Richmond Matters Podcast Podcast Por Chris Hardie arte de portada

Richmond Matters Podcast

Richmond Matters Podcast

De: Chris Hardie
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Richmond Indiana news, interviews and commentary from Chris Hardie.Chris Hardie Ciencias Sociales Escritos y Comentarios sobre Viajes Política y Gobierno
Episodios
  • “I can do something to make it better.” Acacia St. John and Alex Painter on community needs and strategies

    “I can do something to make it better.” Acacia St. John and Alex Painter on community needs and strategies
    May 9 2021
    You hear a lot these days about data-driven decision making. You hear it in business, you hear it in government, and you even hear it in the context of our personal lives, as people track their steps, exercise, sleep, food, location and more to help them achieve their goals. Data can be helpful, and it can be overwhelming. Data can be powerful, and it can also be too abstract to mean anything. But when gathered and delivered and understood in a way that tells an interesting story, data can change our lives. It can help us see things in a new way. It can shift our focus, it can clarify our priorities. Last month the Wayne County Foundation and Forward Wayne County released their April 2021 County Indicators report (PDF, local copy). It’s a document that at first seems to be a collection of graphs and tables and numbers, but when you dive into it, it starts to tell at least part of the story of our community. It sheds light on issues of poverty and education, wages and population changes, housing and employment opportunities. And for people who want to work on making Wayne County a better place, it gives us strategies that flow from that story. The report deserves your attention when you have some time, but I wanted to sit down with the people involved in producing it to talk through some of the finer points and see what they learned in the process. My guests in this podcast episode are Acacia St. John, Program Manager at Forward Wayne County and Alex Painter, Community Engagement Officer at the Wayne County Foundation. We talk about how the report was developed, who it is for, and what it means for the health and future of our community. I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you find it interesting or useful, please share! Transcript The below transcript was generated with the use of automation and may contain errors or omissions. Chris Hardie: We’re here to talk about the County Indicators Reports that the Wayne County Foundation and Forward Wayne County released last month. Before we dive into that, in previous podcast episodes, I’ve covered a bit about what the Wayne County Foundation and Forward Wayne County are and do. Let’s just briefly touch on that and remind people if you could both tell me a little bit about those organizations and your background, your role? How you got to this point working with them? That would be great. Alex Painter: I’ll start if that’s all right, Acacia. My name is Alex Painter. I work as the Community Engagement Officer at the Wayne County Foundation. The Wayne County Foundation has had a presence here in Wayne County since 1979. We exist because we want to encourage private philanthropic giving and enhance the spirit and vitality, and improve the quality of life here in our community, Wayne County. We do that through a multitude of ways. I guess, perhaps most visibly through making grants to local nonprofit organizations, as well as we’re the hub for facilitating scholarships for our Wayne County students. That’s a bulk of what we do. As far as what I do for the Foundation, in my role, my goal and my ongoing charge is to tell the story of our shared impact here in our community, which is I guess, one of the reasons why this County Indicators Report was born. Acacia St. John: I’m Acacia St. John. I am the Program Manager with Forward Wayne County. Forward Wayne County is the umbrella initiative under the Wayne County Foundation starting in 2018. Forward Wayne County is a backbone organization that uses collective impact models through coalitions to create a vibrant economy and promote prosperity at Wayne County. We do that through a variety of areas. We have three current coalitions, which is our Main Street coalition, employability coalition, and early childhood success coalition. Then as part of that, we have eight focus areas. All of that information can be found on our website forwardwaynecounty.org. Chris: Awesome. I’m glad for the website pitches there because there’s so much information that we’re talking about today and so much to learn. I’m sure we won’t even scratch the surface, but there’s a lot more online at forwardwaynecounty.org, and I know at waynecountyfoundation.org, is that right, Alex? Alex: That is correct, Chris. Thank you. I’ve realized I forgot to put out our websites. Thank you. Chris: That’s okay. I saw this County Indicators Report go by. It’s I think a 28-page PDF document. It was just chock-full of information and statistics that it’s just so important. I took some time to try to digest it, but part of why I’d asked you all to join me today is just to look at it together and talk about what it means and what we do with it. Just introducing it a little bit, it’s a County Indicators Report. You touched on, I think it’s five key indicators. We’ll talk about them more but there’s population levels, poverty levels, and related factors, income levels, educational attainment levels and housing. Can ...
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    1 h y 6 m
  • Mary Walker and Ashley Sieb on the power of story-telling to help us navigate COVID-19 together

