all want the reopening to be as smooth and fast as possible. I’m lucky to have them behind me, supporting me.”

“The American people have not responded well to this, and we have received thousands and thousands of e-mail and letters,” [Goodlatte] said. “And the overwhelming majority say push the reset button and that’s what we said when we went to the (Feb. 25 health care) summit.” (Staunton News Leader)

His remarks to the Waynesboro Kiwanis Club today were consistent with statements of opposition the congressman has made about health care reform in the past.

Considering Goodlatte has been in office since 1993, Obama’s recent remarks about congressional obstructionism to his health care plan seem to be tailored for longtime Republican incumbents like Goodlatte (who is now serving his ninth term).

Obama: “I got all my Republican colleagues out there saying ‘No, no, no, we want to focus on things like costs.’ You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?” (TPM)

Going back as far as 1992, when Goodlatte was the “candidate for change” during his first run for congressional office, “Democrat Steve Musselwhite and Republican Bob Goodlatte sparred over how best to extend health care coverage to the estimated 40 million Americans without health insurance” (today that number is closer to 47 million).

Goodlatte said his plans would turn poor Americans into health care consumers and give them more options; Musselwhite contended Goodlatte’s policies would only help the middle-class and wealthy . . .

Goodlatte also repeated his call for a system of tax credits and vouchers. Under the plan, devised by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., the federal government would send a poor recipient a voucher, which could then be spent on health care. (Roanoke Times, September 15, 1992)

That was then, this is now, but not a whole lot has changed. Sweeping health care reform and major coverage expansion has failed in Washington since the Truman administration. Will 2010 be any different? Should it be?