When planning my HSE School Board candidate podcasts for 2022, I asked each of the 2 local high school principals to recommend a student to ask questions of the candidates.  Fishers High school Principal Jason Urban recommended Casey Alexander.  Reggie Simmons of HSE High School recommended Kate Lantzer.

Both students asked most of the questions in my podcasts with school board candidates.

I brought Kate & Casey back together post-election to talk about the experience.

Here is my podcast discussion with them, at the link below.

It was once called vocational education, but the name has changed to Career Technical Education (CTE).  All 6 Hamilton County school districts are now part of a joint program, the Pursuit Institute. to provide CTE to students in the county.

I spoke with Carrie Lively, Executive Director for Pursuit, and you can listen to the podcast at the link below.

Brad DeReamer has represented the Northeast District of the Fishers City Council for 2 terms and says that is enough.  In a message to LarryInFishers, DeReamer says he believes in term limits and has chosen to self-impose a limit of two terms on himself.

DeReamer, a former mayor of Greenfield, was instrumental in the city’s decision to end support for the Fishers Freedom Festival and establish the city-sponsored summer festival Spark Fishers.

It is expected that more than one candidate will be running to fill this open seat on the council in the 2023 city election.

Before I explain why I am writing about bricks, allow me to provide a short history.

One Fishers restaurant my wife Jane & I enjoyed visiting was the Nickel Plate Bar & Grill located in downtown Fishers, on 116th Street, not far from the municipal complex.  When redevelopment came to that area, Mayor Scott Fadness initially told me his intention was to keep that building, that had been named a number of ways over the years but was a part of the city’s history, remodeled and saved as part of our history.

A few months later, Mayor Fadness told me the engineers had inspected the old restaurant building and found it could not be saved and had to be torn down.

Once that happened, some local members of the Fishers community interested in the history of our city decided to recover bricks from that historic structure once the demolition had begun.

Now, these old bricks are being offered for sale to local residents with the proceeds going to Fishers nonprofit organizations.

The campaign is named “Bricks for Good.”

The supply of bricks is limited so if you are interested in buying an historic Fishers brick, do not wait.  Buy your brick at this link.

In 1991, Fishers opened a brand new Town Hall.  That Town Hall became a City Hall in 2015 when Fishers became a city.  In 2022, that building was demolished to make way for a new Arts Center/City Hall.

The demolition of the old City Hall was done recently, and Wednesday was the official groundbreaking ceremony for the start of construction on the new building.

HSE High School student Norah Wills provided the main address at the ceremony, and emphasized the importance of a central, public building in any community.

“In the wake of the pandemic, now more than ever, it is vital for our community to provide and maintain such a gathering space,” Wills told those gathered for the groundbreaking. “We have seen how polarizing distance can be. Because of that, the significance of a centralized building for the people has only become more apparent. We realize the importance of supporting a thriving community in which everyone can identify and participate.”

The new Arts Center/City Hall is scheduled to open in the spring season of 2024.

Mayor Scott Fadness speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony

Cecilia Coble has served as an at-large member of the City Council ever since Fishers became a city in 2015, and she will be asking voters to return her to the Council for another 4-year term.  Coble’s name will be on the Republican primary ballot in May of 2023.

“I am proud of the work the Disability Committee has done to champion inclusion, accessibility, and in providing more housing and employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Fishers,” said Coble in a campaign news release. “It’s led to helping other cities implement the same approach, which is making an impact for the disability community in Hamilton County and beyond.”

Coble is the first Latina to serve on a Fishers Town or City Council and was the first woman to be elected Council President in 2020 and 2021.

“Cecilia has been an important leader on our council, and our city’s success is a reflection of that,” said Mayor Scott Fadness.

Coble says she plans to continue focusing on diversifying Fishers’ tax base in order to keep resident’s taxes low, ensure police and fire have the resources they need, and that the city invests in quality of life opportunities.

Giving Tuesday is a long-standing tradition set aside for supporting nonprofit organizations.

If you live in Fishers, you will almost certainly find a deserving group to support financially through the Fishers Nonprofit Coalition.  You can find a listing of all those in that organization at this link.

I will point to one local nonprofit that has been supporting local teachers and students for many years.  I would encourage you to support the Hamilton Southeastern Educuation Foundation at this link.

Any way you choose to give and to whichever charity you choose, support people doing good work in the local community by supporting their work on Giving Tuesday.

Sarah Sandquist can look back with pride on her time as Fishers Director of Parks and Recreation.  But that journey ends with her last day on the job December 1st.  Sarah is preparing to take on the position of Executive Director of Parks & Recreation in the City of Champaign, Illinois.

Sarah recorded a podcast with me looking forward to her new job and looking back on her years in Fishers.

In some of the communities near Fishers, candidates are beginning to announce their intention to run for city council, yet no one has made an official announcement as of Sunday night of their intention to run for a Fishers council seat.

All 9 council seats are up for election in 2023, with 3 at-large and 6 running in their respective districts.

A few candidates have privately told me of plans to run for city council, but so far none are prepared to make an official announcement.

