Road construction continues on State Road 37.  Also, watch lane restrictions coming up downtown along 116th Street and one lane traffic on Technology Drive in the Northeast Commerce Park area.

For details, see the weekly road construction report, as provided by the City of Fishers:

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When Hamilton County celebrates its workforce, you begin to see the length of service and meritorious recognitions and realize our local county government has a lot to celebrate.

Leading the way is Kathy Williams, receiving a certificate for 45 years of service to Hamilton County.  But she was not alone. 164 county employees were part of the celebration.

County Human Resource Director Sheena Randall provided a service pin with the number of years serving the county to each of the 164 workers.

“Hamilton County has always been a great place to work,” Williams said in a county news release. “Frankly, it is like home to me. I started working in the Clerk’s Office when I was 19 years old, so I’ve basically spent my entire life here. I love the work I do and the people I work with.”

It was first Brixx Pizza, now the Depot development space at 116th Street and Municipal Drive is occupied by the Park Place Pub.  The Fishers Board of Works and Safety approved an encroachment onto the city’s property allowing Park Place to construct an outdoor dining area (see rendering above).  The board unanimously approved the encroachment agreement.

Also, at Tuesday morning’s board meeting, the city set rental fees for the Nickel Plate Amphitheater, located north of City Hall.  The board voted for a proposal from the Parks & Recreation Department, which studied rental structures for similar facilities in the general local area.  The basic rental fee is set at $5,000.  If the group renting the facility wants other services, such as audio-visual or office space, the fee could be adjusted.  Hamilton Southeastern Schools and their affiliates are allowed complementary use of the stage
with prior approval from the city.  Parks and Recreation Director Sarah Sandquist told the board her department will work with nonprofit organizations seeking to rent the Amphitheater.  The board unanimously approved the rental fees.

The Fishers Board of Public Works & Safety considered 5G tower proposals by Verizon in four neighborhoods, denying a total of 4 5G towers and approving 6 others.

One tower proposed in the Glenn Abbey neighborhood was denied, but Mayor Scott Fadness says his reasons for voting “no” were unrelated to arguments presented by the Windermere neighborhood residents and an attorney representing the neighborhood (Glenn Abbey is part of Windermere).  The mayor says there were other locations as little as 100 feet away from the proposed tower that would be less intrusive to the residents in that area.  Neighborhood residents argued the board has the legal authority to deny this tower because it would violate city ordinances and neighborhood aesthetic standards.  The residents also pointed to a petition of residents with 238 signatures opposing the 5G tower.  All three board members voted “no” and the proposed tower was denied in the end.

The board approved two towers and denied one for the Weaver Woods neighborhood.  In Conner Knoll, 2 towers were denied and one was approved, with one of the denied towers to be moved out of the neighborhood.  A total of 3 towers were approved Cottingham Estates.  All votes were unanimous.

The Fishers Board of Works and Public Safety consists of Mayor Scott Fadness and his 2 appointees, Jeff Lantz and Jason Meyer.

Hamilton County Democrats issued a statement Tuesday saying Fishers Police and Fire Merit Commission appointments have “skirted” state law, but Mayor Scott Fadness responded that any allegation Fishers is not in compliance with state law is “false.”

State law requires 2 Democrats be appointed to each commission, according to the HAMCO Democrats.  The statute says to qualify as a Democrat, an appointee’s party affiliation is determined by their three most recent primary elections.

“The City of Fishers has skirted the mandate by including historically Republican commission members who have voted for a Democrat only once in recent history, which is not a true representation of how they will govern, and thus represents a conflict,” Dayna Colbert, Hamilton County Democratic Party Chair, said in a party news release.

In a statement issued in response, Mayor Fadness argues the city is in compliance with the law.

“This release is an annual attempt by the Hamilton County Democratic Party to play partisan politics and any statement or insinuation that these commissions are not in compliance is false,” Fadness said.

County Democrats recommended 2 women be appointed to each commission, but none of the proposed appointees were named in the party’s news release.

The Police and Fire Merit Commissions are composed of civilian members charged with administering discipline to department members, including suspension, demotion, and termination of employment.  For each commission, the mayor has two appointees, the city council one and the police or firefighters themselves vote on the remaining two members.  The mayoral and firefighter or police appointees are required to be of different political parties.

Brad DeReamer has let Fishers City Council members know about his very strong views on the influence of housing developers in Fishers for several years.  The councilman once again voiced those assertions Tuesday night on a specific rezoning issue that did pass in the end on a 6-3 vote.

It is called the Lehman development, south of 126th Street, east of Allisonville Road, adjacent to the Sunblest neighborhood.  Pulte Homes wants to construct 32 homes on 15 acres of land.

DeReamer provided examples from his own neighborhood of Britton Falls where he does not believe developers have kept specific commitments made in the past, and reiterated his argument that it appears to him that developers are “getting their way” at the expense of the city’s residents.

In the end, Pulte received the rezoning it was seeking, with DeReamer, Jocelyn Vare and Crystal Neumann voting no.

Fishers City Council Member Todd Zimmerman is serving his second stint leading the body.  At Tuesday night’s council session, Selina Stoller, the 2021 Council President, handed the gavel to Councilor Zimmerman after he was elected unanimously to lead the council in 2022.

