When news began to spread about the Hamilton Souheastern (HSE) School Board decision on the school calendar for the coming two school years (for more use this link), social media became very busy around our local school district. Plenty of people had comments on that decision.
A group of students has launched a change.org page to start a petition aimed at asking board members to reconsider their decision.
You can visit the change.org petition page at this link.
Lindsey Erdody, who covers business happenings north of 96th Street for the Indianapolis Business Journal, has a new listing of business openings and closings.
One new business coming to Fishers will be a virtual reality arcade on 121st Street.
There are several other local developments listed.
You can read the IBJ story at this link
(Updated 11/23/2017)
When ribbons are cut to open a new restaurant in Fishers, everyone is all smiles and it is a happy event. When an establishment is forced to close, the feelings are much different.
Brixx Pizza in the downtown Fishers Depot Building has served its last meal. The eatery is no longer in business at the Fishers location after shutting its doors on Tuesday, November 21st.
“It is unfortunate that Brixx has made the decision to close”, said Brian Moore, Vice President, Marketing & Communications for Flaherty & Collins, developer of The Depot. “We are currently working through the details of their closure. We are confident in the retail options for businesses at The Depot, with all the retail spaces currently leased, and over 90% occupancy in the residential portion, it is a great fit in downtown Fishers. We have no doubt the space occupied by Brixx will find a new tenant soon.”
Ashley Elrod, Director of Public Relations for the City of Fishers, called the closure of Brixx “disappointing” but emphasizes the many new businesses opening during the past six weeks within the same area of downtown in the Depot and Switch Buildings, They include:
–Shine Home (home goods and design) which opened in October
–Ultimate Home Automation (home technology) which will be opening next week)
–Main Street Poke (Hawaiian-inspired food)
–Another Broken Egg café, which opened Monday.
There is no question that the pizza restaurant scene is one of the most competitive you will find. Several new pizza places have opened locally in recent months. It is not surprising one has closed.
I would expect another tenant in the Brixx location. It is a prime spot. I will let you know once another business decides to make a go of it there.
Update: Tim Miner, representing Brixx, sent me a message Thanksgiving Day indicating Brixx has been happy with its reception in Fishers. The current ownership of the pizza eatery is looking for a buyer in the current location in the Depot Building. Miner described the current situation as a “suspension.” So, there is hope Brixx may reopen in the same downtown location with new ownership. LarryInFishers will keep you up to date.
In the upcoming school years (2018-2019 & 2019-2020) HSE School District students & teachers will be reporting two days earlier to begin the school year in August, and the Thanksgiving Break will be a full week long. After a long odyssey of votes and confusion over Roberts Rules of Order, the school board voted 4-3 to approve the next two school year calendars.
The evening began with the board voting down the administration proposal that had included input from the Hamilton Southeastern Education Association, that would keep the school calendar close to what it is in the current school year. Superintendent Allen Bourff’s proposal would have called for teachers to report for school on Monday, August 6th, 2018, with students’ first day of school Wednesday, August 8th. Thanksgiving break would have been 3 days, Wednesday-Thursday.
The board voted that proposal down 5-2. That left the school district with no school calendar after the current school year.
Then a motion to reconsider was made later in the meeting, which sparked a long debate about whether the board was following Roberts Rules of Order. After a lengthy discussion, the board moved toward another vote.
Board members hotly debated the value of data gleaned from an online survey. Some board members wanted to value the data, while others questioned how accurate the data might be. Board member Mike Bottorff appeared skeptical that the survey data should be used in making the calendar decision, while Michelle Fullhart argued that the survey results should be a part of the consideration in voting on a new school calendar.
Once all the talking ended, the board voted 4-3 to start the school year 2 days earlier for teachers and students the next two school years. In the 2018-2019 calendar, teachers report on Thursday, August 2nd, with students starting classes Monday, August 6th. Thanksgiving break will be November 19th-23rd (Monday-Friday). Fall Break will be October 15th-19th. Christmas Break runs Monday, December 24th through Monday, January 7th (teachers report on January 7th, students are off that day). Spring Break is set for Friday, March 29th through Friday, April 5th, 2019. The last day of school for students is set for Friday, May 24th, with the final week of May set aside for make-up days, if needed.
In the first vote turning down the administration’s proposal, Matt Burke and Michelle Fullhart were the two votes in favor of Dr. Bourff’s recommendation. On the 4-3 vote that approved the calendar – Mike Bottorff, John DeLucia, Amanda Shera and Terry Tolle voted yes. Matt Burke, Michelle Fullhart and Sylvia Shepler cast the no votes
In other board action, the new elementary school on Cyntheanne Road that will soon be under construction now has a name – Southeastern Elementary School. The vote was 6-1, with Michelle Fullhart casting the lone no vote.
The City of Fishers does not have an indoor facility for arts events and performances. There are people in the city working to remedy that situation. The Fishers Arts Council has engaged the Ball State University College of Architecture and Planning to provide concepts for such an arts center.
