Best Steve Volan / Plateia Media Podcasts (2025)

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192 [S3E39]: Amy Oelsner, Founder and DIrector of Girls Rock Bloomington 35:46

24h ago35:46

35:46

We speak with Amy Oelsner, the founder and director of Girls Rock Bloomington, which teaches girls from ages 8 to 14 all the elements of a rock and roll band. Girls Rock has been the beneficiary of grants from the city Arts Commission as well as from the Monroe County Council's Sophia Travis Fund. Oelsner is also a musical artist in her own right, …

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191 [S3E38]: Mia Beach and Hannah Airriess of Redbud Books, A New Third Place in Bloomington 36:14

3d ago36:14

36:14

We've been highlighting some of the programs of the Center for Sustainable Living, an organization that acts as an umbrella for nonprofit ideas that might be too small to be their own 501(c)(3). One of the constituent organizations in the CSL incubator is Redbud Books, which opened just over a year ago at 408 W. Kirkwood. A one-room bookstore entir…

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190 [S3E37]: The 50-Year Tradition of Public Access TV in Bloomington, with CATS GM Martin O'Neill 35:29

5d ago35:29

35:29

Community Access Television Services is the television station in the Monroe County Public Library. For 50 years, CATS (formerly known as Bloomington Community Access Television, or BCAT) has provided access to channels over cable and the Internet for public meetings and then some, and has provided access to equipment and studio space for the publi…

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189 [S3E36]: About the Bloomington Fire Department, with Prevention Officer Tom Figolah 36:03

8d ago36:03

36:03

It's The 812's first look at one of the most basic local services, the fire department. Our guest, Tom Figolah, is the Department's Fire Prevention Officer, and his title reflects a trend that may not be self-evident to people who are used to fire departments being just about putting out fires. That's reactive; better is to anticipate potential fir…

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188 [S3E35]: MDWST FABLE and the Power of a Grant from the Arts Commission 35:56

10d ago35:56

35:56

Today's show is a case study in Bloomington's arts economy. Our guests are the founders of MDWST FABLE, a series of performing-arts shows that involve other artists in the Bloomington area, largely centered around storytelling. Tristra Newyear and Matt Rice, both of whom work for local creative media companies and who are creatives in their own rig…

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187 [S3E34]: GIS Coordinator John Baeten, on the Mapping of Monroe County 36:14

12d ago36:14

36:14

John Baeten came to town as a visiting assistant professor in IU's geography department, where he spent time doing, among other things, a reconstruction of maps of Bloomington from the past. That led to his current post as the GIS Coordinator for Monroe County. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, of which there are many at the county. In…

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186 [S3E33] Getting to Know Bloomington's Sibling City with Vicki Veenker, Vice Mayor of Palo Alto 37:53

23d ago37:53

37:53

So you may know that Bloomington has been a sister city to Posoltega, Nicaragua since 1988, and to Santa Clara, Cuba since 1999. Sister Cities International has been pairing cities across national borders for many years now. But Vicki Veenker asked herself: why can't two American cities be sibs? And that's how Bloomington, Indiana became the siblin…

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185 ]S3E31]: Understanding Ellettsville with Its Town Council President Scott Oldham 36:39

25d ago36:39

36:39

In the incorporated place that is Bloomington's primary official suburb, there's no mayor. The part-time town council in Ellettsville is the legislative and executive body -- sort of like the board of commissioners that runs the county -- but they're also the fiscal body. They're everything; in Indiana, only counties and cities have separation of p…

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184 [S3E31]: "Big Mike" Glab Makes Big Talk about Bloomington (and Chicagoland) 39:01

27d ago39:01

39:01

Today is a Work Session, an interview with a member of local media where we talk about the city and local issues of the day. Michael "Big Mike" Glab is a former reporter for the Chicago Reader who's covered every kind of news, hard and soft. After 50 years in the Windy City, he eventually found himself in Limestone Country, where he became the host…

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183 [S3E30]: Tackling Problemas with the City Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs 39:57

