It was announced in recent days that a Fishers business will be expanding while remaining in Fishers, now that same firm has been honored with a major innovation award.

Fuzic has received one of nine 2017 Indiana Innovation Awards.  According to an online post to the Indianapolis Business Journal Web site, this awards program is sponsored by not-for-profit Centric Inc.

Fuzic was selected out of a pool of 48 award nominees.

Fuzic is a company that has only been in existence for a matter of months.  Launched earlier this year, it provides music to its customers from a wide selection of genres, and embeds customized messages between the songs to enhance the client’s brand.

For more on the Centric Innovation Awards, use this link.   For tickets to the October 12th awards ceremony at Butler University, check this link.

by

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

Hamilton County government is getting ready to engage a public relations officer. The idea is to keep the public up to date on the numerous plans and projects the county has in the works. It sounds like a good idea. Most governmental entities the size of our county have some type of PR program.

Both on the drawing board and underway, there are a lot of projects the county has planned to keep up with the public service and facilities needs. There’s the massive upgrading of State Road 37, a new White River bridge, expansion of the Judicial Center, expansion of the jail complex, conversion to solar energy, possibly a parking facility, various park projects, and perhaps a public safety training center.

These are all things that can use some good public relations. But, make no mistake about it, a public relations spokesman, whether in the service of government, private business or a non-profit charity, is hired to put the best face possible on actions of his or her employer. The new county PR person will be hired under contract, not as a regular county employee. The pay and number of hours devoted to the job are yet to be determined.

Public relations can bring varying degrees of success. One of the best PR jobs in government has to go to those building the image of Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett. In private business, nothing can compare with the promotion of the IKEA furniture store. But, some public relations efforts have been known to be less than successful.

So, getting the right person provided with the right assignment is crucial.

In Hamilton County we need a full and factual presentation of any subject, giving the public the bitter and the sweet because, along with the favorable news, there are sometimes events that we deserve to know about that may not be pleasant to reveal.

And, the taxpayers are paying for it all.

The local law enforcement community lost one of their own Wednesday.  Fishers Police Officer Ron Shepard passed away while surrounded by his family and friends.

Officer Ron Shepard began his law enforcement career in 1982. For a brief period of time he was a Reserve Officer with the Arcadia, Indiana Police Department. In 1983 he joined the Cicero, Indiana Police Department as a Reserve Police Officer and served until 1989. In 1990, Officer Shepard was hired full-time with the Fishers Police Department.  Officer Shepard was a building block for the agency made up of less than ten full-time officers.

Officer Shepard served in many areas of the department during his career. He was a Field Training Officer responsible for training new hires during the explosive growth in the 1990’s. He was an Evidence Technician responsible for processing crime scenes and was instrumental in designing the Fitness Center inside the Fishers Police Department. Most will remember Officer Shepard in his role as a night shift patrol officer. For more than 27 years the residents of Fishers, Indiana slept safely in their homes while Officer Shepard and his shift mates patrolled the streets of Fishers.

Officer Shepard earned our highest award, the Medal of Valor, for his actions on November 10^th, 1990.  Officer Shepard responded to a violent domestic disturbance at a residence near Fishers with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department. A severely injured woman reported that her boyfriend was back inside the residence with her 3 year old daughter and 5 year old son.  She also reported that her boyfriend was armed with a shotgun.  Attempts to speak with the man failed and Officer Shepard had an opportunity to break through a glass door and take the man into custody. Officer Shepard sustained severe cuts on his face and hands as he crashed through the door.  Officer Shepard earned the Meritorious Service Award in 2001 and 2013 and the Distinguished Service Award in 1996.

Officer Ron Shepard was known as “Uncle Ronnie” by most of his law enforcement brothers and sisters. He will be remembered for his selfless service to the community, his kind heart, his willingness to help anyone and his sense of humor.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

by

Fred Swift

Hamilton County Reporter

A sale of county government surplus furnishings and equipment
has been scheduled by county commissioners for Saturday,
Oct. 28.

Several hundred items ranging from riding mowers to ring
binders will go to the highest bidder in the first surplus auction the
county has held in several years.

The sale will begin at 10 a.m. in the Llama Barn at the County
Fairgrounds on East Pleasant Street in Noblesville.

All the items will be listed in detail on the Commissioners’
website.

Likely some of the most popular will be snow removal
equipment, several vehicles, various types of chairs, desks, both
wooden and metal, a vast array of filing cabinets, an ice machine,
paper shredder, and a washer, dryer and refrigerator.

Serving as auctioneer will be Brian Bailey. Terms
of the sale are cash or money order. Proceeds of the
sale go into the county general fund.

Commissioners in their Monday meeting also authorized
an online sale of large surplus highway equipment. These items
can soon be found listed on a website known as GovDeals.com.

In other action at this week’s meeting, commissioners continued discussions with American Structurepoint, the architectural and engineering firm planning
expansion of the Government and Judicial Center.  County officials hope to bid the project in February 2018 and begin construction in April.