Zimmerman served as council president in 2018 and currently leads a group helping Mayor Scott Fadness in putting together plans for a new City Hall, Arts Center and Community Center.

After much debate and discussion among members of the Fishers City Council, a new ordinance has been approved creating a committee system that establishes three standing council committees with a system for appointing members.  The Budget & Finance Committee has been existence as a standing panel for some time, but this action at Tuesday night’s council session formally creates the Rules Committee and Non-Profit Committee.

Each committee will consist of at least 3 council members, one of which will be from the minority party.  Currently, the council has 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats.

Democrat Crystal Neumann, part of the group that produced this proposal, praised the compromise that led to the measure passing unanimously.

The council also unanimously approved the council appointments for 2022.  You can find the list of appointments at this link.

Council members also unanimously approved a new Armed Services Commission.  The new panel will focus on honoring and recognizing local members of the military, as well as local veterans.

Whenever the Martin Luther King holiday is celebrated each year, a  number of memories swirl through my head.  I was in high school when the civil rights leader was assassinated.  It was a tough time for America.

What many may not know is that just four days after Dr. King died, a congressman from Michigan, John Conyers, introduced a bill in the House calling for a national holiday tied to Dr. King’s birthday.  That was 1968.  The measure went nowhere for years.

Congressman Conyers tried every year to propose the same bill and for years it received little to no interest from most of his colleagues.

The idea never had traction until the early 1980s.  The Congressional Black Caucus produced 6 million signatures on a petition supporting the MLK holiday.  1983 marked the 20th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

The legislation calling for the MLK holiday finally made it to the floor of the United States Senate in 1983.  The History Channel Web site cites one moment on the floor of the Senate when North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms introduced FBI documents aimed at smearing Dr. King.

“As Helms pressed to introduce FBI smear material on King—whom the agency had spent years trying to pinpoint as a Communist and threat to the United States during the height of his influence—into the Congressional record, tensions boiled over,” per the History Channel account. “Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the senator from New York, brought the materials onto the floor, then dropped them to the ground in disgust in a pivotal moment of the debate.”

The next day, senators passed the bill authorizing the holiday by a vote of 78-22.  President Ronald Reagan wasted no time signing the measure into law.  The first Martin Luther King Holiday became a federal holiday three years later, in 1986.

This was the first time in modern American history that a private citizen had a federal holiday named in his honor.  It took a long time and much heavy lifting to make the MLK Holiday a reality.

We take for granted that everyone is in favor of this holiday, but it wasn’t always so and had many opponents that delayed the final decision.  All those that made this holiday a reality, honoring a man that argued for peaceful, nonviolent change in American race relations, should be remembered.

The King Center encourages people to make this holiday a day on, not a day off.  For ideas on how to celebrate the Martin Luther King holiday, go the the King Center Web site at this link.

I am close to my 11th year anniversary of writing this Fishers local news blog.  I do the best I can as a one-man-band volunteer journalist to provide straightforward local news coverage.  Sometimes, I have found it  necessary to offer a commentary and, very rarely, take a clear stand on a local issue.

There was one issue where I did take a clear stand and the Indiana Supreme Court has just ruled on that issue.  Let me explain some of the background.

(NOTE:  Television station WTHR was at the center of all this and has a good background you can find at this link)

It all started roughly 5 years ago when Fishers High School teacher and varsity football coach Rick Wimmer was suspended for 5 days.  The investigative reporting team at television station WTHR asked HSE Schools the factual basis for that suspension, citing that specific language in the state statute.

HSE Schools responded saying Wimmer had violated school policy and provided a ream of policies he might have violated.  WTHR asked for two rulings from the Indiana Public Access Counselor about this, and that office appeared to side with WTHR, saying more specific facts were needed to be consistent with the state statute.

When HSE Schools refused to disclose anything more, WTHR went to court.  The Public Counselor rulings are advisory, but a court can compel the local school district to provide more facts on the suspension.

Reporter Bob Segall and WTHR received support from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, taking HSE Schools to court, asking for the specific factual basis for the suspension.  The Hamilton County Circuit Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals sided with HSE Schools.  WTHR appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court, and those justices recently ruled unanimously that HSE Schools did not follow state statutes and must disclose a specific factual basis for the Wimmer suspension.

When this was being reported by WTHR, I wrote commentaries that the local schools should be more forthcoming.  It was my view then, and now, that taking this issue all the way to the Supreme Court is not a good image for our school district.  People talk often about transparency and this is the most clear case I have seen where transparency is tested.

Let’s just say I received some criticism about those commentaries.  No one publicly criticized me, but I had private discussions with some officials that were not happy with the stance that I took on what needed to be disclosed about the Wimmer suspension.

I’ve written this before and I will do so again here – I spent 28 years in the federal civil service.  Employee privacy is something I fully understand.  But in this case, admitting I am no attorney, the state statute language appeared clear to me.  ‘

I knew when this case went before the justices of the Indiana Supreme Court, whatever decision was made would impact public employees throughout Indiana.

So,  we now know HSE Schools must disclose a factual basis for the Rick Wimmer suspension.  The fact that Mr. Wimmer has retired as both a coach and teacher at this point in time makes no difference.

The Indiana Supreme Court decision remands this case back to the Hamilton County court system, so this is not entirely over yet.

In my view, Indiana’s highest court made the correct decision in this case.