    Mary Walker and Ashley Sieb on the power of story-telling to help us navigate COVID-19 together
    Jan 28 2021
    When we talk about COVID-19 and its impact on all of us, it’s tempting to focus on the numbers: deaths, tests, positivity rates, charts that go up and down. These are very important, but they don’t tell the whole story. And if we only talk numbers, we risk losing touch with what’s really going on with our neighbors, friends, coworkers and children as we’ve faced down a public health crisis in Wayne County. The recently launched Share Your Story COVID-19 Wayne County campaign hopes to help us connect with the personal parts of this difficult time. By telling the stories of those who have been affected by the pandemic in some way, and by providing resources and activities that engage people from all backgrounds, the project hopes to help us remember why it’s so important that we mask up, practice social distancing and follow other recommended guidelines to slow the spread of the virus. (Come for the mask design contest, stay for the powerful videos.) In this podcast episode, I talk with Mary Walker and Ashley Sieb who are part of the larger group of people who brought the campaign to life in a short period of time. We discuss how the project started, the kinds of personal experiences they’ve heard about from local residents, and the importance of story-telling in helping people shift and evolve their perspective on our life together as a community. I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you find it interesting or useful, please share! Transcript The below transcript was generated with the use of automation and may contain errors or omissions. Chris Hardie: The two of you are part of a larger group of people who have launched a public awareness campaign that’s aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 in our area, in Wayne County. As hard as it is to say it, we’re coming up on a year of having the pandemic be a reality in our lives. Along the way, we’ve seen a lot of public messaging, a lot of public awareness efforts. I’m hoping you can tell us a little bit about the origins of this, Share Your Story project and how it might be different from some of the other projects or messaging that have been out there along the way. Mary Walker: With regards to share your story, how that really originated was from a press conference that the city and county was having with regards to, we were nearing the dreaded red on the Coronavirus map, the state map. After they were doing the county and the city, all of the data, we’ve been constantly influenced and they’re just overloaded with data, which is good in one way, but at some point, you start to tune that out and when you have it 24/7, and you’re getting it locally state and federally, it’s easy to start tuning those things out. At this press conference, there were three local businesses, Leland Legacy and Roscoe’s, and Cordial Cork. At the end, they each told their story of how COVID has impacted their business. I was really moved when all three of them were saying in various ways how it was affecting their business, but in particular, Amanda Marquis, when she was talking and talking about the isolation of her residents and how some were losing their will to live because they weren’t engaging and being active and being able to go outside even. Then she got very emotional and that really moved me. That was my “aha” moment, where it was like, how do we tell these stories in a way where they will resonate with others in an emotional way, in an interactive, heartfelt way where we get that message across of COVID and how all the impacts that it affects us. Whether that’s through just not the revenues from a business standpoint, but the mental health. The healthcare first frontline and the first responders, the schools and the kids and the teachers and the hybrids, and then the parents who have to stay at home because the kids are at home. All of those things were just weaving in and out. It’s like, how do we address those in a way that resonates with others to again, do those simple things, to help us get out of this COVID pandemic and wash your hands, wear your mask, and social distance. That really brought that home to me about getting people to do things in a different way that were emotional and tugged at the heartstrings. That’s when we pulled together a huge group, the full group and you’ve seen the list, of representing all various sectors of our community and our county and thinking about ways and having them impart ways that COVID has affected their companies, their patients, their residents, their kids, et cetera. That’s how all of this got started and then, poor Ashley, I forwarded to Reid, they had done their first COVID video, and it was very moving. It was with regards to their first patient who died. I forwarded, I put that on Facebook. Then I, fortunately, right, Ashley, I asked you to be a part of this movement and she just jumped on board and serves as our marketing guru. She’s just been incredible in this...
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    51 m
  • Randy Baker of RP&L on the past, present and future of local electricity

