Monday’s Fishers City Council meeting was preceded by a work session all about code enforcement when subdivisions are constructed.  Fishers Planning and Zoning Department Director Megan Vukusich brought up to the microphone various city department heads and employees with varying responsibilities of inspecting new home construction.

After the 30-minute work session, Council President Todd Zimmerman suggested a 60-minute work session next month, allowing staff to answer questions from council members.

One issue some council members have voiced is that, in some situations, developers do not hand over a subdivision to the neighborhood homeowners association (HOA) in a good enough condition, resulting in homeowners being forced to pay for work the council members believe should have been completed by the developer before the handover.

Mayor Scott Fadness cautioned council members, “…the building industry has a strong lobby at the (Indiana) Statehouse”  According to the mayor, that places limitations on what cities can do legally.

Zimmerman had some strong comments on a listing of fines and inspection violations from home builders.  “Constant fines for the same things is either gross negligence or willful  incompetence,” said Zimmerman.

Below is a listing of the city staff report for 2021, provided to the council – the most common violations, fines and failed inspections.

Jimmie Lake was very kind to grant me a podcast interview just six weeks into the job as the new Chief Operations Officer for our local Hamilton Southeastern School District.  We discussed a number of issues in this podcast. You may listen at the link below.

The opening event of the Spark Fishers Festival 2022 featured warm temperatures with a very pleasant breeze taking the edge of the heat.  There was a good crowd on hand to watch and listen to the White River Wind Symphony, a part of the local group of musicians, Fishers Music Works.  It is the first time that group has performed on the Nickel Plate Amphitheater stage in many years.

The concert opened with the National Anthem, but did something rarely seen….performing not just the first stanza of the Star Spangled Banner most of us know, but included the second stanza of the song as well.

It was an evening of American patriotic music…but there was one important exception.

In the middle of the song list, the band honored the people in Ukraine, fighting for their freedom and their nation, by playing their national anthem.  I messaged on social media that this was a “wow” moment for me.  Kudos to Fishers Music Works for deciding to learn, rehearse and perform the anthem of Ukraine.

I wonder what some of those fighters for Ukraine would think if they knew a city in the middle of the American Midwest chose to play their national anthem in the middle of a concert otherwise made up of American Patriotic songs.

I would hope they would be encouraged to continue their fight.

The Spark Fishers Festival starts this evening, June 21st, with the Fishers Music Works’ White River Wind Symphony set to take the Nickel Plate Amphitheater stage as 7pm.  This marks the first time the local musical organization has played the Amphitheater in many years.

The Spark activities continue through Saturday.  Here is the schedule of events:

• Wednesday, June 22 at 6:30 & 7 p.m. / 5K & Kids Fun Run (registration required; onsite registration available until 6:30 p.m.)
• Thursday, June 23 from 6-9 p.m. / Car & Art Show
• Friday, June 24 at 8 p.m. / Concert at the NPD AMP featuring Bruno Mars tribute band, Uptown Funk 
• Saturday, June 25 from 3-10 p.m. / Street Fair (parade at 6 p.m. and fireworks at 10 p.m.)

For more details on this year’s festival, listen to a podcast recorded with Sarah Sandquist and Gabe Amick at this link.

When Jason Taylor told me on May 6th that he will recommend all the bids for constructing the new interchange at 141st Street & State Road 37 be rejected, I knew the city had a decision to make.  All the bids were much higher than any estimates, according to Taylor’s comments on a podcast.

After the Monday night’s Fishers City Council Meeting, Mayor Scott Fadness confirmed to me that all the bids for that road project will be rejected.  So, what happens now?

Fadness said the city will just need to wait until construction costs moderate, hopefully when supply chain and employment shortage issues are sorted out in the contracting industry.  Fadness could not estimate how long the city will wait to ask for another round of bids for 141st & SR 37, but it is clear that under the current business conditions, bids will not likely be at a level the city can accept in line with the budget.

Two other SR 37 projects currently under construction, 131st Street and 146th Street, are on schedule  to be completed by October of this year, at the latest.  The interchange at 126th Street and SR 37 has been open for some time.

The weather could not have been more perfect for a Juneteenth celebration at the Fishers Nickel Plate Amphitheater Sunday afternoon.  There was music, food, nonprofit groups and plenty of commercial tents if you were in a buying mood.

Juneteenth was enacted as a federal holiday about one year ago in celebration of the end of slavery in America.  The last slaves notified of their freedom in the United States were in Galveston Texas, so Juneteenth is a way to mark an end to a black mark on American history – slavery.

The Fishers event was put together by groups of students at Fishers and HSE High Schools.

I am sure most of us can look back on something that happened to us when we were young  that changed our lives.  When I think back personally, I look to an important event of the early 1960s.

That’s when my brother Tom and I received a gift from our parents….we each now had a 2-transistor radio.  In today’s world, that is not very high tech, but in those days, having a battery-operated radio you could take anywhere was a new and neat thing to have.

You couldn’t separate me from my little radio after that.  I listened all the time.  All that listening sparked my interest about how radio works, how it is broadcast and mostly sparked my curiosity about the people speaking into the microphones.

That fascination turned into a profession in the late 1960s.  I graduated from a broadcast trade school and set out to be on the radio.  That is how I made my living until the summer of 1983.

