Best Steve Volan Plateia Media Podcasts (2025)

1
203 [S3E50]: Nathan Ferreira of the BHA: Filling Housing Needs in a Difficult Time 37:41

23h ago37:41

37:41

When last here in December, Nathan Ferreira was the director of real estate development for the Bloomington Housing Authority. He's now executive director of the BHA, and at a trying time for government-assisted housing, with cuts facing the Housing and Urban Development grants that fund so many housing authorities around the country. We'll get a s…

1
202 [S3E49]: Helping People with Horses: Christine Herring of PALS 36:42

3d ago36:42

36:42

People and Animal Learning Services, or PALS, is a nonprofit center, dedicated to providing meaningful, therapeutic hands-on experiences with horses for individuals with disabilities, veterans, senior citizens, and underserved youth through partnerships with entities like the Monroe County Youth Services Bureau. We talk with Christine Herring, the …

1
201 [S3E48]: Erica Penna, Managing Stormwater in Monroe County 39:45

8d ago39:45

39:45

NOTE: The 812 will take Memorial Day off; new episodes resume Wed., May 28. Stormwater needs to be channeled somewhere -- lakes, rivers, retention ponds -- or it becomes floodwater. If there aren't ditches or box culverts near where you live or work, you may have been wading around last weekend. Communities do their best to manage stormwater, to no…

1
200 [S3E47]: Erin Reynolds and Katie Hopkins on the Status of Children and Youth 39:25

10d ago39:25

39:25

Children have very real-world needs, and sometimes face problems that adults would have trouble dealing with. That's why the city's Commission on the Status of Children and Youth exists. The commission advocates for local youth, collects data on their needs, and debates how to solve persistent problems that those under 18 are having in our communit…

1
199 [S3E46] Councilmember Sydney Zulich (D-6) on Ongoing Improvements to Downtown Bloomington 38:40

12d ago38:40

38:40

City councilmember Sydney Zulich (D-6) returns to the show to talk about: downtown beautification, including planters and the new art going up at last on traffic control boxes; some of the logic behind this year's Kirkwood closures; Bloomington Transit's summer experiment with a new downtown shuttle; and the breaking of ground on the convention cen…

1
198 [S3E45]: New Services Galore from Bloomington Transit 33:33

15d ago33:33

33:33

There's bus service to Ivy Tech and Cook at long last. A dozen new fully-electric buses in the fleet. And, this summer at long last, the first experiments with a free downtown circulator. John Connell, General Manager, returns for a 2025 update with Shelley Strimaitis, BT's Planning & Special Projects Manager, to discuss many improvements coming or…

1
197 [S3E44]: Comparing "College Metro" Notes with West Lafayette City Councilmember David Sanders 39:32

17d ago39:32

39:32

We talk shop with our counterpart in the state’s other major college-dominated metropolitan area. The city of West Lafayette, the home of Purdue University, only became a second-class city like Lafayette and Bloomington in 2013, with a mayor and a nine-member council. Now a city of 45,000, it's experienced 50% growth in a decade, thanks to pressure…

1
196 [S3E43]: County Assessor Judy Sharp Talks Senate Bill 1 35:44

19d ago35:44

35:44

Judy Sharp, the Monroe County Assessor, has seen it all in her decades in office, and is back with an update on property taxes. We talk with her about the debate between whether assessors should be elected or appointed, and in the second half, all about Senate Bill 1, which passed the statehouse in April, and had a number of surprises, mostly unple…

1
195 [S3E42] Liz Feitl, Monroe County Councilmember (At Large) 33:08

22d ago33:08

33:08

Liz Feitl served as a union organizer and leader at IU and then with United Way of Monroe County for decades. Seven years ago she won the Toby Strout Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Bloomington Commission on the Status of Women. Since winning the local Democratic Party caucus on January 19, Feitl is the newest member of the Monroe Count…

1
194 [S3E41]: Rethinking "Public Safety" in Bloomington with the CAPS Commission 36:50

24d ago36:50

36:50

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 exploded into the national consciousness and raised many questions. One of the most important was: knowing that our society has plenty of biases, knowing that perception is reality for a great number of people, should we count on sworn officers alone to improve public safety? In …

1
193 [S3E40]: Miah Michaelsen, Executive Director of the Indiana Arts Commission 34:53

26d ago34:53

34:53

To the present. Miah Michaelsen is an old hand at the intersection of government and the arts. She's been at the Indiana Arts Commission since 2015, where she's now Executive Director. Before that, she served eight years in the Kruzan Administration, serving as Bloomington's first Assistant Economic Development Director for the Arts. As if that wer…

1
192 [S3E39]: Amy Oelsner, Founder and DIrector of Girls Rock Bloomington 35:46

29d 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, …

1
191 [S3E38]: Mia Beach and Hannah Airriess of Redbud Books, A New Third Place in Bloomington 36:14

