The old Marsh Supermarket building on 116th Street, just east of Brooks School Road, had been unoccupied for a long time and was in serious disrepair 3 weeks ago.  Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness gives credit to the city’s staff that went into the building and did badly needed repairs and remodeling, allowing the conversion of the old grocery store into a mass COVID vaccination site.

City officials cut the ribbon to open the site Monday morning as customers with appointments were lining up to receive their vaccinations.  Joining Mayor Fadness was Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, members of the city council,  Public Health Director Monica Heltz and the city Medical Director Dr. Indy Lane.

Fadness said 300-400 people would receive the COVID vaccine on the new facility’s first day, with the capability to inoculate up to 1,600 people per day once the vaccine is more widely available.

Just part of the large facility that can be used once enough vaccine is available

There is an old saying –  “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”  There is some debate as to who said this first.  Some say Will Rogers, others say Oscar Wilde and there are those that attribute the saying to a Madison Avenue advertising agency selling high-end men’s suits.

Wherever the truism originated, it went through my mind while watching the live video feed of the Fishers City Council meeting January 19.  Councilwoman Jocelyn Vare, a Democrat, made her case that the appointments by the council to boards and commissions lack diversity.  She submitted a set of proposals to the council appointment process, which can be seen in detail at this link.

Some of the numbers she cites are quite eye-opening:

–80% appointees are currently white males

–20% of appointees are women

–There are three people of color on all 24 boards and commissions

–There are no appointees identified as part of the LGBT community or considered disabled.

You can read more in the link, but you get the idea.  Those numbers are clear – appointments to Fishers boards and commissions are not diverse.  Not even close.

You would think such a statement would spark an immediate response from one or more Republican member of the council, who have a 7-2 majority.  We saw total silence.  There was nothing said.

Councilwoman Vare’s amendment to the appointment motion was defeated on a party line vote, 7-2.

I could understand why a Republican majority would not automatically approve a proposal made by a Democratic member, seconded by another Democratic member, Sam DeLong.  But watching this meeting on video gave me the impression that the numbers cited were of no concern to the majority party on the council and that things are just fine the way they are.

That troubled me greatly.  I thought back to the Fishers I found when moving here in 1991, which was not very diverse.  The city I see today has much more diversity.  It concerns me that city council appointments to boards and commissions fail to reflect that diversity of today’s Fishers.

I tried to follow up and after digging, discovered there were two statements issued after the council meeting.  The first was from Mayor Scott Fadness.  Here is his statement:

“I am committed to elevating as many diverse voices to leadership positions as possible, as my actions have demonstrated over the last two years. These actions have led to the launch of the Fishers Race Initiative, co-chaired by two people of color that lead another sixteen residents of color as members of the Community Committee on Race which committed $100,000 to bringing Interrupting Racism workshops to our residents. Additionally, I appointed a Black female chief medical director and a female public health director Fishers Health Department. And lastly, since 2019, in the 50 situations where I was required to fill a vacancy for my appointment, I filled 20 of those vacancies with people of color and/or females.

That said, I agree with council leadership in that residents who have served our community selflessly are arbitrarily dismissed from re-appointment based on their demographics.”

I believe that Mayor Fadness has a very good record on race and inclusion.  His creation of the Fishers Race Initiative and funding the Interrupting Racism program give him high marks in diversity actions.  The mayor has a good record of filling appointment vacancies with diversity in mind.

Selina Stoller, just elected President of the Fishers City Council at the January meeting, also issued a statement.  Here it is:

“I am very proud of the work our community is doing around inclusion and equity, which includes:

• Female council leadership in 2020 and 2021
• Four female city council members since 2020
• Launch of Fishers Health Department with one black female as chief medical director and appointed female director of public health
• Since 2019, in the two situations where Council has had a vacancy for their appointments, they filled one vacancy with a female.

“However, our Council majority disagrees that when appointment terms expire we summarily dismiss residents who have performed dedicated public service merely for the fact that they do not fit a certain demographic. We certainly retain our commitment to ensuring diverse voices are represented. Simple statements during a council meeting do not equate to action nor give credit to any of this work that so many residents have participated in.”

