The 812

People on campuses across the country are wondering what the fate of equity efforts will be in these charged political times, and IU's is no exception. One organization asking existential questions is Students for Equity in Public Affairs (SEPA), an organization founded and run by students in the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. We talk with two of its representatives, Zsofia Leary and David Orth, about IU SEPA's effort to address the cultural climate at O'Neill through advocacy and action, in the context of the coming disdain for equity at the national level.

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

Until not too long ago, Danny Weddle was a builder of bespoke tiny homes. That got him interested in building affordable homes more cost-effectively. Now the co-founder and chief design officer of Terran Robotics, his company is building walls out of earth from the construction site... using 3-D printers, as though subsoil were just so much 3-D filament... which are run by robots run by AI — which Terran is  also inventing. 

He explains the process and the technology, which aims to reduce labor costs and make housing construction faster and more affordable. The first house built using this method is nearing completion right here in Bloomington; they have plans to build more houses starting in March. Weddle talks about the challenges of building such homes within existing local building codes, and the potential for scaling up the technology to build thousands of homes annually. 

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

Middle Way House is the nonprofit that supports survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault through shelter, protection, counseling, permanent housing, and more. It is still a big agency to be sure, and addressing a distressingly great need. Executive Director Carrie Stillions gives us the virtual tour of Middle Way and all it does, and talks frankly about their budget plans with sources of funding drying up, and times growing more uncertain.

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

Monroe County still has precinct voting. On Election Day, you go to a particular polling place based on what precinct you live in. But there's a new idea out there: voting centers, which allow you to vote at any polling place regardless of where you live.

In mid-2023, Monroe County's Election Board created a nine-member committee to study whether it would be a good idea for its residents to vote at vote centers, rather than at assigned precinct polling places. The committee began meeting at the beginning of this year and will wrap up its work in January.

Two members of the Vote Center Study Committee join us: Debora (Ralf) Shaw is a representative from the League of Women Voters, and Ami Gandhi remotely leads the Midwest Voting Rights Program, a function of Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. They'll tell us all about vote centers, the Committee's work and some of the conclusions it's come to. (Note: Host Steve Volan is also a member of the Vote Center Study Committee.)

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

On the B-Line Trail downtown, there's a bust of Kathryn Janeway, captain of the USS Voyager, from the Star Trek series of the same name. How it got there is our subject today.  Our guests are Peter Kaczmarczyk and Lee Lawmaster, former presidents and members still of the Janeway Collective, the organization that fundraised for, designed and installed a statue dedicated to the fictional captain on Star Trek: Voyager in 2020. The Collective then brought the actor who played her, Kate Mulgrew, to town for a post-pandemic ceremony two years later. Kaczmarczyk and Lawmaster talk about the challenges of such a project on today's episode, the journey of a one-off public arts project from concept to execution, and a case study on working with your local government.

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

The city's efforts to cultivate entrepreneurship is embodied in the buildings that were auxiliary to the Showers Brothers Furniture Factory, a third of which famously became Bloomington's city hall in the mid-90s, and another third of which was acquired from IU by the county and is now the Monroe County Government Center. Several smaller brick buildings have been preserved and remade into workplaces for 21st-century new businesses, which more often than not are information technology-related. That area, dubbed The Trades District by the city, lies between 10th and 11th, Rogers and Morton Streets. 

The Dimension Mill,  with the same sawtooth roofline, is now a cowork space and the state's biggest tech incubator. We talk today with Pat East, executive director of The Mill, as well as senior vice president John Fernandez, who also happens to be a former two-term mayor of Bloomington. (We'll invite him back sometime to talk about his administration, which was the first to occupy the new Showers Building City Hall in 1996.) The Mill was the first of several buildings to be renovated or built in the Trades District, now runs the District on behalf of the city. We'll talk about the Kiln, the Showers Administration Building, the Forge, which is being built right now across from the Mill, and what's planned for the rest of the Trades District.

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

The last time Courtney Daily was on the show, in February, she was a candidate for city council. She won the District 5 seat in a Democratic party caucus; after 9 months, we're asking the most junior member of council what it's been like. We talk about the drama of that caucus, what's surprised her about being an elected official, and some of the issues that have recently been brought before the Council. 

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

We're going into the belly of the development beast on today's show, with someone who's been involved in every aspect of the life cycle of a building: Mark Figg, a developer who's also done property management and appraisal. A local resident born and raised in Monroe County, he's built several multi-family apartment projects here, starting with the building many non-student residents of Bloomington love to hate: the Avenue on College, known initially as Smallwood Plaza when he developed it in 2004. Whether you love to see apartment buildings or you loathe them, it's important to understand how such buildings get built; today's guest gives us plenty to think about.

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

It's a downtown transportation infrastructure update with Hank Duncan, the city's bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. We get the skinny on all the bumpouts being installed on downtown street corners, the future of Indiana Avenue, where the city is with studying updates to College and Walnut Streets, and more.

Also...don't forget to vote before 6pm tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5th!

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

The county's elected prosecuting attorney now in her second term, Erika Oliphant explains to The 812 the role of her office and the different programs it manages. We talk about the multiyear study her office is conducting into racial and ethnic disparities in the county justice system as a result of her office's actions, and what they're doing about it. We also discuss the county jail, particularly its population and the effect of programs like pretrial release on it.

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