The 812

"Economic development." What does that phrase mean , anyway? Is that, like, bringing factories to town? Don't we already have enough of an economy here? Today, you'll learn the spin that our fair city puts on this generic, if not clichéd, phrase. Our guest is Jane Kupersmith, the director of the city's Economic and Sustainable Development department. She'll walk us th...

In the first half of today's show, we look back at recent conversations we had with former corporation counsel Beth Cate and former director of planning & transportation Scott Robinson, both of whose tenures ended with Mayor Hamilton's administration on January 1, but whose perspectives are fresh enough for early 2024. In the second half, Gloria Howell, talks about being chair of the...

How did the place where you are right now get built? Who built your home? When was it built, and why was it built in the size and shape that it is? Every place in Bloomington was developed...even that park you may be standing in the middle of, if that's where you happen to be listening to this. People can't just build willy-nilly any more...they have to follow certain rules the community...

Our guest is Kate Rosenbarger, the reelected member now serving the newly-redrawn District 2, which represents the northwest portion of the city including much of the downtown. She talks about her priorities for the term, her biggest focus being on transportation.  Happy Leap Day! The Lineup today (in the absence of meetings scheduled for City Hall) is a preview of Eclipse Day, April 8, and the fa...

The city has dozens of boards and commissions, to contemplate big local issues and recommend or take action on them. What's it like to be on one...what's it like to chair one? Our guest is Dr. Gloria Howell. We learn about what the Dr. Martin Luthe King Jr. Birthday Celebration Commission does -- and it's more than just hosting the annual event in its name -- and what a city commiss...

Our guest today is Beth Cate. She was the Corporation Counsel for the City of Bloomington for the last two years of the Hamilton administration. She'll describe the nature of the job as the city's lead lawyer and, yes, counselor to the administration, and anticipate some issues that might face cities like ours in the near future.  Support the show A production of Plateia Media ©2024-5. A...

In this week's digest episode, we look back at  talks with Andy Ruff, the at large CM starting his sixth term on Council, amd Doug Bruce of the newly-formed CIB about the Convention Center. To start, though, we'll hear back from our interview with Matt Austin of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability, about what the word "sustainability" means in theory and in practice. S...

The show's host becomes the guest today. This episode is an excerpt from a public talk Steve Volan gave last October at the Collins Living-Learning Center in Bloomington. It was based on his Geography master's thesis called Gownsburg: The Campus as a Municipal Phenomenon . His theory in Gownsburg is that university campuses have all the traits of towns, yet are more like spooky replicas...

Our guest today is Doug Bruce. He's the owner of Tabor/Bruce Architects. He's also a member of the newly-formed Capital Improvements Board, the joint city-county entity created to take responsibility for the County Convention Center and its management. The CIB's first meeting was Oct. 4. Steve Volan asks Bruce to comment on the present and speculate on the future of the Convention C...

Our guest is Matt Austin, a member of the Bloomington Commission on Sustainability ("BCOS", pronounced "bee-koss"). We talk about BCOS, compare it to the Environmental Commission, and talk about what BCOS is working on, including a composting program in the wake of the closing of EarthKeepers' composting program, and rethinking the chicken ordinance to allow people to keep...

On today's show, we catch up with Andy Ruff, one of three at-large members of the city council and, even though he was off last term, is the Council's most senior member, first elected in 1999. In our interview he looks both forward to his return to Council and the goals he has for it, as well as backward to his first term, and to life as a townie.  Ruff is also a country musician in the...

On this edition of The 812 Digest, we revisit conversations with: Andrew Krebbs and Martha Whitmill of the Monroe County Humane Association, about it and other nonprofits help care for the local animal population; Brad Wisler, president of the city Plan Commission, talking about the Commission's work and the advent of the Summit District project, the largest proposal in the city's histor...

What happens when an elected official leaves office early? In many states, they hold a special election a few months later. Not in Indiana, though. In Indiana, the party whose candidate won the seat in an election holds a partisan caucus to elect someone new.   Our guest, David Henry, the chair of the Monroe County Democratic Party, has had to call for no fewer than four caucuses in the past year...

