critical mass (against I-69) meet @ sample gates (w. kirkwood and indiana). 4:30p.

Critical Mass

All are welcome! Bring bikes, skateboards, skooters, rollerblades, banners, noisemakers, your friends, and be ready for a party in the streets!

This Friday January 26th at the sample gates.  Meet at 4:30pm leave at 5:00pm!  Bring your thoughts, ideas, and strategies to fight the construction of Interstate 69.

Critical Mass is a gathering of people on bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, their own feet adn more reclaiming the city’s streets to raise the consciousness of the community about the ecological, economic, social, political, and spiritual hazards of a life style dependent upon petroleum and internal combustion machines.  Practice daily, Celebrate Monthly!

Published
Categorized as Lets Go

Fernandez leaving Finelight

Chris Colvard pointed me to this HT article. The last sentence is pretty ominous for the future of development in Bloomington.

Prior to joining Finelight, he served as mayor of Bloomington from 1996 to 2003. During his two terms, he worked to bring millions of dollars in new investments downtown — most notably redevelopment of several apartment buildings.

First Capital Group’s president and founder Tim J. Mitchell and the other partners hope to take advantage of that experience.

“As a company, we plan to leverage his expertise in governmental relations as well as his vast knowledge of local, state and national economic incentives to expand First Capital nationally,” Mitchell said in a statement.

Link

Update:

I was just looking through old posts, and I came to this one.  I think another thing that I find really disturbing about this is just the total lack of accountability or responsibility by decision makers and the huge seperation between those who make decisions and those who are affected by them.  Fernandez can be instrumental in a pretty destructive project and then just leave that business and move on to other things, whereas the implications of the process that he initiated will have a long-lasting impact on life in Bloomington.

boxcar wishlist

Our wishlist with the Bloomington volunteer network is out of date.  I asked Boxcar folks for suggestions:

  • maybe comfy chairs (steven)
  • computer paper (steven)
  • carpet cleaner (steven)
  • new chairs for front of store (christie)
  • new projection screen (christie)
Published
Categorized as Boxcar

California prisoners likely to stay put

I posted  this over at the Midwest Pages to Prisoners blog after seeing it on Corinna’s. This story, about a proposed plan by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to transfer inmates from California’s overcrowded prisons, to vacant spots in Indiana prisons, shows some interesting things, including the massive number of incarcerated people in total, and especially in places like California. Also, it shows the connections between prison management and private industry. Finally, I think it shows the outlandish scenarios that happen when the industry of the construction of prisons comes before assessing the role that we want incarceration to play in our society.  Noteably, that prisons need to be filled, one way or another, whether it’s creating laws that make it more likely for people to end up in prison, or actually shipping prisoners from one place to another.  It also speaks the commodification of human lives, when people can be moved around to maximize efficiency, like so many widgets.  And it’s hard really, because the reality of such decisions might stand to improve the day to day life of some CA prisoners, but, in the end, it speaks to the fundamental flaws of the system, that requires a change in attitudes and priorities instead of just a reallocation of resources.

From the Indianapolis Star:

Gov. Mitch Daniels’ plan to make money by opening Indiana prisons to inmates from packed California prisons has fallen short, with few convicts volunteering and what may be insurmountable objections and concerns from prisoner advocates and guards.

Despite the setback, Indiana Department of Correction Commissioner J. David Donahue said Saturday the state hasn’t given up on the notion of housing prisoners from other states.

He said Indiana is in preliminary talks with “another jurisdiction” that may be interested in sending its inmates to Indiana if the deal with California collapses.

Under the deal between Daniels and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, up to 1,200 California offenders would have been sent to the New Castle Correctional Facility.

Schwarzenegger in October declared a state of emergency in California after his state’s prison population had swelled to nearly 173,000 inmates crammed into a system designed to hold about 100,000.

Indiana was motivated to act in part because about 60 percent of the 2,400-bed Henry County medium-security prison sits empty, Donahue said.

Link