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
208 episodes
206 [S3E53]: Shelli Yoder Returns with a Post-Mortem on the 2025 Legislative Session
Shelli Yoder returns to The 812, now as the Indiana Senate minority leader (a title she got unexpectedly the day after she was last here in December). Whatever plans she mentioned then for this legislative session were upended by the behemoth c...
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Season 3
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Episode 206
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35:17
205 [S3E52] Godzilla Day in Bloomington, with Beth Bredlau, Godzilla Scholar
On June 27, the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre will host a screening of the original, uncut, 1954 Toho Studios film Gojira, in Japanese with English subtitles. There will be a special presentation before the film, and a Q&A panel discussi...
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Season 3
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Episode 205
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35:49
204 [S3E51]: Steve "Roc" Bonchek, Founder and Principal of Harmony School
Steve Bonchek, whom everyone just calls "Roc", is founder and principal of Harmony School, the independent, non-religious school not funded by the state, which is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, 40 of which have been in Bloomington's o...
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Season 3
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Episode 204
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38:51
Next episode out Tuesday
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the episode scheduled for today has been delayed until tomorrow, Tuesday, June 3. Look for it in your podcast feed then!
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Season 3
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0:12
203 [S3E50]: Nathan Ferreira of the BHA: Filling Housing Needs in a Difficult Time
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 Ho...
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Season 3
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Episode 203
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37:41
202 [S3E49]: Helping People with Horses: Christine Herring of PALS
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 par...
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Season 3
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Episode 202
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36:42
201 [S3E48]: Erica Penna, Managing Stormwater in Monroe County
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 wh...
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Season 3
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Episode 201
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39:45
200 [S3E47]: Erin Reynolds and Katie Hopkins on the Status of Children and Youth
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 o...
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Season 3
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Episode 200
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39:25
199 [S3E46] Councilmember Sydney Zulich (D-6) on Ongoing Improvements to Downtown Bloomington
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 Kirkw...
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Season 3
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Episode 199
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38:40
198 [S3E45]: New Services Galore from Bloomington Transit
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...
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Season 3
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Episode 198
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33:33
197 [S3E44]: Comparing "College Metro" Notes with West Lafayette City Councilmember David Sanders
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 an...
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Season 3
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Episode 197
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39:32
196 [S3E43]: County Assessor Judy Sharp Talks Senate Bill 1
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, ...
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Season 3
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Episode 196
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35:44
195 [S3E42] Liz Feitl, Monroe County Councilmember (At Large)
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. Sin...
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Season 3
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Episode 195
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33:08
194 [S3E41]: Rethinking "Public Safety" in Bloomington with the CAPS Commission
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 r...
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Season 3
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Episode 194
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36:50
193 [S3E40]: Miah Michaelsen, Executive Director of the Indiana Arts Commission
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 Administr...
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Season 3
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Episode 193
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34:53
192 [S3E39]: Amy Oelsner, Founder and DIrector of Girls Rock Bloomington
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 a...
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Season 3
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Episode 192
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35:46
191 [S3E38]: Mia Beach and Hannah Airriess of Redbud Books, A New Third Place in Bloomington
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 i...
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Season 3
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Episode 191
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36:14
190 [S3E37]: The 50-Year Tradition of Public Access TV in Bloomington, with CATS GM Martin O'Neill
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 Inter...
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Season 3
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Episode 190
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35:29
189 [S3E36]: About the Bloomington Fire Department, with Prevention Officer Tom Figolah
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 f...
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Season 3
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Episode 189
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36:03
188 [S3E35]: MDWST FABLE and the Power of a Grant from the Arts Commission
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 ...
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Season 3
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Episode 188
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35:56
187 [S3E34]: GIS Coordinator John Baeten, on the Mapping of Monroe County
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 f...
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Season 3
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Episode 187
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36:14
186 [S3E33] Getting to Know Bloomington's Sibling City with Vicki Veenker, Vice Mayor of Palo Alto
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 Vee...
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Season 3
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Episode 186
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37:53
185 ]S3E31]: Understanding Ellettsville with Its Town Council President Scott Oldham
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...
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Season 3
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Episode 185
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36:39
184 [S3E31]: "Big Mike" Glab Makes Big Talk about Bloomington (and Chicagoland)
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. Af...
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Season 3
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Episode 184
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39:01
183 [S3E30]: Tackling Problemas with the City Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs
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 are...
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39:57