government

Librarians Need Your help

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I have a good friend who is a Librarian. She shared this with me. I have a sister-in-law that is a Library Director. We have done work many libraries throughout this area where the Librarian or Library Director are friends from our past work together. This is an important issue for Libraries and you should consider contacting your legislator about it.

The flier above gives information for legislators in Pulaski County. Since most of my lurkers are from Marshall County, our State Senators are:

Ryan Mishler if you’re a resident of District 9 in NE Marshall County

200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 800-382-9467
or 317-232-9400
Email: Senator.Mishler@iga.in.gov

Mike Bohacek if you’re a resident of District 8 for the remainder of Marshall County

200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 800-382-9467
or 317-232-9400
Email: Senator.Bohacek@iga.in.gov

And our State Representatives are:

Jack Jordan if you’re a resident of District 17, which covers the majority of Marshall Count

200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Phone: 800-382-9841 or 317-232-9651

Email:  H17@iga.in.gov

Jake Teshka if you’re a resident of District 7, which covers a small part of Marshall County west of LaPaz

200 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Phone: 800-382-9841 or 317-232-9981

Email:  H7@iga.in.gov

App Anxiety

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Like almost everyone I know, I’ve become a cell phone junkie. That said, I hate to talk on the damn thing. I’ve considered stealing a voice mail message I heard once: “Hello. This is Kevin’s phone. If this could be a text, hang up and text me. if you absolutely must leave a message, I’ll listen to it… eventually… and maybe decide to reply. if it’s still relevant by then…” To paraphrase Gary Gulman, the phone is just a seldom used app on my phone and if you call me on it, I’m immediately mad. How dare you!?!

I use the camera on my phone… though not for the selfies that most people do. I generally am using it for work. I’m a big fan of Twitter. I’m currently managing 6 twitter accounts and I strive to change the voice of each. I use Instagram… and Facebook… but mainly because I think I need to for work. If I know it’s your Birthday, I’ll probably send you a text. I don’t do the smarmy, self-congratulatory Facebook wall posts. Facebook is way to saccharin for me. I prefer the sarcasm of Twitter and I’ve recently found Reddit which I like as well. Reddit can be REALLY harsh… And those people are darkly funny!

Despite my love of the technology and the wild west of Twitter and Reddit, I’ve always had concerns. All the stories of scams and phishing concern me. Some are overblown, but when you’re offered a “flashlight” app that requests access to your contacts… well, that just doesn’t seem right.

So when our government tells me that TikTok is full of spyware, I don’t have a lot of trouble believing that. They have banned it on all Federal government devices. Even Indiana has banned it on State devices. While I’ve watched more than a few TikTok videos sent to me by friends, I have no desire to add that app to my phone. Yes, I’m pretty boring, but I still value at least a little bit of my privacy. As attested above, I rarely give out my cell phone number because I don’t want calls on it, but I’m starting to get more and more calls on it and a lot of spam calls on it. Is that because people I know are downloading TicTok and “Flashlight” apps and giving access to their contacts? Is that how my number is getting out there?

Even with all the warnings, use doesn’t seem to be going down. TikTok remains the trendy thing. I am disappointed that institutions that should know better continue to push it. We attend the Notre Dame Women’s Basketball games and they do a TikTok challenge. Often they’re bringing little girls out to watch videos made by the players and asking them to emulate them. You know that those kids immediately want to have the app and be like the big girls they idolize… I was at a local town meeting and a young (20’s) participant said that Culver needs to expand their social media presence to include TikTok. She said that she was embarrassed to admit that she, like many in her generation, is on the app 2 or more hours a day. This is someone I consider smart and with her drive, she has a bright future. Is she at risk because she has things on TikTok that could come back to stymie a future political career or job opportunity? Not that there isn’t a risk of that with any social media, but we’ve been told that this TikTok is specifically harvesting information for a hostile foreign government. If reports are correct, Chinese children on the app are bombarded with STEM encouragement. American children are bombarded with mindless drivel and worse, things that are causing body dysmorphia and the resultant depression. That’s problematic.