30d ago39:57

39:57

The 812 converts to "El Ocho Doce" for the day, to welcome representatives from the Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs, which "works to identify and research the issues which impact those populations in Bloomington, especially in the areas of health, education, public safety and cultural competency." They help break the language barrier that…

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182 [S3E29] All About the Trashion Refashion Runway Show, with Devta Kidd and Stephen Hale 36:37

1M ago36:37

36:37

One person's trash is another's treasure...or so the Trashion Refashion Runway Show tries to demonstrate. The 16th annual event will be presented by Plato's Closet at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre April 13. The virtually all-volunteer event presents and models clothes designed almost entirely from waste, recycled, or upcycled materials. We talk about…

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181 [S3E28]: The Taste of Bloomington Returns, Says Jordan Davis of the Chocolate Moose 37:28

1M ago37:28

37:28

Even before they make the formal announcement later this morning, we have details on the official revival of the Taste of Bloomington, the summer celebration of this city's bustling local restaurant scene that happened for 35 years before the pandemic said we couldn't have nice things. Anyway, the Taste is back -- for at least one year, anyway -- c…

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180 [S3E27]: Andrea "De" de la Rosa on Managing the Bloomington Urban Enterprize Zone 34:43

1M ago34:43

34:43

We talk about the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association. It's run by a city board of directors appointed by mayor and council. The BUEA oversees the city's Urban Enterprise Zone. Businesses and residents of the Zone can benefit tax-wise from the Enterprise Zone's Investment Deduction; revenue from the EZID generates a pot of money in the mid-six…

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179 [S3E26]: How Court-Appointed Special Advocates Go to Bat for Children in Need 37:46

1M ago37:46

37:46

A person who advocates in court for those who can't for themselves is known as a guardian ad litem. But there's an even greater need for children who have suffered abuse and/or neglect and find themselves lost in the justice system. Every state except North Dakota has court-appointed special advocates, or "CASAs" for short. Despite being an integra…

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178 [S3E25]: The Lake Monroe Water Fund: Raising Money to Protect Bloomington's Watershed 39:54

1M ago39:54

39:54

Today we're talking specifically about a topic that could take several episodes to discuss: the primary source of drinking water in metropolitan Bloomington. The reservoir commonly known as Lake Monroe is the largest body of water inside the state of Indiana. It was the state's idea to put a university in the middle of nowhere in 1818, and the city…

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177 [S3E24]: The 812 Work Session with Herald-Times News Director Jill Bond 35:28

2M ago35:28

35:28

We continue our series of Work Sessions — interviews with members of the local media discussing issues involving local government — today with Jill Bond, News Director and Editor of the Bloomington Herald-Times newspaper. We ask about her editing philosophy (which she just gave a TEDxIU talk about). Then we dive into some of the big issues the city…

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176 [S3E23]: Downtown Bloomington Inc. and the 40-Year Revitalization of the City Core 37:38

2M ago37:38

37:38

Forty years ago, Bloomington's downtown was all but over. Half of the land had been cleared for parking lots to compete with auto-centric development at College Mall and other places on the outskirts of the city. A coalition of downtown businesses assembled to try to reverse the trend. As a result, Bloomington is one of the few cities in the state …

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175 [S3E22]: Geoff McKim on the Issues of the Moment in Monroe County 36:39

2M ago36:39

36:39

When friend of the show Geoff McKim was on the show last May, he was in the final year of his four-term, 16-year career as a member of the Monroe County Council. Now in retirement, he rejoins us to discuss issues of the new term, like the development of the new justice complex, and the impact of the recently discovered $3.8 million shortfall in the…

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174 [S3E21]: Sura Gail Tala, on How the Center for Sustainable Living Fosters and Incubates Nonprofits 34:15

2M ago34:15

34:15

Our topic today is the Center for Sustainable Living, a peculiarly Bloomington institution. Since the 1990s, it has been a kind of not-for-profit co-op, foster projects that help the environment or allow people to live more sustainably. Their projects include Discardia which puts on the annual Trashion/Refashion show at the Buskirk Chumley; the Sou…

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173 [S3E20]: Julie Duhon and Erin Loughery of Tandem, on the Birth of a Midwifery Service Provider 39:42