Brad Wisler is the president of the Bloomington Plan Commission, now in his tenth year serving on that body. He also served as a member of the City Council for then-district 2, from 2005 through 2011. In today's show, Steve Volan (his former City Council colleague) asks him to unpack the complex process that anyone who wants to build a building in Bloomington must navigate. They also spell ou...

The 812 Primer is designed to give you the background you need to fully enjoy the show. In Primer Lesson 1, we described Bloomington's "second-class" city status. In today's Lesson 2, we enumerate the various departments of the city overseen by its chief executive, the Mayor, and briefly describe what they do. The Lineup segment is pretty substantive today, because on this Vale...

We talk with Andrew Krebbs, the executive director, and Martha Whitmill, the development director, of the Monroe County Humane Association. We'll learn a little about MCHA's  long history, and more about what they, the city of Bloomington, and other organizations do and don't do for the sake of animal welfare in the Bloomington area.  Support the show A production of Plateia Media ©...

In this episode of The 812 Digest, we'll hear: new councilmember Hopi Stosberg address an issue in her newly-drawn District 3: the ongoing assessment of the design College Avenue and Walnut Street called for in the city's Comprehensive Plan; Gabe Gloden talk about forming a super-organization to save not only the missions of three performing-arts organizations, but the city-owned venue t...

Courtney Daily is the state co-lead for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and chaired the Bloomington chapter for 3 years before that. She's also the second of three candidates for the District 5 seat who we've interviewed, along with Jason Moore. We've also invited Jenny Stevens to interview. Daily talks about her work with Moms Demand Action, her motives for running for...

Our guest today is Gabe Gloden, the managing director of Constellation Stage and Screen, the performing-arts superpower formed in 2022 out of three well-regarded organizations: Cardinal Stage, the Bloomington Playwrights' Project, and the Pigasus Institute which hosted the Bloomington Academy of Film and Theatre. A major reason for their Wonder-Triplet-power team-up was to take over ownership...

Our guest today is Hopi Stosberg, the latest in our series of interviews with members of the new city council. She represents the newly-drawn District 3, the northeast quadrant of the city. She talks about her priorities for the coming term, and explains why in her campaign last year she emphasized her experience with and the importance of local schools, even though they're overseen by a diff...

Kindness in the public realm, as it turns out, takes a lot of work to nurture. Today, we interview what you could call the city's chief kindness officer: Beverly Calender-Anderson, director of the city of Bloomington's Community and Family Resources Department. She's held the job for nine years and was the city's Safe and Civil City Director for nine years before that. She&apos...

We revisit interviews with the Rev. Forrest Gilmore, executive director of Beacon, Inc., about the challenge of fighting misconceptions and bias against people in extreme poverty; Laurence "Buff" Brown, who influenced changes in city transportation policy by bringing in the experts; and the new District 6 city councilmember Sydney Zulich, who talks about what her newly-drawn constituency...

Our guest is Sydney Zulich. She got her bachelor's degree after only three years at IU. At 21, she became the youngest-ever member of the Bloomington City Council last month, and (at least through next week when Councilmember Shruti Rana steps down after a very short tenure to take a job in another state) is a member of the first majority-female council in city history.  Zulich replaced Steve...

We're taking a break today to retool. Instead of our usual full-length interview, we're starting an occasional segment called The Primer. We don't want to assume that you have all the background you need to fully enjoy the show. The Primer is designed to give you that background. In Primer lesson one, you'll get background on what exactly it means for Bloomington to be a "...

Our guest, Lawrence "Buff" Brown, has been a transportation planner for 20 years, working with INDOT, IDEM, the Columbus, Indiana, MPO, and cities on the west coast.  Buff's childhood experiences in Bloomington included being able to bike freely around town, which instilled in him a profound appreciation for accessible urban spaces. In the nineties this led him to involvement in tra...