Predictions are dangerous so I try not to make them whenever possible.  But looking ahead and exploring what may be ahead in the coming year is fair game.

Just so you know, I am finalizing the top news stories in Fishers for 2021 and will have that posted shortly.  In the meantime, let’s look at what we expect will be part of the Fishers news landscape in 2022.

The city is planning a new City Hall with an arts center as part of the new complex.  There is also a recreation center, sometimes described as a community center, in the planning stages.  Mayor Scott Fadness expects some preliminary ideas on what those facilities may look like sometime in the spring of 2022.

The city will see 116th Street downtown begin to come to life with the new development under construction starting to open, including the new headquarters of First Internet Bank.  The Nickel Plate Trail is expected to open in the downtown area, including the tunnel underneath 116th Street, in the spring of 2022.

A long-awaited housing study is expected to be produced next year that can guide local decision-makers on where to go next with housing policy in Fishers.

The Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) Schools will likely determine the future of Fishers Elementary School.  It is the oldest structure in the HSE school inventory, and is the old Fishers High School of many, many years ago.

But the biggest local story next year will be the election of 4 HSE School Board members, a majority of the 7-member body.  The election will be in the fall (November) and candidates will begin filing in the summer.

There will be county elections and state legislative races in newly-drawn district maps.  Many of you may be in a new legislative district since the lines were re-drawn based on the 2020 census numbers.

Of course, the biggest story locally in 2022 will be COVID.  Will it ease, or will another variant complicate the pandemic?  Will the third year of COVID be better or worse?

This listing is by no means comprehensive and many other stories are anticipated in the coming year.  And, of course, there will always be the unanticipated issues that will surely arise.

This is not a set of predictions, just a few thoughts on what will almost certainly be on the public table for those of us living in Fishers.  Let us hope and pray 2022 is good to us.

With Christmas 2021 now here, I try each year to write what’s on my mind in this special holiday season.  My thoughts this year center on something Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness told me on a podcast recorded December 1st.

As is my custom when interviewing nearly anyone on a podcast, I provide a minute or two at the end to have my guest talk about anything I didn’t think to bring up myself.  On December 1st, the mayor made his case that, in his view, Fishers “is doing very well,” and cited a number of points made in his recent State of the City address.  But he slipped-in another point in his response to me – “As a community, we have some work to do on how we treat each other.”

The journalist in me motivated a follow-up question – just what did you mean by “we have work to do on how we treat each other?”

The mayor again referred back to his State of the City address.  He argues that most Fishers residents do not even realize what COVID has done to them.  “I don’t think people have come to grips with just all they’ve gone through in the last year-and-a-half,” Fadness said.

He senses that people continue to be on edge due to what COVID and dealing with the pandemic have done to all of us in some shape or form.

“We’ve got to get back to the ground game of looking each other in the eye and having an honest conversation,” said the mayor.

Fadness believes we can become a better community if we recognize that most of us are on edge because of the pandemic and what it has done to us.  He envisions a better sense of community where we interact in person and see that human beings may have differences, but we have more in common.

So, as my Christmas message, let’s make a concerted effort to connect in a positive way to our fellow human beings.  We have differences, and that is part of being human.  Making personal connections is important and a genuine effort to find and build on those relationships is certainly part of the Christian Christmas message.  Again, we have more that unites us than what divides us.

Once COVID hit, I changed the sign-off on all my podcasts to a new phrase – “Be safe and be kind.”  I wanted to emphasize that we all should follow practices to keep ourselves and those around us as safe as possible.  I also firmly believe that kindness spreads as each person practices it.  In this time of pandemic, being safe and being kind are both so important.

Let’s think about that as we spread the cheer of the holiday season to one another.

Be safe and be kind.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

The early days of television are often fodder for the modern film business.  Aaron Sorkin is mining that genre in the film he has written and directed – Being The Ricardos.

It’s all about Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz….their romance, marriage, business partnership, then the slow dissolution of that marriage.  There is a lot more to the story.

Here is my review of the film Being The Ricardos…

The Fishers road construction listing is normally released on Friday, but with this being the Christmas holiday week, the update has been sent early.

Many are repeats of last week, except one lane restriction scheduled December 27 for 96th Street near the Wal Mart. Meijer access.