Council President Stoller’s statement is disappointing on a number of points.  First, the voters are responsible for electing female city councilors, and I give the voting public of Fishers credit for that, not the council itself.

When Cecilia Coble was elected president by the city council, she was the first woman to ascend to the post, and Ms. Stoller has succeeded her.  For that, the council deserves credit.

I am not sure how the council takes credit for Mayor Fadness’ appointments of Health Department leaders.

The council is taking credit for appointing one woman when there were two openings on boards an commissions.

Finally, Ms. Stoller appears to be making the argument, as the mayor did in his statement, that the city should not “arbitrarily dismiss” or “summarily dismiss” current appointed members of city boards and commissions.

I have re-read Councilwoman Vare’s amendment to the motion and her reasons for making that motion and  I see nothing that refers to firing all the appointees.  She is proposing a new system to evaluate current members and provide a way to bring more diversity to new appointments.

I am entering my tenth year of covering Fishers news as a volunteer blogger, and I have sat through a number of these meeting of boards and commissions consisting of appointees.  I can say that there are some appointees that do very good work and have served the city well and would deserve reappointment.  But there are others that may not have earned an automatic appointment to another term.  I can understand if the council majority does not want to sign-on to Jocelyn Vare’s proposal, but can those Republican councilors honestly say that the appointments, as they stand now, are diverse in any meaningful way?

There is a large chasm between “arbitrarily” and “summarily” firing appointees and providing some system to evaluate openings when a term is ending.  As best as anyone can discern, there appears to be no real system to evaluate the work of appointees now.  Is it right to always reappoint these board and commission members automatically?

I understand the council has scheduled a retreat soon and I sincerely hope they will make amends for the silence at the January 19th meeting and the council president’s statement after the session that appears woefully inadequate to me.

I know, what difference does my opinion make?  I get that, but think about the following.  Is it not important what business leaders looking at Fishers as a location think?  Is it not important what people considering a move to Fishers think?  Is it not important that our current inventory of high-tech firms will consider public policy about diversity when they make decisions to grow here or move elsewhere?

The Fishers City Council did not make a good first impression Tuesday night at the council meeting when the diversity issue was raised and silence ensued with most members. But the councilors have an opportunity to simply recognize that for many years, they have not been appointing diverse members to boards and commissions.  The Fishers City Council needs to undertake a serious effort at making changes.

Let’s show Indiana, the nation and the world that Fishers is serious about having our city council appointees to city boards and commissions reflect the Fishers of today.

There is some good news to report on the local COVID front, and we will take any good news at this point in the pandemic.

The Fishers Health Department reports a second straight week of a declining percent positivity rate.  As of Tuesday, January 19, the rate was reported at 12.93% at the Fishers testing site, with a case incidence rate of 89.82.  Although both show declines, the city remain in the red, or highest, transmission risk category.

Therefore, look for no loosening of restrictions in Fishers.

Testing availability in Fishers is strong at this time, with a 2.7 day wait for results.

The Intensive Care Unit availability in hospitals in our area has improved slightly.

The Health Department says the COVID transmission rate has been reduced, but not enough to roll back precautions and mitigation strategies at this time.

Fishers is set to open its large COVID vaccination site on 116^th Street near Brooks School Road Monday morning, at the old Marsh Supermarket site.  The city says as many as 1,600 vaccinations can be handled in one day at that location.

So, Fishers remains in the red, or highest, category for COVID transmission, but numbers are beginning to slowly move downward, providing what the Health Department describes as a light at the end of the tunnel.

The City of Fishers has always gone out of its way to honor military veterans and their families.  Liberty Plaza at the 116th Street entrance to City Hall and the municipal complex is just one example.

There is now an effort underway to build a monument to Gold Star Families on the Central Green, just south of City Hall.  Two men at the center of the drive to raise money for this memorial are El Ahlwardt and Brad DeReamer.  I spoke with them January 24th.  This is the podcast.