Those memories came back when the news broke just days ago that Jeff Smulyan, owner of Emmis Broadcasting, announced that he had sold all his Indianapolis radio stations to the national chain, Urban One.

It is hard to compare the broadcasting business where I toiled to the industry of today.  In my day, no one person or company could own more than 7 AM radio stations, 7 FM radio stations and no more than 7 television stations.  Most broadcast company owners were small enterprises by today’s standards.  Let’s just say the broadcast property owners of those days were often very colorful characters.

Also, in my broadcasting time, you had to be a U.S. citizen to own an American broadcast property.  A man named Rupert Murdoch lobbied to get that law changed.

Based on reporting from the Indianapolis Business Journal, Urban One paid roughly $25 million to buy  WIBC-FM 93.1, WYXB-FM 105.7 (B105), WLHK-FM 97.1 (Hank FM), as well as WFNI-FM 93.5 and 105.5 (both known as The Fan)

Emmis only owns 2 radio stations now, both in the New York City market and one wonders how long they will remain Emmis properties.

The fact is, radio is on a downhill slide as a business and I write this with no joy.  These stations were once gold mines.  There was only so much room on the spectrum, so there were only so many radio frequencies available .  That meant, if you were a radio station owner, you were holding a valuable property.

Because of that, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) demanded that radio stations serve the public.  One important component of that was having a news department.

I was working in radio news in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan was elected president.  His appointees to the FCC had a different view – station ownership no longer needed to serve the public or provide local news operations.  If you want to be a juke box and play nothing but music and commercials all day, that was suddenly fine with the government.  That is a major reason I left the business in July of 1983, knowing there would be less news on radio.

Then the federal regulation of radio was loosened even further, allowing larger collections of stations for one owner.  For example, iHeartMedia today owns roughly 855 radio stations in the U.S.

In an era when you can stream all the music you want and can instantly call up news on your cell phone, radio is not as relevant as it once was.  The sale of the Emmis stations, a company that was once one of the largest holders of radio properties nationally, means that firm is clearly getting out of the business

When television blossomed into American homes in the 1950s, many opined that radio was done.  But radio reinvented itself, made the product something different and continued to thrive.

My question is this – will radio reinvent itself again, or is the business I once loved headed to history?

Time will tell.

Becoming a father is not a part-time job.  That’s what I learned from my own dad and found out for myself when I became a dad 28 years ago.  My daughters, Allison & Mary, have made me so proud.

But my thoughts on Father’s Day always takes me back to my own dad.  I lost my father just two months after becoming a dad myself   My dad may have left us at the way-too-early age of 64, but what he taught me will always be there.

It was November of last year when I recorded a podcast with my brother-in-law Fred Glass.  We talked about his book, Making Your Own Luck.  He wrote extensively in his book about his father, George Glass.  Let’s just say Fred had a complicated relationship with his dad.

But at the end of the podcast, I asked Fred to add anything he would like to say.  He chose to talk about entering our family, Fred as an only child and my family of 6 kids.

One thing Fred made clear was that our dads had some obvious differences, but both men had something very important in common.  Bernie Lannan and George Glass both had a soft spot in their hearts for people, all people, no matter their skin color or religious beliefs.  Both men had a very specific view of what social justice looked like and taught that to their kids.

I have been told by many child psychologists that your children do listen to what you say, but they pay much more attention to what you do (and don’t do).  When I look back on my days as a dad, that’s a scary thought.  To Allison and Mary, I hope I taught both of you what Bernie Lannan taught me and my siblings, and what George Glass taught Fred.

So, Father’s Day is special to me in many ways.  I remember my dad and am proud of the adults my 28-year-old twin daughters have become.

Happy Father’s Day to all fathers reading this blog!

And, to everyone, thanks for reading.

When I recorded a podcast about the 2022 Spark Fishers Festival (you can listen at this link) we talked about all the events, including the return of the Car & Art Show.  It is set for Thursday, June 23rd, at the Central Green just south of Fishers City Hall, 6pm-9pm.

There will be more than 60 cars on display, more than 30 artists, along with food and beverages.  The Art Gallery at City Hall will also be open featuring more than 40 prints, paintings and photographs in the Art of Racing Exhibit, many of which are for sale.

In addition to the cars on display, here are the artists joining the event:

Continue reading Car & Art Show back this year for Spark Fishers →

Needless to say, there was some pushback when it was proposed that an official historical marker in Fishers tell the story of grave robbers.  But Fishers Historical Society Historian Robert Bowling told those assembled Saturday morning, for the marker’s unveiling, that local residents should not look at this as a negative for the history of Fishers.

The result of the guilty verdict against one of the robbers led to the creation of the State Anatomical Board to handle the cadavers needed for medical schools.  That board is still in operation today.

A small crowd gathered at the Fall Creek Township offices on Brooks School Road, just south of 116th Street, attending the ceremony on a perfect, sunny June morning.  They were there to witness the unveiling of the new marker.  The story begins on the marker facing Brooks School Road, and the story finishes on the other side of the marker.

This is the 9th historical marker in Hamilton County and the first for Fishers.  Most Hamilton County historical markers are in Noblesville.