2M ago39:42

39:42

Our guests today are from Tandem, the perinatal and reproductive resource center. Through Jack Hopkins grants, the city of Bloomington helped Tandem launch in Bloomington five years ago, with a certified nurse midwife, who's considered an APRN, an advanced practice registered nurse, in the state of Indiana. They now also offer a postpartum house wi…

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172 [S3E19]: WFHB Community Radio and the Key Piece of City Real Estate That Created an Institution 37:02

2M ago37:02

37:02

In 1991 the city of Bloomington sold the rights to its 1915 City Hall building to nonprofit groups. One group made most of it what you know today as the John Waldron Arts Center. Another group acquired the attached old Fire Station No. 1: with the money it raised they made it the home of Bloomington's community radio station, WFHB, which got its ca…

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171 [S3E18]: Running the County with Commissioner Jody Madeira (D.3) 37:58

2M ago37:58

37:58

It's not just a new era nationally, it's a new one locally. We have the other elected county newbie on our show (besides County Council Member David Henry, who appeared late last year), and that's County Commissioner Jody Madeira. She's taking a swing at all the big local issues of the day -- the new jail, the county health department, the county's…

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170 [S3E17]: The Future of Kirkwood with ESD Director Jane Kupersmith 36:25

2M ago36:25

36:25

Our topic today is Kirkwood Avenue, specifically the five blocks of East Kirkwood between the Courthouse Square and the Sample Gates, which many people consider to be the heart of Bloomington. Since 2020, the city has closed public rights-of-way to benefit local restaurants. Some establishments, mostly around the Square, have rented adjacent metere…

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169 [S3E16]: Growing the Local Arts Landscape with Cicada Cinema 33:51

2M ago33:51

33:51

Cicada Cinema is a volunteer-run organization which calls itself a "pop-up movie theatre". Since 2016 they've been showing around Bloomington underrepresented and what they call "underseen" films, pretty much just for the sake of cinema. The city Arts Commission strategically funded their organization with a grant to show movies in local parks, whi…

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168 [S3E15]: Stewarding Nature with Sycamore Land Trust's Chris Fox 31:26

2M ago31:26

31:26

In September we interviewed the director of the Sycamore Land Trust, John Lawrence, about the idea of a land trust -- a nonprofit that preserves land from development and maintains landscape in its natural state. It also runs an environmental program that connects people to that nature. But somebody has to manage those 144 properties, their more th…

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167 [S3E14]: Promoting Home Ownership with Wendi Goodlett and Lindsey Boswell of Habitat for Humanity 36:55

2M ago36:55

36:55

One of the most high-profile developers in the area is Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, famously builders of affordable housing (and formerly headed by current Mayor Kerry Thomson, who was a guest on this show back in August). We talk with Wendi Goodlett, current President and CEO, and Lindsey Boswell, Development Director, about their proces…

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166 [S3E13]: The 812 Work Session with Jeremy Hogan of The Bloomingtonian 34:30

3M ago34:30

34:30

Today's local-media guest is visual journalist Jeremy Hogan, the co-owner and editor of The Bloomingtonian, the local independent hard-news website which he founded five years ago after being laid off from The Herald-Times, where he was a staff photographer for more than 20 years. We talk with him about how he chooses stories, and some of the bigge…

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165 [S3E12]: Reshading the Tree City with Canopy Bloomington's Ava Hartman and Jon Vickers 36:20

3M ago36:20

36:20

Bloomington is rightly proud of its namesake greenery and its long-standing status as a Tree City. But the growth of the city's built environment over the past several decades has cut its tree population by more than half. This was the impetus for the creation in 2021 of Canopy Bloomington, a nonprofit devoted to getting citizens to understand the …

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164 [S3E11]: The Panoply of Parks & Rec's Programs with Julie Ramey 36:26

3M ago36:26

36:26

There's a reason that the city's Parks & Recreation Department is a two-time winner of the National Recreation and Park Association's prestigious Gold Medal. Their Program Guide is proof of it: 40 pages listing all the programs, special events, sports, fitness, outdoor, garden, and other opportunities open to little kids, seniors and everyone in be…

