The Fishers Arts Council is set for the 12th annual Senior Showcase at Fishers City Hall, featuring works of art from seniors at Fishers and HSE High Schools.  A free public reception is set for Friday, April 16th, from 6:00pm to 7:15pm, followed by the Awards Ceremony at 7:30pm.

This will be an in-person reception, but COVID protocols will be in place. Facial coverings are mandated as is social distancing.

The award winners this year will receive scholarships totaling $2000. The categories are – Best of Show ($500), First ($250), Second ($150) and Third Place ($100) in the categories of Drawing, Photography and Painting/Mixed Media.

The artwork will be on display at Fishers City Hall from April 4th thru April 29th, with the gallery open daily from 8:30am-4:30pm, Monday-Friday.

Jesse Kramer, Director of Exhibits at Conner Prairie will be the judge. The artwork for the exhibit was selected by Jasmine Osborne, Chair, Visual Arts Department, Chair, Visual Arts Department, Fishers High School and Angela Fritz, Chair, Visual Arts Department, Hamilton Southeastern High School along with art department teachers Danielle Ontiveros and Lisa Brown.

The corporate sponsor for the exhibit is Star Bank.

The artwork shown in this post are from last year’s event.

Fishers Student Karissa Stiner

The American Rescue Plan (ARP), the $1.9 trillion in spending recently enacted by Congress, provides local governments money, and Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness says his city is receiving $19.8 million.  The mayor wants to work with his city council on how the funds should be spent.

According to Fadness, there are some restrictions in the federal law as to how the money can be spent and he wants to sift through all the provisions before working with council members on spending the cash.

“We are in a very good financial position, so Fishers will not need to use this money to plug holes in our budget,” Fadness tells LarryInFishers.

According to national news reports, the local ARP money must be spent by the end of 2024 on certain projects, including:

–reimbursement and expenses related to the coronavirus pandemic

–grants to assist small businesses, nonprofits and industries impacted by the pandemic.

–water, sewer and broadband projects

All ARP funds must be spent by the end of 2024 and the money cannot be used to lower taxes or to pay into municipal pension funds.

I have been experimenting with recording my podcasts on both audio and video.  I have this podcast available as audio only but have added this video version if you prefer it.

Let me know if you like, or dislike, my video versions of the LarryInFishers.com podcasts

This is the video of my podcast with Jason Taylor and Hatem Mekky of the Fishers Engineering Department.

Ever since moving to Fishers in 1991, municipal officials have always advised local motorists to be patient as road construction is ongoing.  Some things never change.

In this podcast with Jason Taylor, Director of Engineering for the City of Fishers, and Hatem Mekky, the Assistant Director, both ask for your patience as we enter the road construction season in 2021.

We discuss State Road 37, the status of the Nickel Plate Trail and a number of other subjects in this podcast.

HBO has offered-up three documentary films on contemporary issues that looked quite promising to me.  The first deals with the impact of COVID on American sports.  The second looks into the fascination many Americans have with a thing called Q-anon.  Finally a cruise ship is the first one hit with a COVID outbreak early in the pandemic and the film uses amateur phone videos to tell the story.

Sadly, only one of the three would be recommended by me.  Here is the review podcast.

The Fishers Health Department is issuing a new Public Health order effective once the current document expires April 6, “strongly advising” mask wearing, but no longer mandating it.  The new Public Health Order can be accessed at this link.

Here is what the Fishers Health Department strongly advises as of April 6:

• Continued mask-wearing
• Distancing from those outside your household
• Sanitizing high-touch surfaces
• Getting vaccinated when eligible

The city is also challenging  all adults to sign-up for a COVID vaccine appointment, now that anyone 16 years of age and older is eligible for the shot.  The Health Department wants 85% of those eligible to be vaccinated.  Vaccination rates for Fishers will be  tracked and reported by the health department during the week of April 5th.

The order contains the expiration of the mask mandate and social gathering restrictions , along with ending limits on capacity for restaurants and other businesses.

For previous Orders, visit this link.

by

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

Charles (Chuck) Kiphart, longtime Director of the Hamilton County Planning Department, will retire on April 16. No successor has yet been named. Applications for the position are currently being received.

Kiphart has served as director for 32 years. He is a native of Frankfort, Ind., and a resident of Indianapolis. Following retirement, Kiphart plans to continue his pottery-making avocation.

County Planning has planning and zoning authority over unincorporated areas of the county outside the jurisdictions of cities and towns. Department offices are located in the county Government and Judicial Center.

The county’s comprehensive master plan has recently been updated with the final step of approval by county commissioners upcoming soon.

When I started this local news blog in January, 2012, it was largely because I had found a dearth of news reporting about Fishers, the place I had lived since 1991.  That was about the time The Indianapolis Star no longer assigned a reporter to cover Fishers.

I was critical of the Star in several commentaries written in the early years of my blogging history.  Those blog posts normally came after another round of journalist layoffs by Gannett, the owner of the Star.

