We have plenty of news to report on the COVID-19 pandemic locally, as well as reporting of data and mask requirements.

First, the Fishers Health Department announced Thursday that more detailed information is now available on the total number of infections in the city and the number of deaths.  You can find the information at FishersRecovery.com.

As of 3:00pm July 2nd, 35 Fishers residents have died due to the novel coronavirus, with one death reported in the past 14 days.  The department says it has recorded 450 COVID-19 positive tests since the start of this pandemic, 55 of those reported in the past 14 days.

The mayor of Indianapolis, Joe Hogsett, announced masks will become mandatory in Marion County.  This is from a story on ibj.com written by Samm Quinn of the Indianapolis Business Journal:

Beginning July 9, face coverings will be required to be worn in indoor places where the public gathers, such as in office buildings and retail stores. They’ll also be required outdoors when it’s not possible to socially distance. Hogsett said the order won’t go into effect until July 9 to give residents time to get masks, but officials recommend residents who aren’t already wearing them start now.

It would appear “willful” offenders will be subject to fines, but as of this writing it is unclear how much the fine will cost offenders.

This means that 96th Street will be the line of demarcation on mandatory masks.  For example, if you visit Kohl’s south of 96th Street you will be required to don the mask.  If you are shopping at Fry’s Electronics north of 96th in Fishers, there will be no such requirement.

Then, the question arises, will Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness require mask wearing in Fishers similar to Hogsett’s decree in Indy?

I put that question to the city of Fishers, and here was the response:

“No decision has been made at this time.”

In other words, the answer is not “yes,” but it was not a solid “no” either.  This is something to watch in coming days.

An accident at I-16 & 106th street claimed the lives of two people Wednesday afternoon.

State Police released the following information, with an update providing the names of those fatally injured:

===============

The driver of the car who suffered fatal injuries in the crash was identified as 19 year old Marcus Padgett of Spencer Indiana. The passenger who suffered fatal injuries in the same vehicle was identified as 17 year old Elizabeth Robertson of Pendleton Indiana.

I-69 was reopened just after 11:00 p.m. The investigation into the circumstances of the crash are ongoing.

===============

Wednesday evening, at 5:38 p.m., emergency crews were called to the scene of a serious crash on I-69 southbound near 106th Street in Fishers. Senior Trooper Nick Klingkammer was close-by and arrived very quickly. He told dispatchers there were two unresponsive victims in one car and he was unable to gain access to render aid to them. The Fishers Fire Department quickly responded to the scene and hastily extricated both crash victims from the car. Despite life saving efforts, both the driver and passenger of the car were pronounced deceased at the scene. There was also a semi-tractor trailer involved in the collision, that driver was transported to the hospital with minor injuries.

Preliminarily, investigators believe the driver of the passenger car swerved to avoid shredded tire debris in the roadway and lost control, the car spun into the path of the semi and was struck on the driver’s side. All lanes of I-69 remain closed as of 10:00 p.m. Neither Alcohol nor any other impairment is suspected as a contributing factor to this crash, however as state law requires blood tests for the drivers involved will be part of the investigation.

The driver of the semi is identified as 52 year old Anthony Manuel of Georgia.

The families of the deceased have been notified, however their identities are being withheld at this time to allow for proper notification to extended family.

The investigation into this crash is ongoing and there is no further information to release at this time.

I must give a lot of credit to James Briggs and the Indianapolis Star.  The editors published a piece written by Briggs which quotes experts as saying holding the Indianapolis 500 August 23rd with 175,000 fans (half the normal seated crowd) would be a huge health risk in the age of novel coronavirus.

One noted epidemiologist described fans at the 500 as “rolling the dice unnecessarily.”  All four experts cited in Briggs’ commentary, all living outside of Indiana, took issue with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s (IMS) argument that a stands-half-full race would be safe.

Indianapolis media has a history of not taking on IMS on an issue such as this.  As someone that has loved the 500, its history, traditions, social & economic impact, I want the race run this year, but only if it can be run safely.  After reading the Briggs piece, I am not so sure.

Even the drivers and crews of this weekend’s IndyCar and NASCAR races at IMS will be subject to strict health protocols in an effort to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak.  This weekend there will be no fans in the stands at IMS.

All sports are struggling to start or restart.  Golf is underway, but that is a sport that can be more easily controlled and can be held without fans.