I guess this isn’t too surprising when millions of Americans are sending off DNA samples to trace their ancestry, despite the accompanying sign-offs that say the company can do what they want with the DNA information provided. How much more personal can you get? At what point will that information be available to employers, insurance companies, divorce lawyers and others that may use it to harm us? At what point will it become common place enough that it’s required? Will the history questionnaire at the Doctor be replaced by a tube to spit into, at which point they’ll know anything they want about you and your ancestors?

As with anything, it is the camel’s nose under the tent… And doesn’t that metaphor really shows this has gone on forever!?! Bad things would be stopped if they happened all at once, but work up to them bit by bit and most people will go along.

Remote Workers

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Inside Indiana Business reported that three Indiana Cities took positions in the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top Ten Places for Remote Workers: Evansville was #3, Lafayette was #5 and Fort Wayne was #10. The topic of remote workers comes up often at the Culver Crossroads meetings. While Culver has done a lot to become attractive to remote workers, I’m not sure we’ve done much to actually attract remote workers.

Culver saw a lot of remote workers during the pandemic. Not surprising that a community of second homes became a desirable location to shelter-in-place. One advantage that Culver had over the cities listed above (for sheltering in place) was our small size. We have many of the necessary amenities without the large population. We undoubtedly missed an opportunity to capture more of those remote workers.

Image from MCEDC website

While we have boosted our amenities, we can’t compete with small city amenities such as colleges. (Though to some extend, Culver Academies fills a lot of that gap. That’s not necessarily obvious to someone looking in from the outside.) What we should do is promote our proximity to these. Two of the above cities, Lafayette and Fort Wayne, are within 75 miles of Culver. Lafayette gives us proximity to Purdue. South Bend and Notre Dame are 45 miles away. Chicago is only 76 miles away! Michigan Wine Country is only 76 miles away. We’re only 100 miles of Indianapolis. Yet we only continue to promote Culver as a destination. The Culver Visitors Center promotes itself as Find Culver.

CabinetWorks Billboard on 31 South

What if we were to also promote Culver as a hub? Marshall County Economic Development Corporation has been doing this with manufacturers for years, pointing out the manufacturing centers and vast population within a 200 mile radius of Marshall County. (One of those interesting statistics is that there are more people within 200 miles of Marshall County, IN than within 200 miles of Atlanta, GA.)

Image from CabinetWorks Group Website

I know we’re still working on things and there are some issues, such as broadband, yet to be solved, but I don’t think it’s too soon to talk about why Culver is a great place to live, not just a great place to visit. This is an across the board thing. Look at the sign CabinetWorks has promoting working in Culver (above) and the image from their website promoting Culver itself (right). How do we extend their suggestion of working in Culver to living in Culver. Culver assisted Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks bringing in workforce housing. They are in the process of helping two other developers bring in upper income housing. Is it possible to broaden the Culver Visitors Center’s mission to include finding new residents, not just visitors?

Culver Thoughts

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I met some Culverites for dinner recently and they asked some questions that got me thinking. I thought I would share some of my thoughts here. I would credit them for some of this, but since I didn’t ask their permission, they get to remain anonymous. Probably safer for them anyway! Ha!

They wanted my thoughts on a new development in Culver. (One they wanted to pursue, not one of the current ones moving through the processes.) To be honest, I found myself struggling to stay positive. That was not the case 6 years ago when Culver was in the middle of their two Stellar applications. I was on those two committees and while there were some naysayers, as there always are, they were far outweighed by those with a sense of enthusiasm and camaraderie that pulled the community together.

To be clear, I don’t want to belittle what has been accomplished in the last few years. Culver’s Stellar designation has been parlayed into two grants awarded through the Regional Cities Initiative, at least five grants from the Marshall County Community Foundation and matching grants from OCRA, IHDCA and INDOT. So far this has resulted in a new Amphitheater in the Park, major renovations to the Beach Lodge, a new sports park with a playground on school property, new walking/biking trails as well as ancillary benefits not directly funded tied to Stellar, but resulting from Stellar.

When we first started down the path of toward Stellar designation, the scuttlebutt was that Stellar had the reputation of a “Mayor Killer”. In several communities that had attempted or received Stellar designations, the Mayor that promoted the effort was voted out in the next term. OCRA’s assessment of this was that this was mostly due to things not happening quickly enough, allowing opponents to point to the outlays involved with Stellar and profess there was no return on the investment.

