The other night, I sat down for a great conversation with longtime Bloomington City Councilperson Steve Volan. The following biography from his website:
Steve Volan has had a long career of public service. He held the District Six seat on the Bloomington Common Council, representing approximately 13,000 constituents, from January 1, 2004 to January 1, 2024.
In 2020 Steve served as president, and in 2007 as vice-president; he also served as council parliamentarian for more than five years (2008, 2009, 2016, 2018, 2019, and part of 2017), and advocated strongly for reform of the Council’s legislative process to better serve the public and all participants. […]
Steve completed a Master of Arts degree in Geography in 2019. His thesis was called “Gownsburg: The Campus as a Municipal Phenomenon.” In October 2023 he gave a talk based on his thesis called “Doppelgänger Cities: A History of Campuses” at the Collins Living-Learning Center.
Steve has taught a course at Indiana University‘s College of Arts and Sciences since 2002 called C101 Intro to Chess, and enjoys teaching people chess informally. He has also taught for the College’s Political and Civic Engagement (PACE) certificate program.
He founded The Cinemat, an independent video-rental store, movie screening room and performance venue, in 2002. It closed in 2009 and was replaced by a bar and performance venue called The Bishop, which programs music shows similar to what The Cinemat hosted.
In 1995 he founded BlueMarble Information Services, the first company in Bloomington to provide Internet access to the general public. The company, now known simply as BlueMarble.net, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Smithville Telephone Company, the largest independent telecommunications company in the state.
He has been involved with volunteer-powered, listener-supported community radio station WFHB as a music programmer since 1992. Since its first year on the air in 1993, he has programmed a two-hour show of new music as part of the Thursday Afternoon Music Mix. He was also a founding member of the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation’s board of directors, and has emceed a stage at each year’s Lotus Festival since 1994.
Steve was in rare form, with harsh words for the incumbent commissioners. On housing, on solving the jail crisis, or their approach to diplomacy with the city, Volan says, “the Commissioners’ out-of-touch approach to governance has failed. Monroe County needs new leadership.”
And you don’t get to hear it because, unfortunately, this happened:
Very disappointing.
I was really looking forward to bringing you this conversation, but alas, it is not in the cards. I did, however, still want to share my final thoughts on the race before voting concludes this evening.
Previously, I talked about the two different blocs. Peter Iversen and Jody Madeira, backed by the generous financial support of local real estate developers, form one bloc. Julie Thomas and Penny Githens, the incumbents, comprise the other. And Steve stands alone.
Well, kinda.
He obviously does not want to see the incumbents reelected, and favors Iversen in District 2. But in his own race, Volan’s presence on the ballot may very well split the anti-incumbent vote, costing the better-funded Madeira the race.
As mentioned at the end of my episode with Penny Githens, I’ve begun to make sense of the divisions in the local party, which both reflect and diverge from divisions in the Democratic Party at the national level. In Washington, think about the centrist vs. progressive split - corporate Democrats vs. Justice Democrats; the Pelosi/Schumer/Biden old guard neoliberals vs. Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders, AOC & The Squad. Support for the two camps is largely, but not entirely, divided along generational lines.
I talked about the unique case study of Bloomington and Monroe County as a one-party jurisdiction. This is an open, tolerant, welcoming community; cultural conservative Republicans are not going to win here. So, the traditionally Republican-leaning business community, if they want any of the outsized input they have in many places, they need to cultivate centrist Democrats. It appears that’s where Iversen and Madeira, and their fundraising advantage, come in.
This is the window through which I had been viewing this race, but still, I felt like I was missing something. For one, the generational divide isn’t right. At the national level, you’ve got the older corporate Democrats standing in the way of younger progressives. Here, you’ve got the slick, business-backed, younger challengers trying to throw a couple of - and I mean this in a loving, respectful way - old hippies overboard.
Volan, while aligned with the Building Bloc, is not supported by business interests. Frankly, he’s barely raised any money at all. He has a long track-record as a solidly-left progressive. His perspective offered a lens through which I hadn’t looked at this race.
It’s not as cut-and-dried as a couple Republican-lite business-friendly Democrats backing reckless development over a couple of save-the-trees leftists. Viewed another way, it could be seen as forward-thinking progressives arguing for more affordable housing and environmentally-friendly dense development in the face of resistance from entrenched, wealthier, core-neighborhood NIMBYs and rural property owners. I don’t know which is the more accurate representation, but I can certainly see both perspectives.
The lines are blurry. Coalitions change from issue to issue. There is far more nuance in any of these arguments than can be encapsulated in a 5x7 campaign mailer or a 30-second ad. I’ve said it many times throughout this primary cycle, but I won’t tell you how to vote. I’m not endorsing any candidates here. What I will say is that I’m eternally grateful to live in a community where these are the kinds of things we fight over. No culture war garbage. No fighting over the value of democracy itself. We really aren’t even fighting over our goals as a community so much as how to achieve them. Democracy can be messy. Democracy can be nasty. But I’ll definitely take it over the alternative.
Have a safe election day, Indiana. I’ll be back with analysis of all the statewide results in the coming days.