The City of Fishers is moving full speed ahead with plans to convert the Nickel Plate rail line into a trail.  You may recall about two years ago, when the announcement was made about the plans for the trail, there were county commissioners on hand along with Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear.

A story on the front page of the Indianapolis Business Journal December 21st edition, written by North of 96th reporter Samm Quinn, says Noblesville leaders are not anxious to create the section of the trail in the Hamilton County Seat.

Current Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear appears not be inclined to move forward with the trail during 2019, his final year in office.  Reporter Quinn spoke with the known Noblesville mayoral candidates and no one talked about the trail as a priority.

Meanwhile, the federal Surface Transportation Board has essentially granted Novblesville, Fishers and Indianapolis the go-ahead to rail bank the corridor within the borders of their respective municipalities, which allows the cities to move forward with the trail, in a ruling announced Friday.  The “Save the Nickel Plate” organization, which has pushed for keeping the rail line intact, either just as a rail line or a combined rail & trail, asserted the federal ruling was “great news” on their Facebook page saying the board “clearly spelled out how to return the rail to active service.”

Save The Nickel Plate would need to change the leadership in city government for that return of rail service to happen.  Logan Day, a spokesman for the group, recently stepped down from his Save the Nickel Plate post to explore a run for Mayor of Fishers in the 2019 city election.

Save the Nickel Plate has also filed lawsuits against Fishers and made an administrative challenge to the city’s procedures issuing bonds to pay for the first phase of the trail, which will trigger a property tax rate increase.  So far, none of these challenges have been successful, but some are still pending.

In a statement released Friday after the federal board’s action, Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness said this ruling “reaffirms the city’s right by law to move forward with the trail and we plan to do so imminently.”

It would now appear the city plans to aggressively move forward with the Nickel Plate Trail, and Save the Nickel Plate plans to be just as aggressive in fighting the trail conversion in every possible arena provided by law.  Let’s wait and see how this develops.

You can read Samm Quinn’s story at this link.  (NOTE:  If you are not a subscriber of the Indianapolis Business Journal, you are limited in the number of stories you may access each month)

Hamilton County Reporter

Fishers picked up its fourth straight victory on Saturday, beating 62-56 at the Tiger Den.
Fishers led 11-9 after the first quarter, then exploded for 22 points in the second period, on its way to a 33-19 halftime lead. Terry Hicks scored 10 points in that quarter, with Willie Jackson adding six.

The Olympians cut into the Tigers’ lead during the second half, but Fishers was able to hang on for the win. Hicks added another 10 points in the fourth quarter; he finished the game with 26 points, including four 3-pointers (two each in the second and fourth periods).
Luke Hernandez added nine points, while Jackson scored eight.

The Tigers are 6-3 for the season and will play at the Lebanon Tournament next weekend. Fishers’ first game is at 11:30 a.m. Friday against Gary 21st Century.

Hamilton County Reporter

Fishers began the first game of its month-long road trip with a win, toughing
out a Friday night contest at Hamilton Heights 35-31.

It was a close game the entire way, with the Tigers leading 13-10 after the first
quarter before the Huskies cut that advantage to 20-19 at halftime. Fishers led
25-21 after three periods.

The Tigers led 32-28 with under a minute to go after Audra Emmerson made
two foul shots. Bayleigh Runner answered by making a 3-pointer to get Heights within
one. But Fishers’ Katie Burton came back by making a traditional three-point play;
Burton rushed an inbound pass down to the Tigers’ basket for an easy layin, followed by
an and-1 with 26.6 seconds left, effectively sealing the game.

“That was a play that we haven’t run before, and I just threw it up there in the
timeout,” said Fishers coach Lauren Vail.

“And I told her right before we went out, I said ‘Hey, if you have the layup, go score.’
She did exactly that. I’m just really proud of the way we played together tonight.”

Burton finished the game with 13 points, with Tamia Perryman scoring eight points
and collecting four rebounds.

“First of all, I have to give credit to Hamilton Heights. Those kids are patient
and they make sure they find a great shot every time down the floor,” said Vail. “So I
was really, really proud of our kids at how they were able to adjust to that throughout
the game, and how they worked through their own problems.”

Bayleigh Runner scored 14 points to lead the Huskies, including three 3-pointers.
Payton Dissett threw in two 3s.

“I’m really proud of our locker room,” said Huskies coach Keegan Cherry. “I’m
really proud of the girls. In terms of execution of a game plan, I thought they
were excellent, especially offensively. Took me back to my first year when we played
Heritage Christian in the sectional finals. We wanted to dictate tempo, have long
possessions, make them guard us.”

Cherry called Fishers “a really good team” – “Burton is one of the better guards
that we’re going to play all year,” said the coach. “They’ve got size. They do a terrific
job of guarding the basketball and they’re great on the backboard. But I was proud of
the fight that we showed there in the second half.”

The Tigers are 10-4 and will play next weekend at the East Central Holiday
Tournament, taking on North Harrison in their first game next Friday. Heights is 6-8
and is off until Jan. 3, when it plays at Lewis Cass in a Hoosier Conference East game.

Hamilton County Reporter

The Hamilton Southeastern boys basketball team beat Pendleton Heights 50-44 in a
Friday away game.

The Class 4A No. 7 Royals had balanced scoring, led by Chris Grubbs’ 14 points and
nine rebounds.

Southeastern is 7-1 and will play two games at Caldwell County, Ky. next week.

As one of the small number of reporters covering Fishers on a regular basis, I try to make it a priority to cover local events in person, if at all possible.  There are situations I cannot be there when the event happens and need to follow-up later, but there is nothing quite like being on the scene to understand the context of a story.

