This year’s Fishers Nickel Plate District Arts Crawl featured a pairing of downtown businesses and area artists.  There were painting, music and more.

The best way to show an arts event is to just show you pictures, so you will see below the photos I capture during the Friday night event.

Continue reading Fishers Arts Crawl 2018 →

Road work continues at a very busy pace throughout the city.  Below is the weekly update, for the work week starting July 16th, as provided by the City of Fishers:

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When you assess the housing situation in Fishers, there are two issues that come up quickly…can the city’s own employees afford to live in the city in which they work, and how can employers attract and keep workers when those prospective employees cannot afford to live in the area where they work?

Those were some of the issues explored in a housing discussion held at Fishers City Hall Friday morning all about housing, sponsored by the local nonprofit housing group HAND.  There were representatives of city government, the private sector, the One Zone Chamber of Commerce and other nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity.

One item revealed during the meeting is that the local Fishers firm RealAmerica Development is in the final stages of receiving approval to construct a low-income apartment development on Lantern Road in Fishers.  Although RealAmerica has its headquarters in Fishers, and has several developments around the state, this will be their first project here in Fishers.

After the meeting, I spoke with Jennifer Miller and Andrea Davis from HAND and Julia Smith from Novogradac about the meetings held around the county so far…

Frank Whelan has officially announced his candidacy for the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board in District Two, currently represented by John DeLucia.  District Two covers the southwest part of the HSE School boundaries.  John DeLucia has said he will not be a candidate for re-election.

Whelan was a candidate in the 2016 at-large school board election and lost his bid to be Delaware Township’s board member to current board member Amanda Shera.

“I am running for the School Board because I deeply care about the students, the parents, the teachers and the Fishers community,” said Whelan in a campaign news release. “Our students’ safety is our priority, and as a banker, I have had to deal with security issues. I will also use my expertise to strengthen the school district’s fiscal policies and budget—while making sure we put students first in all of our decisions.”

Whelan points to his long-time involvement in local school activities and his three children enrolled in the HSE School Corporation as reasons he is once again a board candidate.  He touts his 18 years of private sector experience.

Official filing for school board begins at the Hamilton County Election Office in Noblesville July 25th, and ends at noon August 24th.

The HSE High School Lacrosse team found itself down 14-9 at the end of the third quarter against Culver Military Academy in the state championship game.  Not many Lacrosse teams come back from a deficit like that, but HSE High School did and won this year’s state title.  HSE scored six unanswered goals in the fourth quarter.

Board President Matt Burke credited the parents of programs such as Lacrosse and Rugby, because both are funded and led by parent volunteers.

“Your parents and your families are being commended for all the effort that they put in over the years to get you guys this state championship”, Burke said.

In another sports related item, Superintendent Allen Bourff told the board HSE High School Girls Track Coach Julie Alano has received national recognition as Girls Track Coach of the Year.  The HSE Girls Track Team won a state championship this past school year.

The Hamilton Southeastern School District will likely see its enrollment peak in a few years, based on the latest update from demographer Dr. Jerry McKibben.  The board was told that one major unknown is what may happen with interest rates over the next few years.

McKibben told the board 5% is the major threshold to watch, and mortgage rates are just a tick under 5% now.  If interest rates continue to move upward, that could place a damper on new home construction.

“Your total enrollment, in elementary particularly, and overall for the district, is probably hitting its peak in 2020,” McKibben told the board, “but the distribution issues are going to be your main challenges.”

The distribution issues relate to not having school buildings in the geographical locations where housing is being developed and student populations are growing.  That can lead to redistricting in order to balance student enrollments in the district’s school buildings.

McKibben projects small overall enrollment increases for HSE Schools, below 1% each year, until 2021, when he predicts small percentage decreases annually through 2028.  However, high school populations will grow in the next few years, peaking at 7,094 (both high school buildings combined) in the 2021-2022 school year.  After 2021-2022, McKibben projects slight annual decreases in high school enrollment through 2027, then remaining flat in 2028.

You can view Dr. McKibben’s entire presentation to the board at this link and this link.

by

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

Bastille Day, the French equivalent to our Fourth of July, is Saturday, and, oddly enough, it’s going to be celebrated in Carmel this year.

Probably unknown to planners of the event and most of the participants is the fact that there is a historic French connection with Hamilton County that dates back 200 years or more.

Most of Indiana’s written history concentrates on Anglo-American settlers who arrived in the early 19th century. Actually, the French established settlements in what is now Indiana as early as 1732. Military outposts were built at Vincennes, Fort Wayne and near Lafayette to strengthen France’s claim to the Ohio Valley.

A big part of the French presence also centered on the fur trade between Frenchmen and native American Indians. Early French traders moved along the rivers and streams in dugout canoes gathering prized beaver pelts from the Indians in exchange for blankets, steel knives, iron pots, axes and other goods previously unknown to the natives.

Among these traders was Michel Brouillette, born in 1774 at the French community of Vincennes. Although the British controlled the area by that time, many French traders and settlers remained. Brouillette (later Anglicized as Brewit) and probably a companion, plied the White River and other streams in central Indiana.

According to research done by the late Rue Hinshaw, Carmel historian and community leader, Brewit established a trading post in what is now Carmel. The years of his presence in the area are unknown, but probably between 1800 and 1820. Hinshaw found artifacts on his property from an Indian encampment that was located near what is believed to be the site of the trading post.

