The Hamilton East Public Library Board voted to pause the review of books in the teen section. The vote was 7-0. This story will be updated later today.

In past years, Mayor Scott Fadness has presented his budget plans to the City Council Finance Committee before presenting his proposal to the full Council.  This year, the mayor presented his 2024 spending plan to the full Council first, then sent the proposal to the Finance Committee.

Wednesday evening, the Finance Committee received a detailed fiscal plan from contractor Mike Reuter.  I was not provided with a copy of that plan, but Reuter indicated some numbers in that plan could be subject to change once more details become available.

The details of the presentation would likely confuse many, so suffice it to say that the city’s income situation appears stable, although the extra Local Option Income Tax cash coming from Carmel as a result of action by the Indiana General Assembly was a three-year deal and will be coming to an end soon.

Deputy Mayor Elliott Hultgren emphasized that Mayor Fadness has not used that additional income tax distribution from Carmel for year-to year budget items, knowing the funds will end.  Last month, Carmel filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming the law giving Fishers some of Carmel’s income tax money is unconstitutional.

Following Reuter’s rundown, Hultgren briefed the committee on how the Fadness Administration is proposing to spend part of the Carmel income tax money, to the tune of $12 million.

Here is the mayor’s proposal:

–$2,2 million for trail connectivity

—$800,000 for a trail node at Hub & Spoke, including rest room facilities

–$3.5 million for landscaping, particularly on medians, replacing grass so city staff will not need to endanger themselves while cutting grass

–$1 million is earmarked for sidewalk repairs in neighborhoods throughout the city

–$750,000 for a Neighborhood Vibrancy program, providing an 80% city match, up from the previous dollar-for-dollar match

–$250,000 would to go an Urban Forestry program

–$3 million would be utilized for a 96th Street Vibrancy Program

–$500,000 in Teacher Innovation Micro Grants, where teachers at HSE Schools would submit requests for funding and a committee of retired teachers will decide the awarding of these grants.

The next Finance Committee budget meeting is set for 8:30am, Monday, September 11, with department heads explaining their budget requests.

When I talk to local Fishers officials about the situation with the Hamilton East Library Board, they are careful with on the record comments.  What I am hearing off-the-record is anger at the Hamilton County Commissioners and Hamilton County Council members for their appointments to the library board.  The City of Fishers has no appointments, nor does Noblesville.

Some very good reporting from John Tuohy of the Indianapolis Star shows that there are county officials that “expressed exasperation” over recent controversies centering on that library board.

Here is part of reporter Tuohy’s story:

“If they remove the director I would say immediately, ‘Show me the evidence’,” County Council member Ken Alexander said of Director Edra Waterman. “I would want to know exactly what she did to violate her duties.”

Alexander and Hamilton County Commission President Christine Altman expressed exasperation with the prolonged controversy over the library’s book relocation policy and the internal board machinations that have sparked outrage and placed an unwelcomed national spotlight on Fishers and Noblesville.

Tuohy quotes Commissioner Altman as saying she is concerned enough that replacing appointees on the board is possible.

This is one of the best stories published recently about this dispute, and you can access it at this link.  (Note: you may have difficulty accessing this story if you are not an subscriber to the IndyStar.  Online subscriptions are very inexpensive.  I’ve expressed this before and will do so again – subscribe to your local media!)

The City of Fishers has received construction bids on the first two Barrett Law projects, but the financing for each is not in place yet, so no dollar amounts have been released on exactly how much the construction will cost.  The Fishers Board of Works and Public Safety paused the projects in March when representatives of business interests expressed concern about not knowing how much the road improvements will cost.

Barrett Law allows a city to improve private roads, have the businesses along the road pay for that work over time, then take the roads into the city’s inventory.  The first two projects proposed under this arrangement are along the northern border of Fishers on the east and west sides of State Road 37.

City officials say the business owners in each area are aware of the construction cost bids submitted, but the true cost of each cannot be determined until financing has been finalized.

Mayor Scott Fadness reminded those attending the meeting that those business owners will be allowed to remonstrate at a confirmatory vote on each project in September.  At that time, the total cost and the cost to each individual business will be known.

The city has been working to repair and improve privately-owned roads, mostly in commercial areas, that have fallen into disrepair.

At Tuesday morning’s meeting, the board approved dedication of the private roadways, allowing the city to have the confirmatory vote in September.

The City of Fishers is in the market for a new Director of Planning & Zoning.  Mayor Scott Fadness announced at Monday’s City Council session that this would be Megan Vukusich’s last council meeting in that job.

Ms. Vukusich as taking a new job.  It was not specified where she is going, but there were references to her going to a more urban area to the south.

She has been the Director of Planning & Zoning for the City of Fishers since June of 2022. She was showered with praise during the council meeting for the job she has done leading that department.

Mayor Scott Fadness says Hyvee grocery and the Andretti Racing Headquarters are coming to Fishers.  He made the remarks at the end of a budget briefing Monday.

Hyvee is working with the city on some infrastructure issues, but the mayor anticipates a groundbreaking in the next few months for the Hyvee location at Southeastern Parkway and Olio Road.

Fadness expects the Andretti Headquarters construction to begin in earnest soon.  According to the mayor, recent litigation involving Andretti should not delay the project.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness faced the media early Monday afternoon, briefing reporters on his over $164 million 2024 spending plan.  $129 million of that total would go to city operations, and $35 million would pay debt service.