Culver didn’t really have that issue as there were enough people involved in Stellar and enough of them understood the time lines in order to refute those claims. Ginny Munroe as our de facto Mayor didn’t let things languish and the town remained well informed about the progress. We’ve lost Ginny’s leadership at this point and there is a void with the Council.

Ginny began Culver Crossroads to chart the next steps for Culver, but I feel that it is losing it’s momentum. I initially served on two Culver Crossroads subcommittees which have fizzled out. One is gone and the second is really down to one person doing the work of the committee. The Culver Crossroads steering committee is also serving as the steering committee to revise the comprehensive plan and that feels like it is losing steam as well. It is odd, because I know there are people on that committee that are still motivated and excited about change, but my feeling is that this isn’t translating into much action between meetings.

On top of that, we have community members actively trying to sabotage input surveys with negativity. We have decent projects being opposed in public meetings and in some cases derailed by procedural attacks. We have seen project support pulled without discussion. All of these things are troubling.

To go back to the conversation I referenced above, I don’t feel like the town’s elected leaders and appointed boards have the same appetite for change that they did when Stellar started. They are still moving some things forward, but it feels like it’s being done with a more scatter-shot approach. We’re going back to dealing with individual things in lieu of pursuing our aspirations of bigger and better things. (Blue Zones is an aspirational project and the recent handling of that didn’t look good.) The three largest projects that are being worked on by the town are all projects brought to them by developers rather than projects they have specifically pursued to meet new goals. That’s a switch in mindset.

It’s not hopeless. It’s just harder than it was and harder than it needs to be. Culver Crossroads is working to create new aspirations for the town. Hopefully the town officials will embrace them and move them forward.

Co-Promotion for Culver

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CabinetWorks Billboard on 31 South

The downtown merchants are constantly hitting up the Culver Town Council and Culver Redevelopment Committee for advertising funds and other assistance. (I’m still flabbergasted that the Town is paying to have their sidewalks cleared. That’s an extremely selective benefit!) Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that CabinetWorks has put up several billboards looking to hire. (See Right) There maybe more, but this one was just south of Plymouth on 31 south and there’s another I saw just north of Rochester on 31 north. I also noticed that Lucrezia Trattoria has a billboard on 31 north headed to Plymouth. (Odd placement, but still gets the point across.)

A few thoughts here:

  • In terms of return on investment, the Town should really be stepping up to help CabinetWorks. They are one of our top employers, a TIF contributor and probably one of the largest taxpayers. These billboards promote Culver and any & all promotion has to be good for the whole. Has the Town Council checked in on them recently? Are they having trouble and can the Town help?
  • CabinetWorks’ position as a major employer also means every one of their employees that does not currently live in Culver is a potential Culver resident. Towns are growing or dying, so if want to continue to grow, we need to help our employers grow and try and capture those employees as residents.
  • The Lucrezia Trattoria billboard hits a similar, but different set of eyes. One thing is certain… everyone that comes to eat there is a potential shopper in the surrounding businesses. How those businesses capitalize on that traffic makes a huge difference to our downtown. With a billboard like this, Lucrezia Trattoria is specifically targeting diners from outside Culver and not just the ones with lake homes that already know about Culver.
Lucrezia Trattoria Billboard by the gravel pit on Hwy 31 North

I have often promoted the idea that downtowns should work like malls to be thrive. To be successful, they need to work together, keep the same hours, run sales on the same days, etc. Culver does this selectively, i.e. sidewalk sale days, but not consistently. On busy restaurant evenings, shops should be open to promote something to do while waiting for a reservation or an option to walk off dinner before heading home. There has been a successful Cupid’s Crawl for Valentine’s Day. How about a St. Patrick’s Day Stumble? We have two Marina’s in Town. How about shutting the street down for an outdoor boat show? The Chamber is no longer doing the Taste of Culver, but I think that’s due to lack of organizers, not because it wasn’t successful. Can the Library be better utilized to have downtown events?

CabinetWorks and Lucrezia Trattoria are going it alone in promoting their businesses, but all of Culver benefits from this exposure. I can’t help but wonder if they know the Town has been using funds for promotions? Can Culver offer to help? Can some co-promotion with other Culver business benefit everyone?