Brewit was more than just a fur trader. He spoke several Indian dialects and aided Gov. William Henry Harrison in his dealings with the local tribes. He was able to gain access to the Indian settlement at Prophetstown to assess the number of warriors gathering there in 1811 prior to the Battle of Tippecanoe and report his findings to Harrison. Later he was appointed an Indian Agent by Harrison.

By the 1820s and 30s, settlers were flooding into central Indiana. The fur trade died off as the Indians left and the land was cleared for farming. Brewit went back to Vincennes, entered the grocery business and died in 1838.

His Vincennes home is still standing. It is the only known French house left in the city. It consists of vertical log and stucco construction unlike American pioneer homes of horizontal log construction. It is listed as one of the historic sites in Vincennes.

So, as the crowd gathers Saturday for Bastille Day in Carmel to enjoy French music, food and dancing, few will know that they are within a stone’s throw of where a real French connection was made two centuries ago.

by

Stu Clampitt

Hamilton County Reporter

Hamilton County Public Safety Communications Executive Director Mike Snowden was recently honored by his peers for helping establish a statewide training standard for 911 dispatchers.

The Don Kottlowski Award is an award presented by the Indiana chapter of APCO (Association of Public-safety Communication Officials), an international professional organization for 911 centers. The Indiana chapter provides the award annually to the director they believe has had the most impact on statewide issues.

Snowden’s award was presented by APCO at the 2018 Indiana NENA (National Emergency Number Association) and APCO Conference.

“It’s humbling to know that the work you are doing is being recognized,” Snowden told The Reporter.

Snowden said he does not know who put him up for the award and did not know he would be presented with the award before the conference. He does, however, know why he was chosen.

“The statewide 911 board exists, and they collect a lot of money every year from cellphone and wire-line telephones,” Snowden explained. “$1 each for every month. That gets distributed to the PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points) throughout the state in all 92 counties. There are about 120 PSAPs throughout the state. I went to them because no one was training our folks.”

There are no requirements in the State of Indiana for training for dispatchers.

There no certification or licensing for dispatchers in the state.

There is no required continuing education.

“When I got here Hamilton County created our own,” Snowden said. “We have our own minimum training standards for ourselves because no one else is holding us accountable. We are holding ourselves accountable.”

Snowden approached the state 911 board two years ago and asked them to set aside money to do training for all the telecommunicators in the State of Indiana.

“They finally – through a lot of negotiation – said ‘yes’ when they had some end-of-year money in fiscal 2016,” Snowden said. “They set aside some money and started promulgating rules. I helped with the rule creation for what was going to be paid for.”

Those rules came into effect in January 2018.

“In six months they have spent a couple hundred thousand dollars training dispatchers throughout the state,” Snowden told The Reporter. “They will continue to do that in perpetuity as long as there is a funding source for it. The award I got was for that idea: To help train people to do their jobs.”

By way of comparison, Snowden noted a person has to have hundreds of hours of training and be certified to cut someone’s hair or to do nails. Meanwhile, you do not have to have one minute of training, according to the State of Indiana, to be a dispatcher. That is because there is no law that requires a set number of hours of basic training or any continuing education in order to work as a public safety telecommunicator.

When the Noblesville West Middle School shooting occurred, local dispatchers had been trained the day before on how to handle it. That is because at the local level, Hamilton County does not believe zero hours of training is acceptable.

“I am eternally grateful for this award,” Snowden said. “It was an honor. It really was humbling that my peers thought enough of me to say I deserved that award. But the reality is we are just trying to make sure folks know how to do their jobs.”

Snowden said he thinks consistent training standards are necessary for the safety of all Hoosiers.

“Hamilton County has a very mobile citizenry,” Snowden said. “We are going down to the lake. We are going up to the dunes. We are going to Bloomington and Lafayette. We are on our way to Fort Wayne. If you have an emergency [on one of those trips] and you call for help, you should get the same level of care wherever you are in this state.”

HSE High School Principal Matt Kegley is being promoted to Director of Secondary Education for the entire HSE School District.  The school board officially approved the action Wednesday night.  Kegley replaces Phil Lederach.

Kegley’s selection to central office administrator means HSE High School will need a new principal.  Superintendent Allen Bourff told the board work will begin immediately to fill the HSE High School principal opening.  Bourff did not rule out the possibility of putting an interim principal in place while the selection process is underway.

Bourff told the board he has been looking at several candidates to replace Mike Beresford as assistant superintendent.  Bourff expects to have a new assistant superintendent hiring recommendation by the next schedule board meeting in early August.  Beresford is now the school superintendent for Carmel-Clay Schools.

The board hired elementary principals, including Jeff Hoog at Brooks School Elementary and Jenifer Rickets at Hoosier Road.

The Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board approved a new principal for Riverside Intermediate School, over the objections of the local teacher’s union.  Dana Kaminski has now been officially named to the principal’s post.  The concerns were not about the person named, but about the process used by administrators to select the new principal.

Mary Carson, speaking for the Hamilton Southeastern Education Association, said teachers were not involved in the selection process for the Riverside Intermediate principal, which the association says is a departure from past practice.  Carson argued that a local teacher in their association says “having teachers on the selection committee would help inform the decision and win the trust of teaching peers.”  Carson told the board the association asks the board and administration for a return to the past practice in conducting principal interviews.

The board voted to select Kaminski on a tally of 4-1,  Board member Michelle Fullhart voted no, and two board members abstained from voting.  The vote was taken quickly, making it unclear at the time which board members chose to abstain from this vote.  LarryInFishers has since confirmed that board members Mike Bottorff and Amanda Shera abstained.

Kaminski will replace the previous Riverside Intermediate principal, Danielle Chastain.