A Fishers firefighter has been placed on administrative leave, and faces preliminary charges, following an alleged incident on the north side of Indianapolis.

You can read the story by reporter Taylor Dixon of Current Publishing at this link.

Fishers police responded to a number of 911 calls in a residential area near 12st Street and Hoosier Road at 12:30 am Friday.  Officers say they found a vacant home that had been struck by bullets in the 10800 block of Roundtree Road.

After searching that home and the surrounding area, police determined no one was injured.  Investigators say those apparently responsible for the shots fired fled in a vehicle but no other details are available at this time.

Fishers Police say there is no known on-going threat to the public.

Fishers authorities are asking anyone that has information about this incident to contact Detective David Finn at 317-595-3341.  Police are also asking homeowners in the area to check any doorbell or exterior video they may have available around 12:30am Friday and contact Fishers Police at 317-773-1282 non-emergency if there are any suspicious persons or vehicles recorded on a video.

The Youth Mentoring Initiative (YMI) has lined up a panel of speakers for its annual fundraising Mayor’s Breakfast September 1st.

The event will feature a panel discussion, moderated by Mayor Scott Fadness, on the role mentorship has played in the successes achieved by our panelists as they were thrust into public roles.  The panel includes:

·       Kelsey Murphy: MasterChef: Legends 2021 winner; Owner of Inspo in the Fishers Test Kitchen

·       Noah Malone: Paralympic sprinter for Team USA; Indiana State University student-athlete and former Hamilton Southeastern High School student-athlete

·       Ronald Nored: Assistant Coach of the Indiana Pacers; Former Butler University point guard, including two Final Four appearances

“On behalf of the entire Board and staff, we are excited to bring together this incredible panel,” remarked YMI Executive Director Brittany Rayburn in a news release. “Each of these individuals have been guided and impacted by mentors along their journeys of accomplishment and now have a desire to give back. We’re looking forward to an inspiring morning with them and Mayor Fadness.”

The breakfast event is 7:00am-8:30 am at Heritage Gardens at the Historic Ambassador House.  The fundraising event directly benefits YMI’s mission to connect Hamilton Southeastern School District students with a volunteer mentor once a week.

If you are looking to buy tickets or provide a sponsorship for the YMI Mayor’s Breakfast, use this link.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer mentor, use this link.

The entrance to Fishers Technology Park is located just off Lantern Road and east of the municipal complex.  That commercial area will see another addition as Fairway Mortgage broke ground Wednesday on a new office building containing the firm’s regional headquarters.

The project, named Techway, also includes a trailhead plaza along the Nickel Plate Trail.

“It is exciting to see the vibrancy and energy of the Nickel Plate District and Nickel Plate Trail impact the gateway to the Fishers Technology Park through this development and substantial art and trail components,” said Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness in a company news release. “We look forward to welcoming the Fairway Independent Mortgage team to their future home in Fishers as this building comes to fruition.”

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation plans to use the new 15,000 sq. ft., two-story building as a central hub to better serve employees and the customer base . Three central Indiana branches, including Branch 691 which is currently located in Fishers, will be combined in the new building along the Nickel Plate Trail. In addition, the regional headquarters will support the business services of the other nineteen branch locations in Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky.

Announced earlier this year, Techway is a $8.8 million development project located near Technology Drive and Technology Lane. In addition to the new office building, the project also includes the rehabilitation of an existing building, currently home to the Fishers Health Department Clinic, additional parking, and a trailhead plaza. The plaza will include bicycle racks, benches, a water fountain, parking for trail users, and a public art installation.

The Fishers Arts and Culture Commission partnered with Rebar Development earlier this year on a request for proposals for the trailhead sculpture with a budget of $50,000. Indianapolis-based artists, Luke Crawley and Quincy Owens’ concept, Synapse, was selected to move forward and will be installed once the trailhead construction is complete.

