The 812

We've talked a lot on The 812 about the development of land. Today we talk about land that's undeveloped, undevelopable, or will never be developed. Our guest is the executive director of the Sycamore Land Trust, John Lawrence. He oversees the preservation of thousands of acres of land throughout southern Indiana, from Sycamore's headquarters in the house on the edge of Bloomington that was the home of a principal architect of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. It's a fascinating conversation about the setting aside of land as nature. 

Instead of a Last Pitch today, we have a First Pitch...about how the "honor" of serving as an elected official isn't enough to justify low or no pay.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

Today we talk housing with the new director of the city's Housing and Neighborhood Development department, Anna Killion-Hansen. The breadth of what her department does is kind of mind-boggling: it's not just inspecting rentals or working with neighborhood associations; it's also handling federal dollars, historic preservation, housing quality appeals, the Redevelopment Commission, and more. She does a good job of laying out her dizzying array of duties, and giving us a sense of the state of housing in Bloomington and the future directions she wants to take it.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

The812 looks into a type of local government separate from city and county that it has yet to talk about: local schools as a separate branch of government. We get our first look through a nonprofit that tries to help the schools -- Teachers' Warehouse, the local nonprofit which raises money and donations to provide school supplies to teachers in public schools in six counties.  Sara Laughlin is a board member and regular volunteer there (and also the retired director of the Monroe County Public Library system). She talks about how the Warehouse works, how it was formed as a project of one of the local Rotary Clubs where she's a member, and its role in the context of school poverty and the recent MCCSC tax referendum. 

Our Last Pitch today is a fastball about...skywalking. (Our promised interview with Anna Killion-Hansen of HAND has been postponed to Wednesday.)

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

One of the three seats on the Monroe County Board of Commissioners is contested this fall. Today, our guest is the Republican candidate, Joe Van Deventer. He's the director of street operations for the city of Bloomington's Public Works Department. We get his perspective on all the local issues, including housing, the jail, zoning, the unhoused. He also advocates for taking advantage of the newly-complete I-69's presence as an incentive to bring blue-collar jobs into the county. (The Democratic candidate for the District 3 seat, Jody Madeira, was our guest on Monday.)

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

It's 40 years since Bloomington became a so-called Tree City. We talk about what that means with our guests: Haskell Smith, the city's Urban Forester, and George Hegeman, an inaugural member of the Bloomington Tree Commission, which has been in existence since 1992. We talk about the importance of trees and shade, invasive species and how they're dealt with, how utilities and the city interact when it comes to trees in the right of way, and, if you're lucky enough to own a house, how to get the city to give you a tree.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

Today, we talk with the first of the two candidates vying for the marquee local race this cycle: Jody Madeira, the Democratic nominee. She's an IU law professor in her first political run, up against Joe Van Deventer, the director of the city of Bloomington's street division. (We've invited him and he's agreed to appear on the show; we look forward to publishing that show soon.)

We talk with Jody Madeira about her reasons for running, what she brings to the table, and how she would govern the county, particularly with respect to how land should be used...or not.

The Last Pitch we throw out today is about a teeny tiny little pet peeve for this former elected official: a misunderstanding of procedure embodied in a single word that unnecessarily makes local government more opaque.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

This is the second of two episodes released today (note: we strongly recommend listening to the previous episode first), part of our conversation with NPR's Eric Deggans, an alum of the IU School of Journalism, back in Bloomington to speak at its successor, the Media School. 

Among other topics, Eric Deggans talks about the reasons he went from music to television criticism; Bloomington's neighborhoods -- and its vibrant music scene -- in the eighties; and the racial dynamics of being a mostly-Black band while playing throughout Indiana back then. (Host Steve Volan even asks for pointers on interviewing from a top-notch interviewer and instructor, and gets the advice he hoped for.)

PS: Our second big news today: our homepage now has a working button called "Donate"! If you like the work we're doing at The812, we hope you'll consider becoming a financial supporter. See more today at the812show.org.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

Eric Deggans is the TV critic for National Public Radio, as well as a media analyst, and guest host. Before NPR, he was by turns a TV/media critic, music critic and reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, the Asbury Park Press, the Pittsburgh Press and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He's the author of the book, "Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation," published by St. Martin's Press.

A 2024 inductee into Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, he's also an adjunct instructor at both Duke and Indiana, where he got his degree in journalism in 1990. During his recent visit to teach a seminar at IU's Media School, we spoke about the modern media landscape, as well as his multifaceted career -- undeniably rooted in his seven years in Bloomington, where he lived on campus and off. Along with his journalism studies, he worked at the Indiana Daily Student while being a drummer in a band that got signed to Motown Records. 

This is the first of two episodes released today; the second one is Part 2 of this wide-ranging conversation.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

The Reverend Bill Breeden is perhaps most famous for a protest in 1987, when he stole a street sign in his nearby hometown of Odon, Indiana. It was named for John Poindexter, the admiral convicted of multiple felonies in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration. But that affair was the tip of the iceberg for this minister emeritus of the Bloomington Unitarian Church, who's had a long career as a peace activist. We talk about how anti-war protests, and the policing of them, have changed in Bloomington since the 1980s, and catch up with his more recent work as an opponent of the federal death penalty. 

In our Last Pitch today, we ask: consider the ostrich and its plumage. How would the city work if we applied...strategic ostrich thinking? 

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.

Our guest today is Trohn Enright-Randolph, Monroe County Surveyor. He explains how his work is crucial to everything regarding the use and ownership of land in Monroe County -- if you don't know where the property lines are, well, it's pretty much chaos. Besides measuring those, though, he's involved in drainage and stormwater management, and is an integral part of county planning. He also talks about his advocacy for trails and connecting them to regional and statewide trail networks. Why is this an elected job? Ask the Indiana Constitution -- it's been called for in that document for 175 years. He'll tell us more about that too.

In today's Last Pitch: the definitive argument for why Bloomington needs to keep building more housing -- just look at IU's enrollment numbers. The latest ones are out, and they show a clear pattern.

The 812 is a production of Plateia Media ©2024. All rights reserved.