Posts tagged as "richmond" - Chris Hardie

As complex human beings, it can be hard to communicate all that we stand for and all that we've experienced in casual social interactions.  "Hi, I'm Chris, let me tell you about the past 34 years of my life in the next 2 minutes...."  When it goes beyond communicating to trying to persuade someone of something - that they should vote for you, for example - it can be even harder to efficiently sum up what you're about in meaningful, authentic ways. This is surely part of the utility, then, of having...

The Times of Northwest Indiana published an editorial at the end of August, reprinted in today's Palladium-Item, noting the importance of screening candidates for office on their views about public access laws.  Since increasing the transparency and accessibility of the work done by Richmond's City Council is a primary part of my own interest in serving on Council, I appreciate this emphasis. In the editorial, five questions were posed as suggestions for citizens to ask of candidates, with the imperative...

There are all sorts of ways the electoral process isn't optimized, either in making it more difficult than is necessary for voters to conveniently and clearly express their vote, or in making it more difficult than is necessary for some kinds of candidates to have a fair and equitable chance of receiving those votes. We certainly don't need to be adding new ways to complicate the process or confuse voters, which is why Chris Hardie supports a recent legal challenge, initiated locally in Richmond...

In the Spring, I mentioned here that I was running for political office as a candidate for Richmond City Council here in Richmond, Indiana - my first real venture into politics.  I never did post an update on this blog that I won the Primary Election held in May (YAY!), and so now I'm on the ballot for consideration in the November general election. Despite having lots of overlap in subject matter between my political efforts and my writings here, I will generally continue to keep my campaign-related...

It's been an interesting experience to watch the 2012 budgeting process for the City of Richmond, being performed by the very City Council that I aspire to join.  If I'm elected, I'll be a part of a city government that is operating under the budget that's now being considered, so it feels even more important than usual to understand how the City is deciding where and how to spend money. As I watched various department heads present their requested budgets for the upcoming year, I observed a few things: It's...

All elections matter in one way or another.  Every elected official, no matter how unglamorous their office might seem or how routine their work is, has an impact on the lives of citizens in their communities.  The City of Richmond has had many elections before and will have many to come, and they will all matter in some way. But we can't let the shared pastime of grumbling about the machinations of politics and the wearing complexity of government trick us into forgetting that, right now,...

As a employer of many high tech-workers who would prefer to ride their bikes to work instead of driving a car, my company Summersault has a real stake in having bike parking options near our downtown office.  We've even interviewed potential hires who cite the availability of bike parking and other types of alternative transportation support as an important factor in their decision to live and work in a city like Richmond, and with a limited pool of local technical talent to start with, it's in our interest...

The Palladium-Item has an extensive look in today's paper at the issue of blight in Richmond, Indiana, including a companion article about how local residents can help address blight. The article does a good job of summarizing the challenges of blight as amplified by rough economic times: property owners who might already struggle with maintenance and upkeep are even more at risk of letting a given structure or piece of land fall into disrepair when finances get tight and layoffs and foreclosures...

(Sometimes I wake with a start in the night and think I can hear Palladium-Item Viewpoints Editor Dale McConnaughay's voice chanting in the distance, "you must take a stand, you must enter the fray!"   It's probably because almost every editorial the newspaper has published in the last two months about the income or expenses of City government have included a not-so-subtle encouragement for current candidates for office to make that particular issue a part of our political campaigns.  Today, I'll...

Now that we're a few days out from the primary election win, I thought I would share some reflections and analysis of the election.  Some of these may be obvious, especially to political veterans, but it's helpful for me to put them out there and see what other comments and analysis comes up. On the election day results themselves: Name recognition REALLY matters.Many of the voters who I've talked to before, on and after election day have invested minimal amounts of time really getting...