“Mayor Fadness and his administration continue to demonstrate their commitment to supporting entrepreneurs and the arts through creative public-private partnerships,” said Shelby Bowen, President of Rebar Development. “We are grateful to the City and the leadership at Fairway Mortgage for trusting us to deliver this important project.”

The Techway project is scheduled for completion in June of 2023.

Brad Boyer filed his paperwork Wednesday to run for a second term on the Hamilton Southeastern School Board. Boyer joins two other candidates, Jackie Howell and Tiffany Pascoe, in seeking the District 1 school board seat.

Here is the rundown of candidates filing for the local school board as of close of business, Wednesday, August 17th:

District 1

Brad Boyer

Jackie Howell

Tiffany Pascoe

District 2

Juanita Albright

Janet Pritchett

District 3

Dawn Lang

District 4

Julie Chambers

Ben Orr

Candidates may file for the school board election up to the deadline, August 26 at noon.

In this round of school board balloting, voters only choose the candidate within the district where the voter resides.  You can access the district maps at this link using the Current District Lines link on the right side of the page.

Jackie Howell filed her paperwork to run for Hamilton Southeastern School Board Tuesday.  She will be a candidate in District 1.

Ms. Howell’s news release announcing her candidacy says she is a licensed mental health counselor with 20 years experience serving kids and adults, including public schools and federally funded grant programs for youth. “My mental health background allows me to conceptualize the whole student, which is necessary for successful education,” says Howell.

She has 2 children that are students in the district.  Ms Howell has been involved in Junior League, CASA, Coach for Mudsocks Cheerleading and am a parishioner at Holy Spirit at Geist.

“I chose to run to serve our students and staff, many who need an advocate and positive voice,” she says in her announcement release.

District 1 contains Wayne Township and some areas to the south and west.  In this election cycle, voters cast ballots only for the candidates running within the district in which they live.

The filing deadline is noon August 26.

There was one new filing of a candidate for Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School board Tuesday in the upcoming November general election.  Jackie Howell is running in District 1.

Here is a rundown of filings for the HSE Board so far:

District 1

Jackie Howell
Tiffany Pascoe

District 2

Juanita Y. Albright
Janet Pritchett

District 3

Dawn Lang

District 4

Julie A. Chambers
Ben Orr

View the district map at this link. (see “current district lines on the right side of the page)

Voters only cast ballots for the district in which they reside for this election cycle.  The filing deadline is noon August 26.

There are a number of ways to slice and dice school test scores.  At a Tuesday morning work session, the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board received a look at various testing of students in the district from Assistant Superintendent Matt Kegley.

The report Dr. Kegley presented compared and contrasted HSE testing with the top 41 public school corporations in the state, as measured by the student population.  HSE is the fourth-largest district in Indiana by that measure.

The report was detailed, but here are a few highlights:

–The iRead-3 testing, given only to third-graders, shows HSE second in the state in 2022, although the score dropped slightly compared to 2021.  Zionsville had the highest score in that category among the 41 school districts.

–The iLearn English/Language Arts results showed improvement when measured against the 41 corporations in grades 3-7 and remained the same at grade 8.  The overall score also improved.

–The grades 3-8 iLearn math scores showed improvement in some grades, and some slightly lower by comparison.  The overall score was up slightly.

–Dr. Kegley’s data reveal improvements in every demographic breakdown.  However, he emphasized much work must be done, because even with those improvements, some group scores are much too low.  For example, black student scores in English/Language Arts and Math are both up, but are still low compared to other demographic groups.

–2022 was the first year that all juniors were required to take the SAT exam.  Before, mostly students expecting to enroll in college took that test.  In 2022, HSE had the third-best score among the 41 in reading and writing, with Zionsville and Carmel ahead and Center Grove fourth.  HSE was also third best in SAT math scores.

–Next steps listed by Dr. Kegley include implementing a new literacy curriculum, working with individual school buildings to best understand that building’s scores and talk with elementary and junior high school leaders to put the math scores into context.