John Tuohy of the Indianapolis Star posted a story on the newspaper’s Web site a few days ago quoting Democrat At-Large Councilor Jocelyn Vare as saying she is undecided on her next decision in public life, which is exactly what Ms. Vare told me several days ago.

Councilor Vare just finished a campaign for the state senate which she lost to Republican Kyle Walker.  She had a dose of political reality on how difficult it is to win a political office when outspent in campaign money nearly 10-1.

Vare would not speculate on any run for mayor.  Hamilton County Democratic Chair Dayna Colbert told reporter Tuohy her party expects to field a candidate for Mayor of Fishers.  One major challenge for any Democrat would be fund raising.

Republican Scott Fadness, the only mayor Fishers has ever known since becoming a city in 2015, told me in a recent podcast he is not prepared to make an announcement on whether he will seek re-election but plans to disclose his plans in a few weeks. However, all the tea leaves point to Fadness seeking another term.

Assuming Mayor Fadness runs for another term, any Democratic opponent will face the same challenge Jocelyn Vare faced in her state senate campaign.  Fadness has shown he is able to raise lots of campaign cash in any re-election bid.

I would expect city council candidates, including incumbents, will be announcing their intentions as the candidate filing time approaches early next year.  Just as one election cycle closed in early November, we are headed into another election cycle.

As I have written many times before, pay attention to your local elections and vote!  Your local government is the closest one to you.  Plan now for your vote in the May primary and November general election in 2023.  I will do my best to update you on all the Fishers political news as we move into the new year.

When COVID first hit Indiana, you may recall that testing was an important ingredient to have in order to run a business or just have people gather at all.  Well before there were vaccines or effective treatments for COVID, testing was key.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness acted to fill the testing gap by creating his own city health department, something rarely done in Indiana.  He took a great deal of heat from other elected officials in Hamilton County for that decision, but Fishers immediately setup a COVID testing program well before those tests were available to citizens in other parts of Indiana and Hamilton County.

I bring this up because Indiana state lawmakers have an important decision to make in the 2023 session of the General Assembly.  It centers on how much money the state should spend on public health.

Reporter Peter Blanchard of the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) wrote an extensive piece in the November 25th edition about public health in the Hoosier state and one man at the center of that discussion – former State Senator Luke Kenley.  He was appointed a co-chair of the Governor’s Public Health Commission by Governor Eric Holcomb.

Kenley represented Noblesville and a part of Fishers for many years in the Indiana Senate and wielded great power and influence as Chair of the Indiana Senate Finance Committee.  Just about anything dealing with state money had to go through that committee.

Reporter Blanchard provides a good background of Kenley’s influence during his time in the General Assembly.  But after 5 years of leaving his elected post, Kenley is now in a position to play a key role in Indiana’s public health future.

To be blunt, Indiana’s standing of taking care of Hoosiers’ health is not a good one.  Blanchard cites data to prove the point.

“Indiana’s poor public health outcomes have been well-documented for years,” Blanchard writes. “The overall health of Hoosiers has been steadily declining since the early ’90s, when Indiana ranked 26th in the nation for overall health outcomes. Today, the state ranks 40th overall in public health outcomes, with higher-than-average rates of obesity, smoking, infant mortality and maternal mortality.”

Blanchard then refers to a 2021 report ranking Indiana 48th among the states for spending on public health.  That amounts to public health spending of $55 per Indiana resident, with $374 million dollars total spent every year by Indiana.  The per-person spending on the average among American states is $91, with our state spending $36 per person less than the national average.

Kenley is quoted in the IBJ story as saying he was “somewhat shocked” at these numbers and wasn’t aware how far behind Indiana is on public health spending while serving in the Indiana Legislature.  Democrats serving with Kenley during his time in office are quoted by Blanchard as saying they brought public health spending up numerous times during Kenley’s tenure chairing the Finance Committee, including citing several pieces of legislation proposed by Democrats that never saw the light of day.

Kenley and his fellow members of the Governor’s Public Health Commission will be making a proposal to state lawmakers as they fashion the coming 2-year budget for the state.  Under this plan, state government would provide 80% of public health funding if individual counties opt-in to the program.

Legislative leaders are not fully behind the Commission’s ideas but have not opposed the proposal yet, and many details of the plan are not publicly known at this time.  But Kenley, according to Blanchard’s reporting, has been quietly meeting with officials from around the state in an effort to round up support for the Commission’s ideas.

Blanchard ends his piece with how poor health among Hoosiers has a price tag.  In other words, a lack of public health spending has costs everyone must pay as a result.

When Mayor Fadness created the Fishers Health Department, he did so because he maintained the health of his residents was at risk without access to COVID testing.  He was able to do that, and the city’s Health Department is still around and still doing the work of public health.

A once-powerful state senator is now trying to sell a plan to provide better public health in Indiana through a system allowing local governments to opt into a new plan, if state lawmakers choose.  The answer will come when the legislative session next year approves the state’s 2-year spending plan.

Peter Blanchard’s story in the IBJ is available at this link, but you may need to be a subscriber to access it.  Again, I encourage everyone to subscribe to your local media.