“Fishers is a city of more than 90,000 residents, in one of the wealthiest communities in Indiana, yet it does not have an art gallery or an indoor performing arts facility,” said Daniel Kloc, president of the Fishers Arts Council in a news release. “We asked ourselves: what if we had an arts facility, something that could contain a black box theater and space for visual arts, what would that look like?”
Timothy Gray is an Indianapolis architect who teaches at Ball State. He liked the Fishers Arts Council idea, and included it as part of the curriculum for his studio class.
Hope Disbro is a 2015 HSE High School graduate and is enrolled in Gray’s class.
“Every time I come back to Fishers there is new stuff, and 116th is just a booming area, so I thought it would be cool to do something,” Disbro said. “Something like this would be used, and it would be a huge asset.”
Gray’s class members visited Fishers earlier this fall to discuss the concept and see the downtown Fishers area. The owner of Fritz in Fishers along 116th Street in the downtown area agreed to let the students use his used car business as a mock space for the arts facility.
The Ball State students’ will display several concepts for an indoor arts facility as part of an exhibit from 4 p.m. until 6:30 p.m., Dec. 6 at Meyer Najem, 11787 Lantern Road. The event is free. Visitors will see seven different designs, including models and drawings, which showcase the art of design. The Fishers Arts Council also hopes the exhibit generates discussion about expanding arts offerings in the city.
The City of Fishers has been working for some time with the Indianapolis Airport Authority for use of portions of the airport’s land near along Allisonville Road between 106th and 96th Streets as commercial development. A recent action at the Airport Authority board meeting is moving that process further along.
For more on that meeting, read the story written by Susan Orr of the Indianapolis Business Journal at this link.
The Hamilton Southeastern Schools Foundation announced Friday that Executive Director Freedom Kolb will be leaving, but she will not be going far and will be around to help with the transition to new leadership. During a podcast interview Saturday at the new Another Broken Egg Cafe in downtown Fishers, Freedom explained that she is headed to a job with the HSE School Corporation.
“I joke that I’m really just moving across the street” said Kolb during the podcast interview. “I will be continuing to do a lot of the mission work the foundation has been doing, specifically around school counseling, mental health, social justice & equity, student success for all students, experiential learning…”
Most of the projects she will be working on are tied to the $2.1 million grant from the Lilly Endowment. She will be handling the administrative side of managing the grant, ensuring the funds are going to the projects Lilly intends to fund.
As for Freedom Kolb’s replacement at the HSE Schools Foundation, the board has activated the succession plan. A search committee will use that plan as a road map in the search for a new executive director. The team is already accepting resumes from candidates for the job. Once the applicants are identified, the committee will establish a time line on how long the process will take.
Freedom Kolb says she will be at the foundation until a new leader is hired and will be part of the transition.
by
Stu Clampitt
Hamilton County Reporter
Strawtown Koteewi Park has been the focus of media attention this year due to a controversary at the federal level about how Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Department (HCPR) handled Native American artifacts discovered during archeological digs on park grounds. A recent decision to reduce the monetary penalty to $6,533 has again focused attention on Koteewi.
According to a statement from the Parks Department, “The penalty was based on the park department’s non-compliance with provisions of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The provisions were in regard to tribal consultations and inventory reporting.”
Director Allen W. Patterson stated that he accepted the decision of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and added that the department has taken steps to ensure future compliance with the NAGRPA guidelines.
Those steps include both a new policy and a new staff position to ensure greater compliance moving forward.
HCPR has put in place a “Collections Management Policy,” which includes a procedure for what must be done when encountering human remains.
Additionally, they have created a full-time staff position dedicated to overseeing artifact collection related activities and responsible for overseeing, on the department’s behalf, any archaeological activity on park property. The person filling that position for HCPR is Christy Bracken.
Bracken holds a bachelor of science degree in anthropology with a minor in native studies and geology and a Master’s degree museum studies. She began working part-time for HCPR on Dec. 12, 2011, and was moved to full-time position on June 12, 2014.
In 2013 HCPR received a copy of a letter written by the Chief of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma to the U.S. Department of the Interior, dated Sept. 10, 2013. The letter reads, in part, “HCPRD has achieved compliance with the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and to acknowledge and express its deep appreciation for the hard work and dedication of the HCPRD in its work with the Miami and other historic tribes of Indiana.”
The letter went on to state, “The HCPRD and the Tribe have engaged in an extensive, on-going collaborative effort to achieve NAGPRA compliance and to build a positive future-looking relationship over the past 12 months . . . The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma acknowledges and appreciates the hard work and dedication of the staff at the Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Department to fulfill its requirements under NAGPRA. Despite a spare budget and a volunteer board, HCPRD was focused and engaged in the compliance and consultation process.”
The Miami of Oklahoma have control and possession of the original 12,000 artifacts covered in the claims for which the HCPR has been fined. “We are still working on documentation on the second group of +/- 90,000,” Patterson said.
Trying to understand how Strawtown Koteewi Park became the center of this kind of controversy involves a few key points: Park officials both respect and care about the preservation of history in Hamilton County; they believed they followed the laws relevant to their archeological activities; they worked closely with the Native American people they were told to work with; and a relatively recent change in federal law appears to have affected their efforts retroactively.
It is important to note that Hamilton County Parks and Recreation (HCPR) was working for years under the understanding that they were in fact doing everything they were supposed to. They had filed permits with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology (IDNR). When their archeological activities did turn up artifacts and remains, they were told by IDNR to deal with the Miami Nation of Indiana, with whom HCPR and Director Allen W. Patterson developed a good working relationship.
“We were first notified in 2012 of the claims,” Patterson said. “That’s when we started consulting with the Miami of Oklahoma. We’d been consulting with the Miami of Indiana prior to that, but they are not a federally recognized tribe, even though we had been told by the state that they are who we should talk to.”
Brian Buchanan, chief of the Miami Nation of Indiana, was not available to for comment due to a heath issue. But when asked about his relationship with Buchanan, Patterson told The Reporter, “Brian is a great man. We’ve got a great relationship with Brian. In the early 2000s, after the archeological investigations began, anytime we had a question that’s who they [the state] guided us to.”
There were multiple settlements over thousands of years imprinted on top of each other at Koteewi Park. All were pre-contact Native American villages and sites. “We have no idea if they were Miami,” Patterson said. “The Miami tribe has aboriginal land claims to this area, but because of the timing of the digs and the investigation there is no way to tie them to any specific historical tribe. And that law changed in 2010 or 2011. That is when the federal government started recognizing aboriginal ties to land. That in itself was a change and a challenge in trying to adhere to the federal law.”
The Miami Nation of Indiana has recognition from the State of Indiana, but not from the federal government. On the other hand, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma does have federal recognition. Thus, HCPR had to step back from their working relationship with the Miami of Indiana in order to build a new relationship with the Oklahoma branch in compliance with federal law.
Before that change in the law, there was no provision for cultural affiliation of artifacts from a pre-contact era. “It was during that whole time that if something were found in a dig or discovered then we contacted the Indiana Miami and they actually performed repatriation ceremonies on site for us on a number of occasions,” Patterson said. “We felt very strongly about our relationship with the Miami of Indiana and it was very difficult to have to back off on our communications with them.”
Patterson said part of what he thinks is important about the work at Strawtown Koteewi is being able to tell the citizens of Hamilton County and our visitors about the history of Hamilton County at the property. “Any partners we have in that process that can help us tell that story—and as we can help benefit their cultures in any way and help them answer questions—that’s what we are here for,” Patterson said. “That’s why we are working with the universities and the tribe to gather this information. It would be a much different process and would be looked at much differently if we were just trying to clear land to develop a park.”
Koteewi has been given an archeology award by the State of Indiana recognizing their investment and efforts in forwarding archeology and history in the state. Patterson has been asked to speak at historic conferences.
“The Indiana Miami have partnered with us in programming for many years out there on site,” Patterson said. “In Indiana Archeology Month we have for many years been the number one most visited site. That’s not just because people wanted to come out there, it is because we have been promoting and actively presenting programs about archeology and about the history of that area. The tribes are a huge part of that. We have always welcomed that. That is part of what we thoroughly enjoyed in working with the Indiana Miami.”
Patterson said he wanted to clarify what he describes as a point of misrepresentation by the media.
“One of the things I think has been misunderstood and misreported to this point: we respect the culture and the emotion and everything about this,” Patterson told The Reporter. “We put a lot of work into trying to understand and work with the Native American people. Everything we have done has been out of the goal to treat them with respect.”
Patterson told The Reporter he sees Strawtown Koteewi as existing in partnership not only with Hamilton County but also with the aboriginal people who were there before, in as much as they are able to build and maintain those relationships.
Regarding HCPR’s relationship with the Miami of Oklahoma, Patterson has a hopeful but guarded view of the future.
“The handful of consultations we had had on this larger number of artifacts have been challenging because the cultural difference plays a big part in things,” Patterson said. “We are looking at the law, saying, ‘we are following the law.’ I think that has strained relations a bit. We look forward to the point when we get through all of this and move on. Our contact is their tribal historic preservation officer, but unfortunately, as this thing has played out most of the conversations and discussions have happened between attorneys.”
Given the path they took to get here, as well as the vision Patterson describes for Strawtown Koteewi Park, history is alive and well in Hamilton County. The story of this controversy will even become a part of that.
Posted by
Richie Hall
Hamilton County Reporter
Hamilton Southeastern finally got a chance to play in front of its home crowd on Saturday.
It was worth the wait for the Class 4A No. 4 Royals, as they blasted Fort Wayne Carroll 62-41. Southeastern led the Chargers 15-6 after the first quarter and 29-14 at halftime, then steadily increased its lead throughout the second half.
Molly Walton scored 15 points for the Royals and also was solid on defense with five steals. Sydney Parrish added 12 points and dished out four assists, while Malea Jackson scored 10 points.
Amaya Hamilton was strong on the boards with nine rebounds. Tayah Irvin grabbed five rebounds and made four steals.
Southeastern is now 6-0 for the season and travels to Brownsburg on Tuesday to open Hoosier Crossroads Conference play.
This week, Adam & Larry review Murder On The Orient Express. Our guest this week is Evan Lurie, with many tales of acting and doing stunt work in Hollywood.