Commissioners also determined the county would engage a public relations
professional to keep the news media abreast of the various ongoing county plans and projects.  A selection is likely at the next board meeting.

Plans for a new commercial development named The Stations received a favorable recommendation from the Fishers Plan Commission Wednesday night.  The project now goes to the Fishers City Council for final approval.  The land for the Stations building must be rezoned from residential to commercial before construction can begin early next year.  If final zoning approval is given, The Stations will be located next to the Kroger store and near the planned Yard culinary development along 116th Street.

In another item before the commission, a proposed commercial development on 106th Street near the I-69 interchange received a unanimous “no” recommendation.  Chris Schulhof of RE/MAX Realty Services on behalf of Geist Office Suites, LLC, the property owner, requested a rezone of a 1.14 acre lot from residential to Office Commercial.

“The quality of what was presented was of such poor quality, literally a Google Earth photograph, that someone sketched a plan that was done very unprofessionally,” said Plan Commission Member and City Councilman Rich Block.

Another City Councilman also on the Plan Commission, Pete Peterson, explained his vote to recommend denials of the rezoning.  “We’re trying to make sure we have a thoughtful process”

In one other matter, the Fishers Plan Commission has changed its internal rules to move up the meeting times.  The plan commission will now hold meetings at 6:00pm, instead of 6:30.

There is a time when we all do some soul-searching.  If you are in a certain job and considering change, you do soul-searching.  If you are thinking about moving to another place, you need to think about it and sort out the pluses and minuses.

That’s what I have been doing for the last 24 hours.  I want you all to know why I was soul-searching, how I went about it and how I reached my final decision.

First, I am not getting any younger. I just completed my first year on Medicare.  When a lot is going on, it is a little harder to keep up.  My health isn’t perfect but I am in relatively good shape for an older guy.  Writing this local Fishers news blog, at times, wears me down now more than it did 5 years ago.

Second, I have been hoping that a regular, daily news service would come to Fishers.  The last such news outlet was the Noblesville Daily Ledger, which has been out of business for a number of years.  The Current in Fishers is a printed weekly and does the best it can with the amount of space provided for news.  There are other monthly and bi-monthly magazine style news sources.

Many of the news sources in Fishers rely heavily on feature stories.  There is nothing wrong with that, but people also need a source of what is happening currently in their local community.  What is the city council doing?  What is the mayor backing at his Board of Public Works and Safety?  What decisions are up before the local school board?

When starting this blog in January of 2012, I sincerely thought I would spark someone, or some company, to take on the burden of reporting regular news on a daily, or nearly daily, basis.  At the end of this year I will have completed 6 years of blogging locally and no one has stepped forward as a commercial daily news source.

There have been stretches of time when the Indianapolis Star has assigned a reporter to cover Fishers, and long stretches of time when no reporter was covering Fishers.  Currently, the Star has one reporter on the Fishers beat.

The Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) has a North of 96th reporter charged with covering the northern suburbs and Fishers is often featured in that weekly print publication with a prominent online presence reporting news on a daily basis.

Bottom line, daily news from Fishers is rare.  I have tried to cover the stories you may not find in the Star or the IBJ.  I found that showing up is important and leads you to learn important information you would never know if not present at regular meetings.

Sadly, I am often the only reporter attending public government meetings in Fishers.  So, news coverage of some of these sessions is entirely up to me.  It’s a big burden for a volunteer blogger to take on, but I’ve taken that burden on for nearly 6 years.

Third, I have had some problems getting information from the City of Fishers.  When there are controversies or bad news items, I do not expect a big announcement or news release from the city staff.  But lately, I have been left out of some major good news the city should be touting everywhere.  As a small local blog, I don’t expect any special treatment, but I’ve worked in journalism off and on since 1973.  I know the minimum information that is expected from a city.

When Fuzic, a local Fishers tech company announced a big expansion, I was caught flat-footed.  That’s the type of story people come to this blog to read.  I started doing the soul-searching I already discussed.  I wasn’t personally hurt, but how could I be expected to provide the news coverage my readers expect if I cannot get the good news stories the city should be shouting about?  This wasn’t the first time something like this has happened to me.

I had been talking with my wife Jane about the work I was putting into the blog.  I have a number of other projects I do in retirement.  Was LarryInFishers.com worth the effort I have been putting into it?

That’s what sparked the blog post October 2nd, where I openly wondered whether this blog was worth continuing.  It wasn’t just the Fuzic announcement (BTW, congratulations Fuzic, all of Fishers is excited for your success).  It was a number of things happening over a number of months.  Perhaps I was at an age when trying to handle all my retirement projects add up to more than I can handle.

So, I posted October 2nd just to let you know I was doing soul-searching on whether to continue LarryInFishers.com as a daily, or nearly daily, local news source.  There are easier ways to blog.

Then, something happened that I never expected.  I started receiving messages October 2nd and October 3rd.  They came from everywhere, from people I know and from people I have never personally met.  Some were sent privately, but many were sent publicly as Facebook & Twitter comments.

