The 812
The 812 is a daily show about the basic workings of city government in Bloomington, Indiana. Hosted by Steve Volan, a recently-retired five-term member of Bloomington's City Council, The 812's primary feature is a half-hour interview with elected and appointed officials in city government, as well as with members of boards, commissions and not-for-profits providing services to the city. Produced by Plateia Media.
Episodes
234 episodes
230 [S4E24]: Leslie Brinson, Recreation Division DIrector, City Parks
Bloomington has won two Gold Medals for its Parks Department. It's not just because of nice facilities like Switchyard Park or the B-Line Trail. Sure, a city needs to set aside physical places for greenery et al. But land doesn't program itself...
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Season 4
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Episode 230
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32:44
229 [S4E23] Extra Innings: More On Buses and Recycling
Our Extra Innings segments feature bonus interview material that didn't make it into our regular episodes. We haven't shared these Extra Innings with you yet, and it's about time we did. John Connell, the General Manager of Blooming...
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Season 4
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Episode 229
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34:05
228 [S4E22]: Dason Anderson, Executive Editor, The Limestone Post
Since 2015, the online magazine The Limestone Post has held a kind of middle ground among Bloomington publications, combining the arts, the outdoors and other lifestyle features with longform investigative journalism. We talk with Dason Anderso...
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Season 4
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Episode 228
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30:18
227 [S4E21] Extra Innings: On Public Arts Buildings in Bloomington
Today is another feast of Extra Innings -- extensions of interviews with past guests that we've never made available before. Two guests who have been involved in art as a public matter also had more to say than we could fit into our regular hal...
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Season 4
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Episode 227
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31:25
226 [S4E20] Extra Innings: On the Public Library and the History Center
Lately we've been diving into our hoard of Extra Innings interviews with prior guests. Today, two new never-before-heard clips with guests from nonprofit entities between Kirkwood and Sixth Streets whose names begin with "Monroe County."...
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Season 4
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Episode 226
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32:31
009 [S1E09]: Charlotte Zietlow, the City's First Female Council President [ENCORE]
[Charlotte Zietlow passed away Wednesday at the age of 91. She was a pillar of the community who will be greatly missed. This is an encore presentation of our interview with her, recorded in January 2024.]Charlotte Zietlow is well-known ...
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35:47
225 [S4E19] Extra Innings: David Hittle on Transportation; Megan Betz on Food Insecurity
This week we're exploring our archive of extra interview segments that we didn't have room for in the original episodes, segments that we call "Extra Innings". It's new material, never-before aired, that gives further insight into the way decis...
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Season 4
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Episode 225
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39:26
224 [S4E17]: The Origin of the B-Line Trail and Switchyard Park, with Randy Lloyd, the City's First Economic Development Director
Switchyard Park opened in 2019, during the administration of Mayor John Hamilton. It's a stop on the B-Line Trail, another beloved amenity, which opened in 2009, during the administration of Mayor Mark Kruzan. But those places didn't happen by ...
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Season 4
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Episode 224
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49:31
223 [S4E17]: Attorney Nick Minaudo with Indiana Legal Services
We've been focusing on the tenant side of the local housing equation lately. We hosted Student Legal Services a few episodes back; today, we meet their cousins at Indiana Legal Services. Nick Minaudo is a lawyer for the Bloomington branch of IL...
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Season 4
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Episode 223
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36:00
222 [S4E16]: About the New City Transportation Commission: Shefar Rafiul Turns the Tables on Steve Volan
There's been a precedent for table-turning on this show, in which the guest interviews the host. (As a former city councilmember, Steve has been interviewed on this very program by
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Season 4
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Episode 222
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39:19
187 [S3E34]: GIS Coordinator John Baeten, on the Mapping of Monroe County [ENCORE]
[This is an encore presentation recorded in April. We'll be back with a new episode Thursday.]John Baeten came to town as a visiting assistant professor in IU’s geography department, where he spent time doing, among other things, a recon...
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31:20
221 [S4E15]: Melanie Vehslage and the Youth Services Bureau
Melanie Vehslage works for the Youth Services Bureau, which serves to "reduce negative childhood conditions" in Monroe County. A department of county government, the Bureau also strives to promote what they call "safe, stable, nurturing relatio...