1M 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…

1
190 [S3E37]: The 50-Year Tradition of Public Access TV in Bloomington, with CATS GM Martin O'Neill 35:29

1M 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…

1
189 [S3E36]: About the Bloomington Fire Department, with Prevention Officer Tom Figolah 36:03

1M 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…

1
188 [S3E35]: MDWST FABLE and the Power of a Grant from the Arts Commission 35:56

1M 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…

1
187 [S3E34]: GIS Coordinator John Baeten, on the Mapping of Monroe County 36:14

1M 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…

1
186 [S3E33] Getting to Know Bloomington's Sibling City with Vicki Veenker, Vice Mayor of Palo Alto 37:53

2M 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…

1
185 ]S3E31]: Understanding Ellettsville with Its Town Council President Scott Oldham 36:39

2M 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…

1
184 [S3E31]: "Big Mike" Glab Makes Big Talk about Bloomington (and Chicagoland) 39:01

2M 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…

1
183 [S3E30]: Tackling Problemas with the City Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs 39:57

2M 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…

1
182 [S3E29] All About the Trashion Refashion Runway Show, with Devta Kidd and Stephen Hale 36:37

2M 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…

1
181 [S3E28]: The Taste of Bloomington Returns, Says Jordan Davis of the Chocolate Moose 37:28

2M 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…

1
180 [S3E27]: Andrea "De" de la Rosa on Managing the Bloomington Urban Enterprize Zone 34:43

2M 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…

1
179 [S3E26]: How Court-Appointed Special Advocates Go to Bat for Children in Need 37:46

2M 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…

1
178 [S3E25]: The Lake Monroe Water Fund: Raising Money to Protect Bloomington's Watershed 39:54

2M 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…

1
177 [S3E24]: The 812 Work Session with Herald-Times News Director Jill Bond 35:28

3M 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…

1
176 [S3E23]: Downtown Bloomington Inc. and the 40-Year Revitalization of the City Core 37:38

3M 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 …

1
175 [S3E22]: Geoff McKim on the Issues of the Moment in Monroe County 36:39

3M 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…

1
174 [S3E21]: Sura Gail Tala, on How the Center for Sustainable Living Fosters and Incubates Nonprofits 34:15

3M 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…

1
173 [S3E20]: Julie Duhon and Erin Loughery of Tandem, on the Birth of a Midwifery Service Provider 39:42

3M 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…

1
172 [S3E19]: WFHB Community Radio and the Key Piece of City Real Estate That Created an Institution 37:02

3M 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…

1
171 [S3E18]: Running the County with Commissioner Jody Madeira (D.3) 37:58

3M 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…

1
170 [S3E17]: The Future of Kirkwood with ESD Director Jane Kupersmith 36:25

3M 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…

1
169 [S3E16]: Growing the Local Arts Landscape with Cicada Cinema 33:51

3M 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…

1
168 [S3E15]: Stewarding Nature with Sycamore Land Trust's Chris Fox 31:26

3M 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…

1
167 [S3E14]: Promoting Home Ownership with Wendi Goodlett and Lindsey Boswell of Habitat for Humanity 36:55

3M 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…

1
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…

1
165 [S3E12]: Reshading the Tree City with Canopy Bloomington's Ava Hartman and Jon Vickers 36:20

4M 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 …

1
164 [S3E11]: The Panoply of Parks & Rec's Programs with Julie Ramey 36:26

4M 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…

1
163 [S3E10]: The Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington Acquires "By Hand Gallery" ...and Prepares to Re-Brand Itself 34:55

4M 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…

1
162 [S3E09]: Council President Hopi Stosberg on Development, the Budget and More 33:22

4M 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…

1
161 [S3E08]: Laura Blaker, the Sweet and Sour Sauce Behind Lemonade Day Bloomington 38:42

4M 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…

1
160 [S3E07]: CJAM, Helping Resolve All Kinds of Disputes 36:46

4M 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…

1
159 [S3E06] City Boards and Commissions with Deputy Clerk Jennifer Crossley 37:44

4M 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…

1
158 [S3E05]: Water Rates and the State of Lake Monroe: Digging In with Holly McLauchlin of CBU 35:44

4M 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, …

1
157 [S3E04]: Conventions and Buses and Pedestrian Streets: Christopher Emge of the Chamber of Commerce 37:55

4M 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…

1
156 [S3E03]: Elisa Pokral, from the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County 37:21

4M 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…

1
155 [S3E02]: James Sanders, Chair of the Commission on the Status of Black Males 35:45

4M 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…

1
154 [S3E01]: Carrie Albright, Chair, Bloomington Environmental Commission 38:22

4M 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…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Steve Volan Plateia Media Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen