For more than eight years, I have been visiting the building first named Fishers Town Hall, now our City Hall.  It is normally a busy, bustling place – lots of people on the move, having meetings, doing the city’s business.

When I visited City Hall Wednesday afternoon, I walked into a City Hall I never experienced during a work day.  It was almost totally quiet.  There was a lady at the front desk.  She told me where to meet Mayor Scott Fadness for our scheduled podcast interview.

I brought a scaled-back equipment setup to allow for the proper social distancing.  During our discussion, the mayor said when the crisis over the coronavirus began to build, he ordered what he described as decentralizing his staff.  In other words, meetings and other activities would be handled in a virtual world.  The city is open for business, the mayor says, just not as an in-person experience at this point.

If you need a building permit or have business pending before the Planning and Zoning Department, you can handle that, just use technology rather than face-to-face.  The mayor made it clear that through his policy with his own staff, and his executive orders, he is serious about social distancing in this time of COVID-19.

When I asked the mayor to consider all the expert information he has seen over the past few days, and to give me his best assessment of where this is all headed, he paused for a moment.  He says there is an opportunity for this to get worse before it gets better.  The areas with the worst outbreaks nationally will get the available testing kits first, so expect Indiana to wait its turn to get more people tested.

The mayor expects the infection numbers to increase once testing is more widely available.  But he will be particularly watching the death rate in our state because that is an indicator of where we are headed locally.

“I don’t think anyone right now can give you a clear estimate as to what will happen in our community today and all the more reason…I would err on the side of preparation over being flippant about it,” the mayor said during the podcast interview.

Fadness says he is proud of the restaurant business community in Fishers, he has spoken to them and they are being good corporate citizens even with the challenges they are facing.

As to the travel advisory, police officers are trying to educate residents on the dangers in large gatherings.  He gave an example of police talking to a large group forming at Brooks School Park, educating those residents why such a gathering at this time might not be a good idea.

When he receives criticism from local people the mayor says he does respond.  He cited an e-mail from a local citizen telling him his actions are “ridiculous”and this is “no big deal.”  According to the mayor, he responded that he sincerely hopes his critic is correct and nothing serious happens, but Fadness says he is not willing to take the risk on behalf of 90,000 residents of the city.

The mayor is clearly proud of the city employees and their response to the issues presented by the pandemic.  He encourages anyone with questions to call the city coronavirus hotline 317-595-3211.  The phones are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week  You can also visit the city’s Web page devoted to coronavirus at this link 

The mayor had a lot more to say in our podcast discussion.  You can listen at the link below.