You can view the entire data presentation by Dr. Kegley on the test scores at this link.

When initiating this news blog in January of 2012, local news was in trouble at that time.  My thoughts at the time were this – I would write a local news blog in Fishers until the local news drought sorts itself out, then I can go back and genuinely retire.

Anyone remotely following the local news scene is aware that nothing has been sorted out.  In fact, the local news situation, with a few notable exceptions, is much worse today compared to January of 2012.

The past week was not a good one for local news in this area,  First, Urban One, the company that is in the process of purchasing the Emmis Broadcasting stations in Indianapolis, announced that they were letting Eric Berman go.  Eric was the dean of the Statehouse press corps.  His institutional knowledge about Indiana state government is well known and his pink slip is a loss for all of us consuming news of state-wide interest.

Eric says he’s looking for his next chapter in life and I would hope more than one company would latch on to his journalistic talents.  This is a sad time for Indiana journalism if Eric is no longer reporting.

Then, there is Gannett, owner of a long list of Indiana newspapers, including the state’s largest, The Indianapolis Star.  Gannett is a profitable company with a CEO that earns at least $7 million per year, based on a number of news reports.  Yet, Gannett’s profits are down, mostly because the company is having trouble on the business side of the house.

The drop in profits wasn’t because of anything journalists did, yet they are paying the price.

The good news at the Star is that there will be no layoffs there.  But that is only because there are a number of unfilled openings on the news side of the operation and Gannett simply will not fill the open positions.  Again, that will cut into the news product you will find at the Star.

However, a number of smaller Gannett local newspapers across the state of Indiana are issuing pink slips to a number of reporters, resulting in less news coverage.

I want to repeat that I always encourage everyone to subscribe to your local media outlets.  That is because the remaining journalists at these news operations need to be supported.  Without subscribers, the situation only worsens,

I have tried to end this blog at least twice.  The first time, I made no public announcement about it and was persuaded by key people in Fishers I should continue the blog.

In 2020, I publicly announced the end of the blog.  Then, COVID hit so I promised to continue a little longer.  But I ended up with a pretty bad case of COVID.  I wasn’t hospitalized but it was so bad I couldn’t do much of anything due to a lack of energy.

That bout of COVID game me more time to think and reflect.  Once recovered, I decided to continue the blog, after all that thought and reflection.  It was not an easy decision.

I am not as young as I used to be.  I find myself making more errors.  Thanks to you, my readers, for pointing out my flubs so I can correct them.

There is some hope for local news in some corners,  For example, a nonprofit group is establishing news operations in statehouses across the nation,  The Capitol Chronicle has been in operation a few weeks, part of that nonprofit effort, and doing good work so far.

I sincerely hope a solution is found the the local news crisis.  I will soon celebrate my 71st birthday.  My health is relatively good now, but I have had a couple of health scares within the last two years.  I plan on writing this blog and producing podcasts as long as my health holds out.

I am just a volunteer that was once a newsy before changing careers and retiring.  Fishers needs an institution, for-profit or not-for-profit, that can carry on the coverage of local news in a place like Fishers.

Let’s see if the entrepreneurs of Fishers can come up with a solution.

An increase in hospital admissions has resulted in the Fishers Health Department COVID-19 Community Level remaining in the medium level.  That’s according to an update provided to the Fishers City Council in advance of the Monday council session.

Local wastewater surveillance shows fluctuating but decreasing COVID-19 rates.  Health department officials say this wastewater data appear to track cases at a 14-day average.

Vaccine and testing demand remains steady. FHD still administers roughly 390 COVID vaccines and 260 tests weekly.

As to the Monkeypox outbreak, the department says there are no confirmed cases in Fishers so far, “but is likely to occur soon. Emergency response plans are drafted and being adjusted as guidance changes.  FHD has limited testing supplies but many labs including LabCorp and Quest also have capability. FHD has received Jynneos vaccine.”:

For more local health information, go to the Fishers Health Department  Web site at this link.