This was illustrated while I sat through a Fishers Board of Works and Public Safety session Friday morning.

There was an agenda item simply labeled “Surplus Property 2018 Weapons.”  My first thought was, what, the city is selling surplus guns?  Apparently, that thought crossed the mind of Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness.

“We’re not actually selling guns,” the mayor said.  “We’re not having a garage sale.”

Then everyone looked at me…..the message was, Larry, you need to explain that the city is not selling or giving away firearms to the public.  In fact, declaring these weapons surplus simply allows Fishers officers to keep their guns once they have served their useful lives.

Let it be known that Larry did his job as a reporter…..no gun garage sale for the City of Fishers.

Fishers Police Officers will be equipped with body-cams during the final three months of 2019.  That’s the word from Fishers Chief of Police Ed Gebhart as he spoke before the Board of Works and Public Safety.  The Chief was answering questions on a contract that was approved by the board to provide the body-cams and related software from Axon Enterprise.

Mayor Scott Fadness, a member of the board, indicated he would like the board of works to establish policies about the release of such video, which will be stored by the vendor in a cloud-based data storage system.

Axon will also upgrade the video equipment now in place on Fishers police vehicles.

The board received a number of annual updates, including status of the city’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), adoptions and amendments to the city road inventory and listing of traffic signs.  On Call Engineering will once again provide services to the city in 2019.

The board approved a number of other items during the Friday morning session, including:

–An agreement with the state of Indiana to offset state tax refunds to pay City of Fishers outstanding debts.

–A contract to provide property and casualty insurance for the city in 2019.

–A supplemental funding agreement to move forward with the planned roundabout at 126th Street and Ford Road.

–Special purchase of a Pierce Saber Pumper fire engine

–Special purchase of a Medix Ambulance.

The Federal Surface Transportation Board has given final approval to transform the Nickel Plate Rail Line to a trail.  The cities included are Fishers, Noblesville and Indianapolis.

According to Fishers city officials, the decision issued three notices of interim trail use, one for each segment of the track in all three municipalities. This decision denies U.S. Rail’s motion for a preliminary injunction to use the rails.

“Today is a definitive step forward in the City’s ability to execute to a vision of creating a transformative trail for our community,” said Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness in a city news release. “This decision reaffirms the City’s right by law to move forward with the trail and we plan to do so imminently. This guarantees that the countless volunteer hours by our residents in developing a vision for our trail will not be wasted while closing a chapter on the countless frivolous actions taken by Save the Nickel Plate and its representatives.”

In a Facebook post, the organization aimed at preserving rail use of the Nickel Plate, “Save the Nickel Plate,” says although the board did not grant many of the group’s motions, the organization claims the board “clearly spelled out how to return the rail to active service.”

A crash Thursday night on I-69 near 106th Street in Fishers claimed the life of an Indianapolis man.   Police say Ernesto Moon, 43, was driving his vehicle southbound when his car apparently rear-ended a semi.  Authorities say the crash is still under investigation with no cause determined at this time.

Moon was dead when first responders arrived at the scene.  The driver of the semi was not injured.

The highway reopened at 1:30am Friday.

Hamilton County Reporter

Fishers won its third straight game on Thursday, using a strong second quarter to beat Lafayette Jefferson 81-70 at the Bronchos’ gym.

The Tigers led 17-14 after the first quarter, then poured in 27 points to take a 44-28 lead at halftime. Alex Szilagyi threw in three 3-pointers in the second period, scoring 11 points in total.

Lafayette Jeff cut slightly into Fishers’ lead during the second half, but the Tigers made plenty of big baskets to keep comfortably ahead. Willie Jackson went 6-of-7 from the free throw line in the half. He would finish the game 9-of-10 from the line.

Szilagyi led Fishers with 25 points, while Jackson added 23. Josiah Matthews scored 11 points.

The Tigers are 5-3 and return to the Tiger Den on Saturday to host Columbus East.

The Fishers Police Department is preparing to install body cameras to be worn by officers in the field.  The 2019 city budget includes funding for the video equipment.

The department leadership sees the new technology in a positive light.

“We feel like it is a tool that will allow us to maintain trust in the community and build better cases on the criminal side,” Assistant Police Chief Luke Gannon told the Fishers Police Merit Commission.  “I don’t know of any real downsides out there at this point on the body-worn camera.”

“Our officers are asking for it,” said Chief of Police Ed Gebhart. “They know it’s time.”

Gebhart told commission members at their semi-annual meeting Thursday that his department and Carmel are both using the same contractor to provide this technology.  Westfield is changing vendors.  The chief said Noblesville and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department are both watching Fishers & Carmel before moving forward with their body-cam programs.

The contractor Fishers plans to utilize offers video recording technology inside the police vehicle and interview rooms, along with the body-cams.

The commission received an update on the 2018 department goals, which were largely accomplished.  The department heard updates on planning for 2019 and 2020 in a number of areas, including training and cooperation with the HSE Schools.

Two of the five commission members are elected by Fishers police officers, and that process begins soon.  Nominations for those two seats begin December 24th and end January 15th.  Officers will have a chance to meet with the nominees January 24th, and the election naming those two commission members will be held January 25th.  Warren Henderson and Jim White are the two members voted by police officers currently serving on the commission.

Tiffany Sharpley, an appointed member of the commission, informed commission members Thursday she has her house up for sale and plans to move from the Fishers area, meaning a person will need to be appointed as her replacement.