    Randy Baker of RP&L on the past, present and future of local electricity
    Jan 22 2021
    Randy Baker is retiring soon as the General Manager of Richmond Power & Light. In this podcast episode, he reflects on his time there as we speak about how power generation and distribution has happened in our community over the years, the politics of electricity rate changes, and what might be ahead for our municipal utility that was built in 1954 and meant to last fifty years. As he’s also an accomplished musician the music at the beginning and end of this episode is played by Randy, a rendition of Doyle Dykes` Jazz in the Box. I hope you enjoy the conversation. If you find it interesting or useful, please share! Transcript The below transcript was generated with the use of automation and may contain errors or omissions. Chris Hardie: The word is you’re going to be retiring soon. How long have you been at Richmond Power and Light in your time there? Randy Baker: I actually started in 1999 as a consultant, as an IT consultant during a time when the state, as well as other states were thinking about going to deregulation in the electric business. Then I came onboard as an employee in 2000. Chris: Wow. You’ve been there through a lot of change. You grew up in Richmond originally, is that right? Randy: Yes. I grew up partly in Cincinnati, Ohio, but I was born here in Richmond. I did graduate from high school here. Then, pretty much except for sometimes I was on the road, pretty much lived here the rest of my life. Chris: You mentioned starting out in kind of a technical role. I think I first encountered you as someone who was working more on the technical and operations side of things. I know our paths had crossed in various local tech and software circles. You’ve done a lot since then. How did you end up starting in that role and then working your way through the role of general manager? What did that path look like? Randy: The joke is that I tell people that I just hung around here long enough till they finally gave me the keys. I did start in that technical role as a consultant and then took over the IT department. I’d been doing consulting for quite a while, did a lot for the government, but some private companies too, like Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble and things like that. It’s funny now. My goal in the beginning was, “Hey, this could be another great vertical for me to consult in. I’ll stick around here and learn the business really well.” Something happened along the way. [laughter] Chris: You learned it really well. Randy: Yes. My original contract was for one year. It’s probably been the longest year in my life. Chris: Wow. How did you know that it was time to retire? Randy: I’d been thinking about it. I never dreamed I’d be here this long to begin with because I would just get– One of the reasons I was a consultant is because you could do something and then before it got dull, you could move to something else. Things like that. In terms of time itself, I’m just to a point where I think it’s time to pass it along and get some younger folks in there probably, and honestly, do some other things in my life. Chris: We can talk a bit more about your future plans and all of your different interests, but I want to just orient ourselves to what Richmond Power and Light has been and is now in the community. I should probably apologize because I want to ask you a bunch of really basic questions about electricity and how RP&L works. My understanding of how the power plant works before and just the science of it, we had coal coming in by truck or maybe rail. We burned it to make steam. The steam rotated the turbine. The turbine created AC current and that got sent out to our homes via wire to provide what we know as electricity. Is that a fair description of what RP&L was doing for a long time? Randy: That’s a pretty complicated process you put in a very short time frame. Yes. The steam, you generate the steam, whether it’s by coal or it’s by natural gas or whatever it is. Yes, that turns the turbines. Chris: For listeners outside Richmond, obviously, that’s power in town. How far outside of Richmond did that transmission go and where did it start to be taken over by other agencies? Randy: It was always kind of a local thing here. Now, since the grid came about all those decades ago, because there was a time when Richmond just kind of sat out here on its own, and all the towns did, so if your power plant went down, your town went down. Even when we were generating, we sold that on the grid. We’ve been in a contract with the Indiana Municipal Power Agency, IMPA, since 1982. We buy 100% of our power. There’s some advantages to doing that. Any of these questions you ask, you are going to have to keep me on track because it is its own conversation within itself almost. Chris: Right, right. Yes. We’ll come back around to IMPA. The version of electricity generation that you mentioned where we were kind of on our own before maybe the grid was ...
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    46 m
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