The NBA will be starting up in July but one wonders how many players will opt not so show up.  After, all, most of those players have already collected the lion’s share of their pay during the season that was stopped.  One also wonders how well the NBA “bubble” at Florida’s Walt Disney World will work out.

Major League baseball players have not been paid yet this year, those teams were in the middle of spring training when coronavirus put a stop to everything.  Their protocols health-wise are much less stringent than the NBA.  A handful of players have said they will not play this shortened season due to health concerns.

The NHL has a restart plan with not a lot of details at this time.

Here is my point.  Any outbreak, even a few COVID-19 positive tests by players, coaches or support personnel in any of the professional sports, would likely shut down this season for good.  I have been reading many seasoned sportswriters with lots of good sources and they all voice concern that these truncated seasons will play out, or in some cases, even startup if coronavirus breaks out before official play begins.

As a life-ling sports fan, I miss sports.  I want sports back as a way to cope with the bad news we are experiencing during this difficult time in our history.  But lets be careful and do this the right way.  If we startup a season just to end it again prematurely, that would be the worst outcome for me.

If you cannot get Raymond Burr out of your head when the name Perry Mason comes up, you had best do that before watching the new HBO series.  Mason is not a lawyer, but  private investigator as the series opens.  We see a very flawed and complex version of Mason in this new incarnation.  Is this a good series?  Here is my review.

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) handed down a decision Monday with both good and bad news for ratepayers.  According to reporting from the Indianapolis Star and the Indianapolis Business Journal, Duke had originally asked for a $362 million rate hike, but the IURC approved an estimated $146 million in added revenue for the electric utility.

The Star quotes an official with the Citizens Action Coalition as saying this could amount to a 6% increase in rates for residential customers.

The original Duke rate hike proposal would have covered lost revenue due to lower economic activity tied to the pandemic.  Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness strongly opposed that concept.

Every now and then, it is a good idea to check the COVID-19 numbers.  So, here is the latest as of 8:00pm, Sunday, June 28th.

The World Health Organization (WHO) now says there will soon be 10 million confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus around the world.  WHO says there have been just under 496,000 world-wide deaths, with nearly 125,000 of those fatalities in the United States.  That means America has about 25% of all the COVID-19 deaths in the world.

In Indiana, the latest numbers from the State Department of Health show nearly 45,000 positive cases of novel coronavirus, and 2,427 deaths.  In Hamilton County, there have been 1,432 positive tests and 97 deaths reported to the state.  Although the new Fishers Health Department has promised to disclose how many Hamilton County deaths have Fishers addresses, so far that number has not been released.

The Fishers Health Department shows 3,553 COVID-19 tests have been conducted, representing 3.78% of the city’s total population.  Of those tests, 66 have come back positive.  Of the 66, 13 were without symptoms.

Indiana has been fortunate.  We have a governor that has hired good people, such as Dr. Kristina Box as state health commissioner, to oversee the response.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  Indiana has had some luck.  We’ll take it, but some of this is just dumb luck.

Remember, the hot-spots of today. like Texas, Florida and Arizona…all thought they were in good shape 2-3 weeks ago.  The fact is, scientific experts are still learning about this virus and they admit there is plenty they still do not understand.

Bottom line, we in Indiana should remain on guard, socially distance, wear masks and wash our hands.

When reading Chris Sikich’s recent story in the Indianapolis Star, it brought back some memories for me.  It was either 1970 or 1971, it’s been so long ago I do not remember the precise year.

I had graduated from high school in 1969, finished my work at a trade school for broadcasters and had my first full-time job in radio working for a suburban station which no longer exists today.

To this day, I do not know why the station manager wanted me to conduct this interview, but he did.  I was to host a live radio interview with a man named William Chaney, at that time, the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan.

I wasn’t looking forward to this assignment, and certainly knew I had to prepare lots of questions to fill the time.  There was only one question I really wanted to ask Chaney – why had he so publicly supported Unigov?

If Unigov is a term unfamiliar to you, Chris Sikich’s story in the Star goes through that in some depth.  It was the consolidation of some, but not all, of the government entities within Marion County.  (More on that later)

I had interviewed people with the Klan before because it was my job to do so and found them generally combative and not very interesting interviews.  But Chaney had a much different demeanor, almost grandfatherly and respectful.  If you didn’t know he was the Grand Dragon, he would have appeared to be a fairly “regular guy.”

