Category: richmond, in

A Bit More Urban Overhead for Summersault

New Summersault office entranceBecause you come here every day looking for blogging goodness, you've probably noticed that I've been a little quiet lately on that front.  This is in no small part due to the exciting adventure that has been moving my company's main office from the location we've occupied for ~9 years at 914 East Main Street in Richmond, to our new location at 710 East Main St, Suite 200 in Richmond.

The move brings with it a great expansion into a much more flexible and usable space, a whole new outlook on the world with natural light via second story windows, and a new beginning in the life of the company.  One of the tag-lines in our marketing materials is "World Class Services Without Urban Overhead."  Well, now we have a bit more urban overhead, and I thought I'd share a few notes and reflections on the move:

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What's in a name: All-America City?

Mayor and Firetruck 1This is a hard post to write because a lot of people who I care about and respect are very invested in and excited about the recent news that Richmond is one of the winners of the National Civic League's "All-America City" award.

First, I want to say that I do offer my genuine congratulations to the youth, their mentors and supporters who put together Richmond's application and saw it through to the win.  To achieve national recognition for our city is commendable, and I know that the passion, time and energy you put into this effort comes from a deep love of this community and its potential.  Richmond needs more people like you who care enough to act, and who do so with a bright future in mind.

Now on to the harder part:

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Reflections on Transition Training in Bloomington

Bloomington, IN Transition Training ParticipantsI'm just back from a weekend-long gathering in Bloomington, Indiana, where I was joined by ~25 other fine folks for a "Transition Training" event.  The Transition US movement is part of a vibrant, international grassroots movement that builds community resilience in response to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis.  Today's edition of the New York Times Magazine had a cover story featuring the Transition movement, including one of the facilitators who I had the benefit of working with this weekend, Michael Brownlee.

A few thoughts on how it went, and what's next:

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Richmond home invasions and robberies

Richmond seems to be experiencing a rise in home invasions and robberies, including one early this morning that happened within shouting distance from where I've lived for 5 years.  It could be the case that the increase is just a matter of perception (because more are being reported and then covered by the media), but the facts seem to bear out some sort of trend, and possibly a serial home invader at work.

It's hard to know what to think about this trend.

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Richmond, Home of The Most Racist Laundromat in America

Lost Clothes SignI've been thinking for far too long about how to do something about the U-Washee laundromat on NW 5th Street here in Richmond, Indiana.  I say "far too long" because I've known about its existence for years, and have only thought and talked with others about it, instead of taking action.  I've been trying to figure out how to convert its overt displays of racism into a useful and transformative conversation in the community.  Why does this place exist in the first place?  Who patronizes it and what do they see and think about its imagery and stereotypes?  How does our Asian population feel about it?  Why isn't there more conversation happening already about U-Washee?

It was simultaneously a good and bad thing today to see that there are plenty of people talking about U-Washee outside of Richmond.  A little more than a month ago, The Bilerico Project put up a great commentary with photos and really calls Richmond out for not taking action on this, but also ties it to larger trends of racism in the Midwest:

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Brainstorming Richmond community improvement ideas

Every time I go on vacation or get a little bit of time to step back and think, I end up making long "to do" lists for myself.  The lists are about projects I want to start, books to read, things to learn about, people to get in touch with.  It's common for some significant chunk of those lists to be related to how to make my home, Richmond Indiana, a better place to live, work and play.

At the same time, I recognize that other people are out there coming up with their own ideas about how to make Richmond better.  I hear those ideas mentioned at meetings, in casual conversations, in planning documents, and all over.  Sometimes I hear people talk about idea overlap - how something they thought was a new idea was something someone else had worked on in the past.  And then I start to worry that we might not be fully honoring the collective brain power we devote to improving Richmond, and I wanted to create a resource that would allow for some consolidated storage of all of those great ideas.

Thus was created the concept for a new website I launched this week, Richmond Brainstorm.com.  It's a place where people can submit their ideas for how to make Richmond better, and discuss the ideas already on the site.

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Local food issues panel today

Later today I'll be sitting on a panel put together by the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce, and we'll be talking about issues related to local food.  Beyond some home gardening I'm not a food producer or any sort of expert, but between my work with the Clear Creek Food Coop, my interest in food / energy issues, and my efforts around making Richmond more self-reliant, I hope I'll have something useful to offer.

It's at 3:30 PM at Ivy Tech Community College, 3421 Johnson Hall - I hope you can join us.

In case you won't be able to attend, here's a list of 12 reasons that it's a good idea to support the production and consumption of locally grown food (adopted from a list produced by The Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association):

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Earlham gets unofficial traffic light victory on US-40

The Palladium-Item reported last night and again today that Earlham College appears to have won an initial victory in getting a traffic signal placed at a critical crossing point on US-40, the 4-lane highway that runs in front of its campus here in Richmond.

The Quaker college has tried for decades to get a traffic signal at its entrance, an effort that began soon after Earlham student David Rantanen was killed crossing the highway in 1962. Since then, two more people have died and several more were hit and injured by vehicles on the four-lane highway near the school's main drive.

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WhatIsYourStory.org, an oral history project in Richmond

Despite things being fairly quiet with my original podcasting project (the Richmond News Review), I am still working on a few audio production projects.  One is a new podcast which I'll be ready to announce in the coming weeks, but the other is a great new oral history project that's moving forward quickly here in Richmond.  If you're familiar with StoryCorps, the NPR-affiliated project that gathers compelling personal interviews (mentioned here previously), you know how powerful some of those audio segments can be as they capture the stories of our lives.  Fortunately, Girls Inc of Wayne County applied for and received a generous grant from the Wayne County Foundation to bring the StoryCorps folks to Richmond and record some of our stories here.

This is just the first phase of what we hope to be a broader oral history project in the area.  You can read all about it on the new project website, WhatIsYourStory.org.  If you're a podcast listener or producer, a fan of StoryCorps or oral history projects, want to be trained on interviewing and audio production, or just someone who wants to be involved in this effort, please contact us!  We'll find a way to put your talents to work as we try to honor and appreciate those who live in our community, through listening.

EDC Board Appointments: Ready for Battle!

If you read today's Palladium-Item article detailing the recent attempts by Richmond's City Council to gain more representation on the Economic Development Corporation's board of directors, you might be a little confused. I certainly was.

On one hand, you've got the City painting a picture of being left out of the key parts of the relationship the EDC has with its Richmond constituents, having to fork over $730,000 without appropriate representation.

You've got a County official noting that the City is as well represented on the EDC board as the County or other entities, and that things are working just fine as they are, while the Chamber president notes that there may be a conversation to be had, but that the current actions being taken are too poorly timed.

What's going on here?  Everyone seems to be making reasonable statements on the matter that represents the point of view of the entities they serve, but it sounds like they're having the conversation with each other for the first time on the pages of the newspaper. ARGH!

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