When Fadness explained his 2023 budget of over $144 million last year, he warned there would be an increase in the debt service in 2024, which accounts for most of the roughly $20 million increase in the total budget figure.

The mayor will present his budget plan to the City Council tonight (Monday), the Council will assign committees to review the plan, then a Council public hearing will be held in the September Council session.  Final City Council budget approval is expected in October.

The mayor is proposing the addition of 3 uniformed  Fishers Police Officers, 2 additional School Resource Officers for HSE Schools and one Lab employee in 2024.  He also wants 3 more firefighters to supplement the current staff during absences, rather than assign overtime work.

The 2024 budget proposal calls for a 5% employee raise, plus a longevity pay provision for police and firefighters eligible to retire after 20 years of service, providing an incentive to stay on the job in years 20-25.

The contract with Community Health will result in a 2% decrease in the city’s share of  health insurance premiums with no reduction in benefits.

The decision by the state’s lawmakers to adjust the distribution of local income tax revenue between Carmel & Fishers has resulted in $21 million in additional city cash reserves.  The mayor plans to use that money to work on trail connections, neighborhood sidewalks and will enhance the Neighborhood Matching Grant program from $100,000 to $750,000.  Also, the new Matching program will be an 80-20 split, with the neighborhoods only footing 20% of the cost for an approved project.

The mayor also plans to provide $500,000 to fund innovative programs at HSE Schools.  The city will form a committee of retired teachers to evaluate requests for funding from teachers.

All this, and the mayor pointed out the 2024 tax rate for the city will go down slightly, a trend that has been happening in recent years.

I began covering Scott Fadness in 2012 when starting this blog and covering the Fishers Town Council.  Fadness was the town manager at the time, working for a 7-member town council.

His job was to listen during the meetings and respond to what the council wanted the staff to handle.  After a long town council discussion on a given issue, Town Manager Fadness would often respond, “You’ve given us some work to do.”

When residents of Fishers voted in a November 2012 referendum to become a second class city, the assumption was Scott Fadness would likely leave for another position somewhere as a town manager or similar job.  When that didn’t happen, I suspected there were people in high places encouraging him to become a candidate for Mayor of the new City of Fishers.

He did run and assumed office in 2015.  He has been there ever since, and faces no opposition in the upcoming city election, meaning his mayoral term lasts four more years.

When Town Manager Fadness became Mayor Fadness, his priorities and style of governing became clear.  His first initiative was mental health, one he continues to advocate to this day.  That may seem fairly uncontroversial and I would agree, but there have been residents and families in this city that have benefited.

However, when the COVID pandemic hit, he decided the only way to get a handle on testing in the early stages of COVID was to begin his own testing program by creating a city health department.  Fishers is only one of a handful of cities with its own health department, but Mayor Fadness felt strongly an aggressive approach was needed to deal with the health emergency.

Mayor Fadness took a lot of political heat for creating the Health Department, particularly from people at the county level of government, but he felt strongly it was needed and moved forward anyway.  The Fishers Health Department is still in business under the leadership of Public Health Director Monica Heltz, and by all measures, the department appears to be doing well.

I go over all this because of a podcast I recorded with Mayor Fadness recently, where we spent the first minutes talking about the controversies surrounding the Hamilton East Library, serving Noblesville and Fishers.  I found many of the words he used in that interview words I have heard from him since 2015.

The debate is over a new Library Board policy to review all the books in the teen (or Young Adult) collection of books and move books meeting a specific criteria set out by the board to the adult book collection.  It has created lots of publicity state-wide, nation-wide and to a certain extent, the international media has picked up this story.

The mayor says in situations like this, he tries to practice “discipline and humility over cultural matters.”  When dealing with emotionally-charged issues, he preaches being “intentional, thoughtful and inclusive.”

I have heard the mayor use the word “thoughtful” often in the many years I have covered him and held podcast discussions with him.  He has always shied away from what he sees as issues coming from the far left or the far right.  He believes most people living in Fishers are not on the far left or right, but rather in the middle.  He would like to see less ideology and more civic-minded people coming together to fashion policy recommendations and solve problems.

Fadness also indicated in the recent podcast interview that he is asked multiple times nearly every week to make a statement about this or that issue.  He made it clear to me he has decided not to issue constant statements about most of the issues when pitched to him by someone or some group of people locally.

However, he has chosen to speak on the library board issue because it has generated publicity about Fishers and it is not generally positive.  As always, Mayor Scott Fadness is measured in his language and continues to believe in reaching some solution that the community can generally support on an issue such as the local library.

This is the Scott Fadness I have covered nearly 12 years.

When talking with Fishers Public Health Director Monica Heltz a few weeks ago in a podcast, we discussed an upcoming program the Fishers Health Department will begin implementing – placards in local restaurants assigning a letter grade based on the most recent health inspection.

In a report filed with the Fishers City Council, the Health Department says those grading placards will begin appearing in local restaurants September 5th.  This program will start with traditional “brick and mortar” facilities and will include food trucks next year.

“Currently: 294 As, 26 Bs, and 18 Cs” according to the Health Department. “Three facilities failed inspection. All have corrected critical issues and re-opened.”

The Fishers Health Department also has an interactive dashboard containing the grades and the inspection report upon which that grade was assigned.  You can access the dashboard at this link.

There are few families in America not impacted in some way by addiction.  In a new Netflix six-part docudrama, the story of Oxycontin is told….the marketing, the profits and the addiction.  Here is my review.