So, after some brief pleasantries, the live interview began.  My first question -why did you, as the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan, support Unigov?  His answer was immediate and direct – because it would mean there would be no Black mayor in Indianapolis in the foreseeable future.

I was stunned, but thought about it.  Everyone in Marion County would vote in the election of the Indianapolis mayor.  Outside the pre-Unigov city limits at that time, Marion County was very white and Republican.

I was just beginning my media career, and would’t go to college until 1973, but I recall the debate over Unigov in the General Assembly.  The argument for the change was government efficiency and city services becoming available to many rural areas of the county.

The biggest story of Unigov wasn’t what it did, but what it did not do.  There were some “exluded cities” that elected their own mayors and city councils.  The excluded cities were Lawrence, Beech Grove and Southport, with Speedway remaining a town.  Within those municipalities, you went to the polls and voted for the mayor of Indianapolis and also voted for mayor in Lawrence, Beech Grove and Southport, along with the Speedway Town Council.

When you were able to get Republican politicians alone and off the record in those days, they would admit Unigov was really about politics and keeping Republicans in charge of Marion County government, and it worked from its inception in 1970 through 1999, when Democrat Bart Peterson was elected mayor.

The IndyStar story by Sikich explores the racial side of Unigov, which had the impact of freezing-out Democrats, particularly African-Americans, out of the political decision-making in Marion County for a very long time.

I do not believe the GOP enacted Unigov for racial reasons, but they certainly did it for political reasons.  The impact on African American political leaders was large, as Sikich documents in his story, talking to a number of people from both major political parties.

There was a lot left unsettled when Unigov became law in 1970.  For example, the Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) had jurisdiction over the pre-Unigov parts of Indianapolis and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department handled the rest of the county.  That changed in 2005, when the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) was charged with law enforcement in all of Marion County. There remains a Marion County Sheriff, with responsibilities over the jail and security at the City-County building.  It took 35 years to get that done.

The township school corporations within Marion County were never consolidated, and remain separate to this day.

Chris Sikich delves into other aspects of race & politics in Indiana, including how legislative districts are drawn,  He also looks at how women have been rarely respected in their governmental work.

But my memory goes back to 1970 or 1971, with  me looking William Chaney in the eye, asking him why he supported Unigov.  I know Republican politicians at that time were very uncomfortable with being on the side of the Indiana Klan on this issue.

Marion County has a much different demographic make-up today compared to 1970.  The biggest question is, what will the future bring?

It is always good to be reminded how good journalism is at the center of a healthy democratic republic like the United States.  We will never know whether Dr. Larry Nassar would have faced criminal charges without the energetic and professional journalists at the Indianapolis Star, but we know journalism played a major role in bringing allegations to light that resulted in accountability not only for Nassar, but major institutions such as USA Gymnastics (headquartered in Indianapolis) and Michigan State University.

Here is my review of a very important Netlflix documentary film – Athlete A.

Hamilton County Reporter

Property taxes were due for residents in the State of Indiana on Monday, May 11. However, an executive order issued by Governor Eric Holcomb gave folks who needed extra time in making those payments an extra 60 days without penalty.

The deadline for that payment is Friday, July 10.

The executive order issued March 19 asks counties to waive penalties for delinquent non-escrow property taxes – both real and personal – paid for up to 60 days.

Templeton

“Property taxes are more critical now more than ever,” Hamilton County Treasurer Jennifer Templeton said. “These taxes are distributed to our police and fire departments, schools, and trustees – services that are critical to our COVID-19 recovery efforts. Paying your property taxes ensures no disruption to these services.”

Taxpayers have several options for making their payments including the following:

• Pay online at this link. Online payment fees do apply; e-Checks are $1 and credit cards are 2.5 percent.
• Drop off payments at the antique drop box outside the east door of the Old Courthouse.
• Drop off payments at the Treasurer’s Office in the Old Courthouse in Noblesville.

If you have any questions about property taxes, please call the Treasurer’s Office at (317) 776-9620 and select Option 7.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness welcomed another family member into the world, one more boy.  His name is Jackson.  He was born at 11:11pm, Wednesday, June 24th.

I extend my congratulations to Scott, Aunna and Jackson’s big brothers.

I have said to many people in this recent set of challenges we face, why don’t we think about what our children and grandchildren will think of us once they discover what we have said and done during this time

Scott Fadness appears to have given this a great deal of thought.  He has already written a letter to his newly-born son Jackson and posted that letter on his social media accounts.

I reprint that letter below for your consideration