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163 [S3E10]: The Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington Acquires "By Hand Gallery" ...and Prepares to Re-Brand Itself 34:55

3M ago34:55

34:55

Our guests today are from the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington. It serves as sort of an arts chamber of commerce, representing six types of arts genres -- visual, literary, music, dance, theatre/film, and galleries/venues/festivals. Artists or organizations in each genre have very different needs, but all genres are represented on the Arts Alli…

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162 [S3E09]: Council President Hopi Stosberg on Development, the Budget and More 33:22

3M ago33:22

33:22

Hopi Stosberg returns to The 812 a year later, as the new president of the council in only her sophomore year. We talk about some of her priorities for her leadership year, including changes to the Unified Development Ordinance initiated by Council late last year, including making affordability incentives more practical, and returning Single Room O…

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161 [S3E08]: Laura Blaker, the Sweet and Sour Sauce Behind Lemonade Day Bloomington 38:42

3M ago38:42

38:42

If you mix together your grade school math class, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and life skills into a blender, add lemon, and press "liquefy"...you get Lemonade Day, which encourages kids across the community to set up lemonade stands on a Saturday in June. It's a fun way to learn the basics of business, which can be useful even if a kid d…

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160 [S3E07]: CJAM, Helping Resolve All Kinds of Disputes 36:46

3M ago36:46

36:46

Are you fighting with someone -- a spouse, the city, a landlord, a tenant, even a family member -- and you just can't reconcile with them? At least here in Bloomington, there's a nonprofit devoted exclusively to mediating disputes. It's a nonprofit called the Community Justice and Mediation Center, or CJAM for short. CJAM has helped negotiate resto…

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159 [S3E06] City Boards and Commissions with Deputy Clerk Jennifer Crossley 37:44

3M ago37:44

37:44

Instead of a guest from a city or county board or commission, which we do frequently, today's show is about ALL the city's boards and commissions, and how they get managed. Which, until now, has been haphazardly, by the individual departments that act as their liaisons. The city has created a new position in the Clerk's office just to centrally adm…

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158 [S3E05]: Water Rates and the State of Lake Monroe: Digging In with Holly McLauchlin of CBU 35:44

3M ago35:44

35:44

This week we're inviting back some of our favorite guests with updates from their corners. Today we welcome back Holly McLauchlin to talk about the latest at City of Bloomington Utilities, where she's the Communications Manager. This time we ask about the new wastewater rate and how CBU handles rate increases in general; the health of Lake Monroe, …

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157 [S3E04]: Conventions and Buses and Pedestrian Streets: Christopher Emge of the Chamber of Commerce 37:55

3M ago37:55

37:55

We welcome back to the show one of our favorite raconteurs, Christopher Emge from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, who appeared a year ago when the show was first starting. We discuss current issues on the Chamber's agenda, including Bloomington's convention center expansion, public transit going outside the city for the first time, and…

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156 [S3E03]: Elisa Pokral, from the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County 37:21

3M ago37:21

37:21

Diverting waste from the environment is a value held dear by most Monroe Countians. There's a local government agency independent of Monroe County or its settlements that oversees the management of solid waste (not to be confused with human waste, which is managed by City of Bloomington Utilities). It's the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County…

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155 [S3E02]: James Sanders, Chair of the Commission on the Status of Black Males 35:45

3M ago35:45

35:45

We've had a number of guests who represent city commissions on this show. Today, our subject is the Commission on the Status of Black Males, a very busy board that hosts events at least six times a year, including their Outstanding Leaders of Tomorrow awards, their "Barbershop" health initiative, and the Million Father March at the beginning of eac…

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154 [S3E01]: Carrie Albright, Chair, Bloomington Environmental Commission 38:22

3M ago38:22

38:22

Our first guest of the new year and the third season of The 812 is Carrie Albright, chair of the Bloomington Environmental Commission, one of the city's oldest. She talks about the work they do advocating for the city to balance urban growth with environmental preservation. They address everything from water quality and biodiversity to newer challe…

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Season 3 starts Monday, January 20! 0:41