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Season 4
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Episode 221
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37:54
220 [S4E14]: Defending Tenants with Stacee Williams of Student Legal Services at IU
The local university enrolls 43,000 students in person but only houses 13,000 of them. The other 30,000, almost all of them tenants, live in the city of Bloomington, a city that is only 80,000, students included. That's where our guest comes in...
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Season 4
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Episode 220
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36:19
219 [S4E13]: Protecting Local Waters: Maggie Sullivan of the Friends of Lake Monroe
Lake Week at The 812 continues with Maggie Sullivan, the Watershed Coordinator for the Friends of Lake Monroe. It's a non-profit organization whose goal is to bring together the many entities that have some responsibility for the reservoir: the...
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Season 4
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Episode 219
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35:20
218 [S4E12]: Lake Lemon Conservancy District Manager Adam Casey
It's Lake Week on The 812: we're talking about one of the Bloomington metropolitan area's great glories: its freshwater lakes. Reservoirs, actually. Our subject is not the smallest, Lake Griffy, nor the largest, Lake Monroe, but the one in betw...
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Season 4
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Episode 218
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36:59
217 [S4E11]: The Community Kitchen Tackles Food Insecurity: Vicki Pierce and Kyla Cox Deckard
The Community Kitchen of Monroe County is part of the local safety net for people experiencing food insecurity. While it targets those in need, there are no eligibility requirements to receive a meal there. Vicki Pierce, their executive directo...
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Season 4
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Episode 217
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33:36
216 [S4E10]: Elizabeth Conley of BridgeUSA at IU, on Constructive Political Dialogue
There have been cries lately for "viewpoint diversity" in academia, but for years in this college town there's been a student organization actively soliciting viewpoint diversity. Our guest today, Elizabeth Conley, is the president of the IU ch...
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Season 4
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Episode 216
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33:02
215 [S4E09]: Mark Figg on the Cooling Bloomington Rental Market
When it comes to the housing market, we've had city departments, and we're working on guests who can talk about the demand side of the equation such as advisers for tenants' rights. This week, we're talking with people from the supply side of t...
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Season 4
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Episode 215
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34:38
214 [S4E08]: The State of the Housing Market with Real Estate Broker Tracee Lutes
The affordability of housing in Bloomington, or rather, its increasing unaffordability, has been an issue for more than a decade. Indiana University has grown its enrollment without growing even its first-year-student housing stock, per a recen...
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Season 4
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Episode 214
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33:43
213 [S4E07]: Susan Hingle and the Monroe County Women's Commission
Although we hope to have a representative from the City Commission on the Status of Women, we're talking today about the separate, seven-member Monroe County Women's Commission. Where the city commission has a budget to throw events like the an...
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Season 4
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Episode 213
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30:59
212 [S4E06]: Anna Killion-Hanson on Housing, Redevelopment and Habiltability
It's another round of questions for Anna Killion-Hanson about the city Housing & Neighborhood Development, which she directs. She tackles questions like what's happening now in the Hopewell development where the hospital used to be, good ad...
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Season 4
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Episode 212
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36:32
211 [S4E05]: Caleb Hoagland and Dan Caldwell from the Severe Winter Emergency Shelter
Our topic today is emergency winter sheltering, the last resort for Bloomingtonians with no place to call home when it is most dangerous outside. For years there was a coordinated effort among local churches called the Interfaith Winter Shelter...
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Season 4
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Episode 211
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35:56
210 [S4E04]: Danielle Benedek and the Medical Child Abuse Clinic
Our guest today is a Nurse Practitioner who specializes in OBGYN, and works for IU Health as the Regional Director for Advance Practice Providers. But Danielle Benedek is also a co-founder of the Riley Physician's Medical Child Abuse Clinic, ho...
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Season 4
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Episode 210
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30:45
209 [S4E03]: Eddy Riou on the South Central Community Action Program
There are almost a thousand agencies around the country called "community action programs", whose mandates are to reduce the extent and impact of poverty in a given area, and date to the 1960s War on Poverty launched by the administration of LB...
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Season 4
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Episode 209
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35:54
208 [S4E02] Lisa Ridge and Toby Turner Explain the County Highway Department
Any roads outside Bloomington, Ellettsville or Stinesville are the jurisdiction of Monroe County. Today, we talk to the County Highway Department about how they manage the condition of more than 700 miles of roads.Our guests today are Lisa Ridg...
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Season 4
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Episode 208
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35:05