When Rosetta Stone bought the old city police headquarters last year, the company anticipated creating 100 new jobs in five years as part of an expansion.

Fortunately for local job seekers — and counterintuitively, given the dismal economic outlook — the figure didn’t paint a complete future employment picture.

“We’re actually expanding even further,” said Melissa Yates May, director of human resources for the language-learning software company.

Rosetta Stone, founded in Harrisonburg in 1992, wants to fill more than 100 positions this year in addition to the 100 expected during the five-year period.

The company held a recruiting fair March 3 at the renovated building that once housed the Harrisonburg Police Department. The property, located at 181 S. Liberty St., also is known as the Valley Creamery, in reference to a business once located there. Rosetta Stone bought the facility for $300,000 in January 2009, and renovations were complete within a few months, May said.

The firm, which has its corporate headquarters in Arlington, employs nearly 440 people in Harrisonburg. More than 100 prospective employees attended the March 3 appointment-only job fair, which was the first this year. The company plans to have more fairs throughout 2010 as it builds a new department, but additional dates have not been set.

Development in dispute
The Hine Group, developer of the Preston Lake project in Harrisonburg, entered a legal battle with its lender, Wachovia Bank, in Rockingham County Circuit Court on Dec. 11 for breaking loan contracts and seeks $32.4 million dollars to replace lost profit. Wachovia filed a counterclaim on Dec. 29 for outstanding debt. Though the project began in December 2006 and was scheduled to be ready by August 2008, the community on the intersection of U.S. 33 and Massanetta Springs Road is still a work in progress. It is estimated that the project is between a year and 18 months behind schedule.

“We are naturally very disappointed that, despite our dedication and best efforts, our project has encountered such rough waters,” said Richard Hine, president of the Hine Group, in a prepared statement.

The claim states that Wachovia became unstable after losing $350 million dollars in April 2008 and that the bank’s control increased in the project after merging with Wells Fargo on Dec. 31, 2008.

In a letter to a Wachovia agent in February 2009, Hine wrote “my credit and reputation are being destroyed.” He said association with Wachovia was tainting his project because the bank’s name was required to appear on signs pertaining to the project. Preston Lake says it was not allowed to collect proceedings and gain overhead allowance on 19 closings. The lawsuit argues that Wachovia misled Preston Lake so that it could “continue to develop and market real estate for the exclusive benefit of the bank.”

Local animal shelters vie for funds
Cate Mansfield, executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Spay/Neuter Clinic, said the local SPCA isn’t doing enough to save animals and is proposing to build its own shelter on North Liberty Street. Recent statistics from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have determined the Rockingham-Harrisonburg SPCA had the highest death rate among 16 nonprofit shelters in Virginia in 2008. The executive director of the Rockingham-Harrisonburg SPCA, Anne Anderson, did not respond. The Citizens for Animal Welfare group, of which Mansfield is president, is endorsing the proposal.

The SPCA receives $215,255 from the city and $200,000 from the county during the fiscal year, which includes money to pay debt owed on the building. Mansfield said the Spay/Neuter Clinic has asked for similar amounts of funding in its request. City Manger Kurt Hodgen is not likely to fund both groups given budget cuts, said Miriam Dickler, Harrisonburg’s public information officer, meaning taxpayers would not be paying extra money. County Administrator Joe Paxton said he would examine the situation when he receives information from the state about the budget.

Since cities and counties in Virginia are legally required to have an animal shelter, Mansfield said it is possible that different shelters would be supported by the City Council and Board of Supervisors.

If approved for funding, the Spay/Neuter Clinic would open an approximately 5,500-square-foot shelter on Jan. 1, 2011. The shelter would be “open admission,” meaning it would not turn away animals in need. The difference is that animals are only euthanized if they are too sick to be treated or too aggressive to adopt, said Mansfield. Anderson told the Daily News-Record in January that of the 566 dogs and 1,980 cats euthanized in 2009, most were not adoptable because of health or behavioral issues.