Posts tagged as "richmond" - Chris Hardie

The editorial cartoon in today's Palladium-Item depicts a lone protester standing in front of an imagined future strip mall in Richmond, with an onlooker suggesting that the protester get on with his life. It's a poignant visualization of one of the destructive attitudes that plagues this town and many others like it: "what's done is done, no use in whining about it, move on and make the best you can." At first glance this might seem to be an admirable approach to use with the difficult issues...

Last night I helped to facilitate the "U-Plan" community input sessions that the City of Richmond, Indiana is conducting as a part of its work on updating the City's comprehensive plan. I was struck and impressed, perhaps more than I should have been, by the simple process of people in a community coming together to discuss their concerns, interests, areas of pride about our town, and where we should go in the coming years. I was equally impressed that we were able to use an approach that is very...

I thought I'd start a list of people in Richmond and Wayne County with active weblogs. If you have anyone to add, please let me know. The list will probably tend to exclude sites primarily dedicated to for-profit promoting of a particular organization, product or service. Enjoy!

My friends Glen and Donna Lawrence have teamed up to help me to come to an important and tragic realization: that I'll never be able to get a job at the new Frisch's Big Boy planned for location here in Richmond. You know, the one I pledged never to visit. Worse, my FAMILY won't ever be able to work there! WHAT HAVE I DONE? I didn't realize that boycotts can work in reverse!? I have crippled my children and my children's children, and all those of the 319 other people (to date) who have made...

The personal commitment I made late last week to boycott stores that might develop on the Hayes Arboretum land here in Richmond has gotten a bit of attention. The signatures of folks who share my commitment have been coming in steadily, with more than a hundred after just a few days. Bill Engle from the Palladium-Item called yesterday to interview me about the petition. He was friendly and understanding, but he seemed to have a hard time figuring out why I wasn't better fitting what I suspect...

In June of 2003, the folks who manage the Hayes Arboretum here in Richmond announced their plans to sell 33 acres of the Arboretum that runs along the main National Road in Richmond for commercial development...another strip mall, ugh. It was recently announced that the first three tenants signed on to the planned development are Menard's, Walgreens, and Frisch's Big Boy. I usually avoid activism of this sort, but I've launched a petition, where the signatories have pledged not to spend money at these...

I always look forward to seeing the speakers that my alma mater, Earlham College, brings to Richmond, Indiana because they often bring perspective, insight, and experience that you just can't otherwise get living in a small Midwestern town. Tonight's event was no different: William Kristol (neo-conservative pundit, editor of the Weekly Standard, Bush/Quayle advisor, and member of the American Enterprise Institute) would be giving a talk entitled "America's Foreign Policy After 9-11" on campus free...

I had a nice call this morning from Nick, the local store manager of the OfficeMax in Richmond. I'd recently had some really poor customer service experiences in that store with them and had submitted a narrative of those experiences for their review. I usually don't bother going back to a place after such occurrences - especially not a big box store - but in Richmond they are uniquely suited to sell a few products that I and/or Summersault consume, so I thought it worth at least trying to share...

The forthcoming closing of Richmond's Target store, reported in the Palladium-Item on November 6th, is certainly a troubling development for the local economy. Jobs will be lost, the convenient shopping will need to be found elsewhere, and yet another "big box" piece of real estate will need to be filled. But perhaps more troubling than these obvious effects are the more subtle implications of how we as a community think about and support local businesses. Our downtown, and our local small business...

This piece was written for submission to the Palladium-Item during my time on the board of Main Street Richmond-Wayne County. It never made its way to the paper, but I thought I'd post it here since it's still relevant. It still strikes me how little we knew about everything that goes into running a business when we founded the technology company I work for, Summersault, in 1997. We were very confident about the services we wanted to provide and very focused on the clients with whom we wanted...