Here’s what I learned from all those messages – people not only read my blog, they care.  I can measure the number of page views and the number of people accessing my blog.  But analytics cannot measure how much, or how little, people care about what you write.  I now know that there are many more people that care about my reporting than I could ever imagine.

That was going to be a major soul-searching factor in my decision whether to move forward with this blog or not.  There is no way to ignore the many heart-felt messages I received.

The next step was focusing on the City of Fishers and how to fix some of the problems I had been experiencing getting information from the city.  I know many of you blame Scott Fadness for that.  I do not.

In a podcast interview with me earlier this year, Mayor Fadness, before I could ask him the first question, volunteered some very kind comments about how Fishers has no daily newspaper and my blog is the closest thing Fishers has to a daily newspaper.  He didn’t need to say that, but he did and I appreciate it.

After my blog post October 2nd, I asked to meet with the Deputy Mayor about the issues I was having with getting information.  Both Leah McGrath and Mayor Fadness came to that meeting.  We had a very open and honest discussion about the problems I was having.

I can say with all honesty that my issues were related to the work load of certain employees within the city staff and there was no slight intended.  I believe  that is true.

When I explained what I need to continue working on this blog, Mayor Fadness and Deputy Mayor McGrath made commitments to me that should solve any problems.  There is no one person at fault, there are just growing pains within the staff of a growing city.  That is all that was involved here.

So, I am prepared to march on.  I will continue writing this blog for two important reasons.

First, Mayor Fadness wants me to continue and believes I am providing an important service not being offered anywhere else.

Secondly, and most importantly, those of you regularly reading this blog have warmed my heart with your comments.  How could I consider ending this blog after reading all you have written the last couple of days?

This soul searching has revealed to me I am doing something important.  I never knew how important until the last couple of days.

Thank you all and God Bless you all.  LarryInFishers will march on

Fuzic is a company currently housed in a small office behind the Riviera Maya Mexican restaurant in downtown Fishers, employing about 20 people.  The Fishers Redevelopment Commission has approved a resolution moving forward an incentive package allowing the firm to expand from its current small staff to a work force of about 250.

Fuzic has agreed to take over the entire second floor of the Braden Building, currently under construction on Municipal Drive, east of City Hall, containing 11,700 square feet of space.

The State of Indiana is offering $3.5 million in incentives, with clawback provisions should Fuzic not meet their employee hiring targets.  The City of Fishers is offering help in building-out the space in the Braden Building.

Fuzic provides music and announcements for retail stores.

Fishers Director of Economic Development, Brandon Dickinson, hinted to commission members there could be another meeting this month.

“We are working on a couple of items right now,” said Dickinson.  “If everything goes well, we’ll probably have another meeting later on this month.”

The Fishers Fire and Emergency Services, which handles calls within the City of Fishers and areas outside the city under contracts with townships, has just had an upgrade to its Public Protection Classification (PPC)  evaluation from the Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO).  The score was elevated from a 4  to a score of 2.

The new rating may mean lower insurance rates within the area served by Fishers Fire and Emergency Services.  The higher score takes effect January 1, 2018.

“Improving from an ISO rating of 4 to a rating of 2, is another example of the City of Fishers’ commitment to provide the highest level of public safety services to the citizens of our community,” Fishers Fire Chief Steve Orusa said in a Fire Department news release.  “This achievement is the direct result of the hard work and dedication of our firefighters.”

In 2014, the agency was re-accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI).  Nation-wide, less than one percent of all fire departments are internationally accredited.

The 2017 Past Bown set a record, with 13,880 pounds of pasta collected and distributed to over 46 nonprofit organizations serving local communities.   The Pasta Bowl also provides a spotlight on roughly 3,000 children in our area suffering from food insecurities.

Students from Hoosier Road Elementary and Riverside Intermediate joined HSEHS Senior Hana Ghoneima to shop for a few more pounds of pasta to add to bulging crates of donated food. The pasta is a core staple for area food banks and comes at an essential time during the pre-holiday months when donations are often critically low.

A food drive of this magnitude is not possible without the army of donors, but also the behind the scenes support of Meijer, ProShred, Harvest Food Bank, and the Hamilton Southeastern Schools Foundation.

Today was an important day in Fishers.  There was an announcement of a high-tech company planning to expand and locate in the downtown Nickel Plate District. It was a very positive story for the City of Fishers.  But you will not be reading any details about this story on LarryInFishers.com.

Here is the simple reason.  No one at the city bothered to inform LarryInFishers that any announcement of any kind was happening on October 2nd.  Lots of other people were informed.  The mayor, the governor and company officials were all there.  Most of the rest of the media were there.

I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes but I have worked for five years to build a credible, daily news update for Fishers because other media outlets have not been paying much attention to our fair town, later a city.  I am a retired guy that could be spending my time doing a lot of other things than writing about news in Fishers and posting podcasts with local people.  It takes work to do all this, but has so far been a labor of love for me.

When ignored by the city you try to cover and love so much, I am beginning to wonder whether this LarryInFishers.com endeavor is worth continuing.  So, this reporter has some soul searching to do on whether I continue this local news blog.

Once I reach a decision, I will let you all know