You can donate and receive more information on the plans for the Fishers Gold Star Memorial at this link.

by

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

Hamilton County is likely the only place in America where the number of covered wooden bridges is increasing. On Monday, county commissioners will accept $2.77 million in federal highway funds to largely pay for the restoration of the nation’s last known post truss combination bridge.

Known as the Bell Ford Bridge, it stood for 135 years over the East Fork of White River in Jackson County. When it virtually collapsed about 10 years ago, Jackson County officials said they could not afford to restore it.

Hamilton County Commissioner Mark Heirbrandt worked with Jackson County Commissioners to take the bridge with the understanding it would be reconstructed over Fall Creek at Geist Park.

The bridge was disassembled and brought here. It has been in storage for several years awaiting funding under a federal alternative transportation program which grants 80 percent of such costs for trails and bridges.

Actual reconstruction will start late next year, according to County Highway Director Brad Davis, whose department will be the lead agency on the project. The bridge will be a link in the county trail system for pedestrians and bikers, but will not carry motor vehicles.

Hamilton County once had at least six covered bridges. After the loss of Eller Bridge in 1957, Potters Bridge was the only wooden span until Conner Prairie salvaged a covered bridge and placed it on its property several years ago.

Now, the third such historic bridge will be located here. The scenic bridges were numerous throughout the nation in the 19th century, but began disappearing with the advent of steel and concrete bridges in the early 20th century.

The world of Texas in 1870, five years following the end of the Civil War, was a tough world.  But Confederate veteran of the bloody conflict makes his living reading news articles before crowds paying ten cents each to hear his stories.  He runs across a ten-year-old girl and his adventure finding her remaining family is the story if the film News of the World, starring Tom Hanks.  Here is my review.

I was a college student in 1974 when I took a part-time job at WSMJ, a local FM radio station in Greenfield, Indiana.  Even though the station had 50,000 watts of power that beamed its signal to most of central Indiana, the broadcast outlet stayed mostly local to Greenfield in its programming.

The management was very nervous about a competing license being filed, so they wanted many hours of public service content.  In the 1070s, a late-night talk show, Night Action, was launched to bring those public service hours.  Hosts included the late Gary Lee and Art Murphy.  The station manager, a former Green Berets with service in Vietnam, was unhappy with the way the talk show was being handled after Murphy left.

The general manager met with me and laid out the options clearly…..he wanted me to take over Night Action.  If I turned the job down, he would simply cancel the program because he knew of no one else he would trust with that franchise.

I knew going to college and hosting an all-night radio talk program would be a challenge, but somehow I did that for almost four years.  Hosting an hours-long overnight talk show 5 nights a week was hard work, especially when I was trying to keep up with my classes at the same time.

Why do I bring this up?  Because these talk shows were always local, until 1978.  That was the year the Mutual Broadcasting system, a national radio network, began beaming the Larry King Show across the nation.  It was late night and was the first talk show of that ilk to go national and continue for a number of years.  It was a success because Larry King was a seasoned professional.  He knew what he was doing.

He began a 15-year television run on CNN in 1985 with a one-hour prime-time talk show.  King always told people he just used his radio show style and did it before TV cameras at CNN.

There are a handful of people that have hosted talk shows.  Preparing for these talkathons is very hard work.  It can wear you down.  You are constantly under attack from all sides and points of view.  Yet King did this regularly locally before his national career.  It had to wear on him.  Perhaps that is why he was married 8 times to seven different women (he married one wife twice).

Doing talk shows on radio has changed dramatically since the days I hosted such programs and when Mr. King was doing the same work.  Today, there are some talk shows done well, but many just aren’t that good.

That’s why I have appreciated the work done over the long career of Larry King.  His death was announced January 23rd.  Larry King was 87.  He left his mark on radio and television.  He will be remembered well for the work he accomplished and his ability to remain in a business that recycles humans on a regular basis.

Every now and then, something happens out of the blue reminding one of a long-ago important life event.  That just happened to me.