My attitude toward the Star has changed over the years.  What is happening at the Star is indicative  of what is happening at local newspapers throughout the nation.  The Star is just one example.

I have also praised the Star for doing award-winning investigative reports.  That is what separates a run-of-the-mill newspaper from a great newspaper.  For that, I give the Star much credit.

In recent years, I have seen more attention to Fishers from the Star.  John Tuohy covers Noblesville and Fishers and has been spending a lot of his time on Fishers stories lately.

But I must give great credit to Star education reporter MJ Slaby.  She has attended Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board meeting in person lately.  I know because I have been at the same meetings and see her there.

Ms. Slaby and her editors have focused on Fishers recently.  There was extensive coverage of the HSE Racial Justice Town Hall.  There was also a profile of the new HSE Equity & Inclusion Officer for HSE, Nataki Pettigrew.

Her latest story as of this writing is all about HSE’s plan to offer virtual learning to families wanting that learning paradigm for their children in the 2021-2022 school year.

If you want access to the stories written by reporters like John Tuohy and MJ Slaby, you need to subscribe to the Indianapolis Star.  Yes, I know the print edition subscription cost has risen dramatically.  Jane and I take the print edition two days a seek and I read the e-edition of the Star, which is the print edition online, every day.  The cost isn’t that much, at least for me.

We once took local news for granted.  People subscribed to the daily newspaper and advertisers knew that was the best way to market their products.  The Internet, social media companies and more choices for marketers have spelled trouble for local newspaper business models and many dailies have closed up shop entirely in less-populated areas.

The Indianapolis Star can only provide news about Fishers, and the investigative journalism, if local people subscribe to the newspaper, in print, online or a combination of both.

Let me also put in a plug for the Indianapolis Business Journal, a locally-owned weekly that does a great job of covering the business and political beats.  North of 96th reporter Kurt Christian has done a good job, including a well-researched story on the cost of constructing the upgraded State Road 37.

I already tried to retire from this blog once, then COVID hit and caused me to re-evaluate.  I am still reporting on Fishers because I am the only one doing what I do.

I could go back to just being a retired guy and retire this blog if other newsrooms would concentrate more on Fishers.  What I have seen in the Star lately is very encouraging and I hope it continues.

In the meantime, I will continue my partnership with the Hamilton County Reporter.  I also spent some years writing commentaries for Current in Fishers.  Both those publications are still alive and have, so far, survived the economic tailwinds of COVID.

So, I continue to blog about Fishers, encouraged that there are news operations spending more of their reporting effort on Fishers.  This is good to see.

When major news breaks, there are times it brings back memories from the past.  That happened to me recently.

I recalled the time spent with my Aunt Cecilia many, many years ago.  She was a special person in so many ways.  When around her, you always felt positive vibes.  She was an upbeat person and brought that mood everywhere she went.  My Aunt Cecilia was always helping others.

She met my uncle while he was assigned to Japan serving in the military.  Cecilia and my uncle eventually married.  She moved with him to Loogootee and managed the Dairy Master restaurant.  My aunt Cecilia did something I have never done, she became fluent in two languages – her native Japanese and English.

I have so many fond and wonderful memories of my aunt Cecilia there is no way to list them all here.  In the mid-1970s I visited Cecilia and my uncle after they have moved to Phoenix, Arizona, my first foray west.

Eventually, she and my uncle divorced.  But I did speak to Cecilia one last time, 27 years ago, when my father was ill and near death.  Cecilia called my parents’ home to check on my dad and I answered the phone.  It was a difficult time, but I look back on that phone conversation with Cecilia with some fondness now because it was the last time we spoke.

Cecilia Lannan-Emery passed away on March 11, 2014.  She died in Arizona so I was unable to attend the funeral.

Why have I thought about my aunt Cecilia lately?  On March 16, 8 people died in a series of mass shootings in the Atlanta, Georgia area.  Six of the dead were Asian women.

Police have not identified a motive for the shootings, but the incident has resulted in more awareness of discrimination in America against Asians in general and Asian women in particular.

I just thought about how horrible it would have been for anyone to treat my aunt Cecilia in a discriminatory way.  If she ever experienced such treatment she never told me.  But, with her attitude toward life, she may have chosen just not to talk about it.  I will never know.

The purpose of this commentary is to very simply express that discrimination against any group is horrible, but when it hits close to home, possibly to someone you care about, it puts everything in the proper perspective.

Her son, my cousin, is half Asian but his appearance would lead one to believe is is fully Asian.  He has served honorably in the Armed Forces and is as loyal an American as one can find anywhere.  I cannot tolerate the thought that anyone would treat him differently because of his partial Asian heritage.

My main point is this.  Discrimination is America’s original sin.  We are paying for it now and sadly will for some time to come.  America’s history with Asian immigrants is not a proud one.

Fighting discrimination anywhere it is found is our responsibility, in my view.  Asians, as with any other group in America, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.  Let’s all work on doing just that.