Chris Hardie's Weblog

This is interesting: former Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County President Don Holbrook, who was fired from the organization a few years ago in an unfortunate controversy, has released a self-published book about economic development tips and strategies. Titled "The Little Black Book of Economic Development," Holbrook says the book has information about the [...]

As I mentioned when I came back from the energy conference in October, I was going to give a talk in November called "Going Local: Building a Self-Reliant Richmond, Indiana". I had agreed to speak earlier in the year and didn't really know what I was going to talk about beyond the expectation that [...]

The 2007 Wayne County Alternative Gift Fair, held at the new Reid Hospital today, has just concluded. It was a great opportunity to get gifts for family and friends in the form of donations to local non-profit organizations, and at least for me, a great alternative to a day at the mall buying stuff. [...]

If you follow the news over at The Richmond Coffee Shop Times, you have probably heard by now that Sacred Grounds is closing at the end of next week. The Summersault staff had a last (or perhaps-second-to-last) hurrah lunch there today, and as the cashier was ringing up the bill I asked what they'd [...]

The news came yesterday that Richmond was not selected as one of the sites for a Presidential / Vice Presidential Debate in Fall 2008. It's certainly too bad given the potential it had for bringing attention to Richmond, but as EDC President Jim Dinkle has been saying, just the unity and positive image we [...]

Election Day Roundup:

The Results Are In: Four more years for Sally Hutton and Karen Chasteen, a bit of a shakeup on the City's Common Council, and a 27% voter turnout - bleh, but not so bleh as last time.
Voting, a blog entry: Scenes and thoughts from one voter's experience
Pal-Item endorses Hutton, Thalls erases blog entries: [...]

Tomorrow is Election Day here in Richmond, and in the name of helping us move toward a voting process where the vote you cast can actually be verified, I'll suggest these three questions to ask when you visit your friendly local computerized voting center. You may not get the answers you want, but the [...]

As a web developer, I often can't avoid viewing every website I visit through that critical and technical lens. As has been the tradition in the geek community for several national election cycles, I thought I would take on a technical review of the websites belonging to the two current candidates for Richmond's Mayoral [...]

Join us at Live-Richmond.com for a live blog of the Richmond Mayoral Debate.
Update: My transcript of the mayoral debate is now available.

Over at ProgressiveWayneCounty.org, I just posted the list of alternative transportation goals for Richmond, Indiana that I came up with in March as a part of my work on the committees that are implementing Richmond's Comprehensive Plan. Comments and feedback welcome (there or here).