I received a message from a staff member of the IUPUI Speaker’s Lab.  Her message reminded me of a pivotal moment in my life.

I was never an outstanding student in high school.  I did well in some subjects, not so well in others.  I chose not to attend college when graduating high school in 1969 because I did not think I could handle the academics.

So I attended a broadcasting trade school, worked in radio for about four years when I awoke one morning and decided it was worth a try to enroll in college and see what I could do.

Starting in the fall semester of 1973, all new students were automatically enrolled in a speech class.  Even in 1973, a tradition had started at IUPUI for Speech Night.  We were told at the start of the semester that attendance at speech night was mandatory, so mark your calendar and plan to be there.

Speech Night is a competition.  First, each speech class elects someone as the best speaker.  I won that by one vote.  Then that winner moves to the semifinal speech competition before about 30 other students.  I won the semifinal by one vote.

That brought me to be one of the six finalists in the Speech Night contest.  It was a scary experience, speaking before a large, packed lecture hall.

As you can guess by now, I won Speech Night.  It was a turning point in my professional life because after leaving the broadcasting business in 1983, I spent a good amount of time in my second career doing public speaking.  Speech Night provided me the confidence to pursue the public speaking that became a part of my job in the civil service.

Just a few days ago, I received that message from an employee of the IUPUI Speaker’s Lab.  They were searching for the winner of the 1973 Speech Night and found my name in an old school newspaper.  An online check hooked us up.

IUPUI is about to celebrate its 100^th Speech night and invited me to speak.  Due to COVID restrictions, I’ll be sending them a video to play rather than attend in person, but it is an honor to be a part of such a milestone.

I haven’t thought about that Speech Night win for years, but this opportunity has provided me a chance to go back and think about that night and how it changed the direction of my life in so many ways.

The Fishers Arts Council has announced a new artistic showing in Fishers City Hall, on the building’s second floor.

Here is more from the news release from the Arts Council:

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The Fishers Arts Council will offer a three-month exhibit by noted artist Rebecca Robinson entitled, The Art of Bridging the Gap, in The Alcove on the second floor of The Art Gallery at City Hall beginning January 5th.

Rebecca says, “As long as I can remember art has moved me. Expressing myself with my artwork allows me to convey a thought, an emotion, a personal experience or an important message. As an artist, it is my duty to push the envelope and create artwork that sparks a dialog and remains timeless.”

Rebecca studied fashion design in Atlanta, GA, and continued her education at North Carolina Central University where she majored in Art/Visual Communications and graduated with high honors. In 2019, she began the initial states of forming her nonprofit organization called “ONE ARRT,” which will become the first black owned art supply brand that specifically supports all artists, art organizations, art education, museums/galleries and communities in need who would prosper with proper funding and resources.

Her exhibit of 11 paintings include the mediums of stained glass, acrylic on canvas and concrete, tar and white latex. The exhibit will run through March.

The Art Gallery at City Hall, One Municipal Drive is open daily Monday-Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm excluding holidays and Saturdays during Fishers Summer Farmers Market.

Republican members of the Fishers City Council voted down a proposal by Democrat Jocelyn Vare aimed at increasing diversity when the council makes appointments to boards and commissions.  When Vare’s proposal came to a vote, only Vare and fellow Democrat Sam DeLong voted in favor, with the seven GOP councilors voting no.

In a statement, Vare describes the language on the city Web site encouraging local citizens to apply for seats appointed by the council.

“In practice, however, an extremely unrepresentative group of people have the opportunity to participate on boards and commissions, while other groups within the community are routinely excluded,” said Vare. “The 95 available seats on boards and commissions include very few people of color, women, members of the LGBTQ community, and persons with disabilities.”

Vare cites data provided by the city showing 80% of appointees to city boards and commissions are white males.  Five recommendations Vare says would remedy the situation were voted down in the 7-2 party line vote.

No Republican member of the council commented during the public meeting as to why they opposed the Vare proposal.

You can read the entire statement from Councilwoman Vare at this link.

For a list of the appointments that did receive council approval Tuesday, use this link.