4M ago0:41

0:41

The 812 is back with a new season of interviews with the people that make your community go 'round! New episodes drop beginning Monday, January 20. We're looking forward to an interesting crop of new episodes, and other innovations to be announced soon. See you next Monday! Support the show A production of Plateia Media ©2024-5. All rights reserved…

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153 [S2E56]: State Senator Shelli Yoder (D.40) Previews the 2025 Legislative Session 37:03

4M ago37:03

37:03

Shelli Yoder is the dynamic state senator from District 40, representing Bloomington. She explains the statehouse for us, then talks about 2025 and what treats the statehouse might have in store: the $1 billion budget miscalculation; birth control, IVF, and abortion; a farm bill she's sponsoring; and, for localities like Bloomington, topics like an…

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152 [S2E55]: Lilliana Young pf the City/County Human Rights Commission, on the Municipal Equality Index 34:25

5M ago34:25

34:25

It's our penultimate show of our season 2, which began in August, and of the year 2024. Today we meet Lilliana Young, a member of the Bloomington/Monroe County Human Rights Commission, to talk about Bloomington's performance on the Municipal Equality Index. That's the Human Rights Campaign's annual report on how cities across the nation are doing b…

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151 [S2E54]: Animal Care in Bloomington with Virgil Sauder, Director of the City Animal Shelter 36:34

5M ago36:34

36:34

Director of Animal Care and Control for the City of Bloomington, Virgil Sauder tells us all about how the city, Monroe County and town of Ellettsville collaborate to manage domesticated pets in the area. He clears up some myths about how the city animal shelter works, and talks about what he's seen come through their doors in his almost 20 years of…

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150 [S2E53]: Paying Tribute to Cheryl Munson, a Pillar of the Community 33:37

5M ago33:37

33:37

Today we're remembering Monroe County Councilmember Cheryl Munson. A professor emerita in the IU Dept of Anthropology, she volunteered throughout the community, and also served in local politics, first on the township level, then as an at large member of the County Council. In the interview we recorded with her in June, she describes herself and th…

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149 [S2E52]: Marsha Lovejoy of I Support the Girls 36:55

5M ago36:55

36:55

Our guest today is the director of the Bloomington affiliate of I Support the Girls. It's a nonprofit organization that started in the District of Columbia to get donations of old bras and unused feminine hygiene products to women in the local homeless shelter. It's now a global organization aimed at "supporting girls, women and folx in need with p…

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148 [S2E51]: David Henry, Incoming County Councilmember (At Large) 37:16

5M ago37:16

37:16

David Henry was first on in February, in his role as chair of the Monroe County Democratic Party, to explain the complicated caucus process that elevated Courtney Daily to the District 5 Bloomington City Council seat. Now he appears as an elected official in his own right, having won an at-large seat on the Monroe County Council. On January 1, when…

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147 [S2E50]: Sculptor Adam Nahas on the Rise and Fall of Artisan Alley 39:54

5M ago39:54

39:54

Adam Nahas of Cyclops Studios, a sculptor, was also the founder and executive director of the former Artisan Alley, an artist's cooperative and nonprofit incubator from its founding in 2011 until 2023. It folded earlier this year. During its existence, Artisan Alley provided a community for artists, offering affordable studio space, and evolved to …

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146 [S2E49]: MCCSC Trustees on How to Run a School District -- Part II 38:00

5M ago38:00

38:00

Today, Part II of our interview with April Hennessey and Erin Cooperman, the president and vice president respectively of the Board of Trustees of the Monroe County Community School Corporation. We talk about the challenges school boards have managing superintendents, and about issues that impact public school enrollment and funding from the state,…

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145 [S2E48]: MCCSC Trustees on How to Run a School District -- Part I 37:37

5M ago37:37

37:37

Our next two episodes are devoted to a new topic for this show about local government: the school board. There are two school districts in Monroe County: by far the larger of the two is the Monroe County Community School Corporation, which serves more than 10,000 students in more than 20 different school buildings. Neither city nor county governmen…

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144 [S2E47] The Future of Equity through the Eyes of One Campus Student Organization 36:15

5M ago36:15

36:15

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. …

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