Here is the complete listing, as provided by the City of Fishers:

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The semi-annual Police Merit Commission meeting is an opportunity for the Chief of Police to update the commission members on what is happening in the department, and the December 22nd session was no exception

Chief Ed Gebhart reviewed the impact of funding approved by the Indiana General Assembly for a regional illegal firearms task force encompassing Indianapolis and the surrounding counties.

If you have noticed more motorists speeding in the City of Fishers, the Police Department has noticed this as well.  The department is looking to focus even more on speeders in 2022.

School Resource Officers (SROs), uniformed officers assigned to Hamilton Southeastern Schools, are a key part of Chief Gebhart’s focus on keeping local schools safe.  His department partnered with the schools to present an online Town Hall recently, focusing on school safety and how threats are handled by the schools and law enforcement.

The Chief talked about increasing the number of license plate readers in Fishers.  There are currently ten such readers.  He is reaching out to HOAs for interest in placing these readers in neighborhoods as a safety features.  The cost of a reader starts at $2,500.  Gebhart emphasized this is not “Big Brother” technology.  Even though the system records all license plates, police can only access the system looking for license plates tied to criminal investigations.

There were protests held in Fishers, as in most places, in 2020, and Gebhart told the commission he and his officers are learning how to better prepare for such events and tactics to keep them as peaceful as possible, working with other city departments.

Fishers Police will be hiring two civilian employees through money generated by task force funds – an intelligence analyst and a forensics expert.  The city budget for 2020 calls for three more sworn officers to be added.

The Police Merit Commission members, as listed on the Fishers Web site, are Bryan Babb, Tiffany Sharpley, Gary Bolenbaugh, Warren Henderson, and Jim White.  The main responsibility of the commission is to administer discipline to department members, including suspension, demotion, and termination of employment.  If there are no disciplinary matters, the chief provides a briefing on the department about current issues.  There have been no disciplinary matters before the commission in recent memory.

I rarely miss a Fishers City Council meeting, but I could not attend the December 20th session due to visiting family from out of town.  That meeting, and an update on COVID from the Fishers Health Department, are of note as I catch up on my volunteer blogging duties.

One important discussion which, as of this writing, is not available on video, is a work session held about the possibility of utilizing the Hamilton County Community Foundation to decide where the city’s charitable giving should go.  The city has budgeted $250,000 for funding local nonprofit groups in 2022.  The past few years, the City Council has used a committee of council members to decide what funding will be provided to which groups and how much each one will receive.  It appears the mayor and members of the council are considering a change in that process, possibly using the foundation to decide which organizations will be funded by the city and how much each will get.  Council members were provided a presentation by the foundation.  It is not yet clear what next steps will be.

Council President Selina Stoller recognized the work of former Town Council Member Ray Sakson.  He died recently at the age of 76.

Stoller also announced that proposals to formalize a committee system for the council passed first reading last October and will be considered once again at the January council session.  In October, the proposal was criticized by several council members, particularly the provision saying the council president will make the appointments, rather than have the full council approve those chosen to serve on committees.  Democrat Crystal Neumann was the only Democrat serving on the committee coming up with that proposal and said the recommendation “does not speak to me and it does not speak for me.”  President Stoller insisted she would be committed to diversity in making the appointments.  It is not known what language will be included in the committee proposal to be before the council in January.

Two members of the Fishers Police Department were presented service awards for 25 years with the department – Angela Ellison and Mathew Simmonds.

Deputy Mayor Elliott Hultgren presented a proposal for an Armed Services Commission for the City of Fishers.  The measure passed on 1st reading and will come back to the council for consideration.  For the language in the proposed ordinance, use this link.

Now, to the latest from the Fishers Health Department.  Late on Tuesdays most weeks, Epidemiologist Josh Robinson updates the community on COVID locally through a video posted on the city’s YouTube channel.  This week, Mr. Robinson reviews what the Omicron variant is and why it is causing so much publicity of late.  He also provides some stark numbers on COVID risks for those unvaccinated vs. those that are COVID vaccinated.  I think Josh Robinson lays this out very clearly in his video update, which you can see in its entirety at the link below.

Winter setting-in has not entirely shut down road construction around Fishers.

State Road 37 work continues. The city says the right-in right-out on 131st street on the west side of SR 37 should be open sometime this month.

Look for some lane restrictions on 116th Street in the downtown area neat Maple Street.  Also, watch for construction on Technology Drive in the Northeast Commerce Park as the city replaces the pavement in that commercial area, which includes the approach to Launch Fishers and the Internet of Things (IOT) Lab.

Here is the full listing, as provided by the City of Fishers:

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When Governor Eric Holcomb announced the decision December 14th on the regional READI grants, he had both good and bad news.  The good news was that all the regions applying would receive grant money.  The bad news was that since all were granted, regions would receive less money than requested.

READI (Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative) allowed regions to apply for a pool of grant money.  In our area, several communities along the White River, including Indianapolis, Fishers, Noblesville and others, applied for a total of $50 million in grant money.  The December 14th announcement reduced the grant approved down to $20 million.

At the December 15th City Council Finance Committee meeting, Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness told committee members that he had just spoken with Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen, and they all agreed to reduce their plans to fit the new budget.  Fishers will now receive about $3 million in READI grant funds.

Fadness says the city plans to use the money to look at the 96th Street & Allisonville Road intersection, and help fund a planned park along the White River.  In late July, Fishers announced the purchase of 98 acres of land east of the White River and north of 96th Street.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness has a plan to pay for a new City Hall complex that will include an arts center, as well as a large community center, without an increase in the city tax rate.  The mayor shared that plan with members of the City Council Finance Committee December 15^th.

Fadness told the committee he had two major goals in financing these projects – incur the lowest finance costs possible and not increase the city tax rate to pay for them.

For the City Hall/Arts Center complex, the mayor proposes to issue bonds in the amount of $17 million.  This complex is projected to cost about $22 million.  Fadness proposes to utilize $5 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds which the city has not yet spent to make up the difference.

So far, the city has spent just under $1 million of the ARP money to finance COVID contact tracing.  The remaining roughly $1 million of ARP cash would remain, with its use not yet determined.

The other part of the plans call for a community center with an estimated price tag of $45 million.  That includes sports court space, an aquatic center, classroom space, land purchase and site work.

The mayor’s plan is to have the city purchase the community center in 2025.  That would allow finishing the capital projects the city has now, which would bring the debt on in 2025 with no tax rate implications.  The city would essentially pay off debt on projects still being financed, allowing room in the debt picture to allow the community center to be financed beginning in 2025, without a large interest rate expense.

With short-term interest rates, and municipal debt backed by property tax revenue, Fadness argues the debt costs will be lower with this plan.

Fadness also says that assessed property valuations have been higher than expected, and if that happens in the future, the debt could be paid-off earlier.

This plan also preserves the city’s favorable debt rating from Standard & Poor, because the cash reserves will remain at a higher level than required.

When asked about financing the operating costs of the community center, the mayor expects the facility to generate more than enough revenue to finance operations.

When asked when these facilities will open, the mayor told the committee his expectation is the design phase will be done in the spring of 2022, breaking ground on both construction projects by the end of 2022.  The mayor emphasized that is his hope at this point.  “I think the community is ready and eager for both the projects,” the mayor said.

A new directory has been created, allowing alumni of Hamilton Southeaster and Fishers High Schools to connect with one another and current activities at the schools.

The Hamilton Southeastern Education Foundation (HSEF) announced Thursday the creation of the Tigers Royals Alumni Network.  The program will provide alumni and community members access to regular updates about district news through blog posts and regular email updates, as well as mentorship and volunteer opportunities and events. The site features a useful alumni directory for connections with classmates, former teachers, and other community members.

“We are thrilled to announce this new digital community for Tigers and Royals alumni, friends, and supporters to get more plugged into what’s happening in our schools,” said Justin Hirnisey, Executive Director of the Foundation, in a foundation news release. “Through this brand-new alumni web site and directory, we look forward to highlighting the achievements of former students and staff and welcoming alumni of all ages back to the district, whether it’s as a supporter, volunteer, employee, or mentor.”

The alumni network is available to all alumni and what the foundation describes as “friends of the district.”

Alumni of HSE or Fishers High School can submit their own information and connect with other alumni through the online directory. Members of the network can also find information about class reunions, and will be a resource for alumni, supporters, and friends to receive news about district events, opportunities, and initiatives.

The network is a program of HSEF, which supports grants, scholarships, and district initiatives within all 22 schools across the Hamilton Southeastern school district.