Hamilton County Democrats issued a statement Tuesday saying Fishers Police and Fire Merit Commission appointments have “skirted” state law, but Mayor Scott Fadness responded that any allegation Fishers is not in compliance with state law is “false.”

State law requires 2 Democrats be appointed to each commission, according to the HAMCO Democrats.  The statute says to qualify as a Democrat, an appointee’s party affiliation is determined by their three most recent primary elections.

“The City of Fishers has skirted the mandate by including historically Republican commission members who have voted for a Democrat only once in recent history, which is not a true representation of how they will govern, and thus represents a conflict,” Dayna Colbert, Hamilton County Democratic Party Chair, said in a party news release.

In a statement issued in response, Mayor Fadness argues the city is in compliance with the law.

“This release is an annual attempt by the Hamilton County Democratic Party to play partisan politics and any statement or insinuation that these commissions are not in compliance is false,” Fadness said.

County Democrats recommended 2 women be appointed to each commission, but none of the proposed appointees were named in the party’s news release.

The Police and Fire Merit Commissions are composed of civilian members charged with administering discipline to department members, including suspension, demotion, and termination of employment.  For each commission, the mayor has two appointees, the city council one and the police or firefighters themselves vote on the remaining two members.  The mayoral and firefighter or police appointees are required to be of different political parties.

Brad DeReamer has let Fishers City Council members know about his very strong views on the influence of housing developers in Fishers for several years.  The councilman once again voiced those assertions Tuesday night on a specific rezoning issue that did pass in the end on a 6-3 vote.

It is called the Lehman development, south of 126th Street, east of Allisonville Road, adjacent to the Sunblest neighborhood.  Pulte Homes wants to construct 32 homes on 15 acres of land.

DeReamer provided examples from his own neighborhood of Britton Falls where he does not believe developers have kept specific commitments made in the past, and reiterated his argument that it appears to him that developers are “getting their way” at the expense of the city’s residents.

In the end, Pulte received the rezoning it was seeking, with DeReamer, Jocelyn Vare and Crystal Neumann voting no.

Fishers City Council Member Todd Zimmerman is serving his second stint leading the body.  At Tuesday night’s council session, Selina Stoller, the 2021 Council President, handed the gavel to Councilor Zimmerman after he was elected unanimously to lead the council in 2022.

Zimmerman served as council president in 2018 and currently leads a group helping Mayor Scott Fadness in putting together plans for a new City Hall, Arts Center and Community Center.

After much debate and discussion among members of the Fishers City Council, a new ordinance has been approved creating a committee system that establishes three standing council committees with a system for appointing members.  The Budget & Finance Committee has been existence as a standing panel for some time, but this action at Tuesday night’s council session formally creates the Rules Committee and Non-Profit Committee.

Each committee will consist of at least 3 council members, one of which will be from the minority party.  Currently, the council has 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats.

Democrat Crystal Neumann, part of the group that produced this proposal, praised the compromise that led to the measure passing unanimously.

The council also unanimously approved the council appointments for 2022.  You can find the list of appointments at this link.

Council members also unanimously approved a new Armed Services Commission.  The new panel will focus on honoring and recognizing local members of the military, as well as local veterans.

Whenever the Martin Luther King holiday is celebrated each year, a  number of memories swirl through my head.  I was in high school when the civil rights leader was assassinated.  It was a tough time for America.

What many may not know is that just four days after Dr. King died, a congressman from Michigan, John Conyers, introduced a bill in the House calling for a national holiday tied to Dr. King’s birthday.  That was 1968.  The measure went nowhere for years.

Congressman Conyers tried every year to propose the same bill and for years it received little to no interest from most of his colleagues.

The idea never had traction until the early 1980s.  The Congressional Black Caucus produced 6 million signatures on a petition supporting the MLK holiday.  1983 marked the 20th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

The legislation calling for the MLK holiday finally made it to the floor of the United States Senate in 1983.  The History Channel Web site cites one moment on the floor of the Senate when North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms introduced FBI documents aimed at smearing Dr. King.

“As Helms pressed to introduce FBI smear material on King—whom the agency had spent years trying to pinpoint as a Communist and threat to the United States during the height of his influence—into the Congressional record, tensions boiled over,” per the History Channel account. “Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the senator from New York, brought the materials onto the floor, then dropped them to the ground in disgust in a pivotal moment of the debate.”

The next day, senators passed the bill authorizing the holiday by a vote of 78-22.  President Ronald Reagan wasted no time signing the measure into law.  The first Martin Luther King Holiday became a federal holiday three years later, in 1986.

This was the first time in modern American history that a private citizen had a federal holiday named in his honor.  It took a long time and much heavy lifting to make the MLK Holiday a reality.

We take for granted that everyone is in favor of this holiday, but it wasn’t always so and had many opponents that delayed the final decision.  All those that made this holiday a reality, honoring a man that argued for peaceful, nonviolent change in American race relations, should be remembered.

The King Center encourages people to make this holiday a day on, not a day off.  For ideas on how to celebrate the Martin Luther King holiday, go the the King Center Web site at this link.

I am close to my 11th year anniversary of writing this Fishers local news blog.  I do the best I can as a one-man-band volunteer journalist to provide straightforward local news coverage.  Sometimes, I have found it  necessary to offer a commentary and, very rarely, take a clear stand on a local issue.

There was one issue where I did take a clear stand and the Indiana Supreme Court has just ruled on that issue.  Let me explain some of the background.

(NOTE:  Television station WTHR was at the center of all this and has a good background you can find at this link)

It all started roughly 5 years ago when Fishers High School teacher and varsity football coach Rick Wimmer was suspended for 5 days.  The investigative reporting team at television station WTHR asked HSE Schools the factual basis for that suspension, citing that specific language in the state statute.

HSE Schools responded saying Wimmer had violated school policy and provided a ream of policies he might have violated.  WTHR asked for two rulings from the Indiana Public Access Counselor about this, and that office appeared to side with WTHR, saying more specific facts were needed to be consistent with the state statute.

When HSE Schools refused to disclose anything more, WTHR went to court.  The Public Counselor rulings are advisory, but a court can compel the local school district to provide more facts on the suspension.

Reporter Bob Segall and WTHR received support from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, taking HSE Schools to court, asking for the specific factual basis for the suspension.  The Hamilton County Circuit Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals sided with HSE Schools.  WTHR appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court, and those justices recently ruled unanimously that HSE Schools did not follow state statutes and must disclose a specific factual basis for the Wimmer suspension.

When this was being reported by WTHR, I wrote commentaries that the local schools should be more forthcoming.  It was my view then, and now, that taking this issue all the way to the Supreme Court is not a good image for our school district.  People talk often about transparency and this is the most clear case I have seen where transparency is tested.

Let’s just say I received some criticism about those commentaries.  No one publicly criticized me, but I had private discussions with some officials that were not happy with the stance that I took on what needed to be disclosed about the Wimmer suspension.

I’ve written this before and I will do so again here – I spent 28 years in the federal civil service.  Employee privacy is something I fully understand.  But in this case, admitting I am no attorney, the state statute language appeared clear to me.  ‘

I knew when this case went before the justices of the Indiana Supreme Court, whatever decision was made would impact public employees throughout Indiana.

So,  we now know HSE Schools must disclose a factual basis for the Rick Wimmer suspension.  The fact that Mr. Wimmer has retired as both a coach and teacher at this point in time makes no difference.

The Indiana Supreme Court decision remands this case back to the Hamilton County court system, so this is not entirely over yet.

In my view, Indiana’s highest court made the correct decision in this case.

Dealing with construction along State Road 37 has not been easy, and the project is not anywhere near completed yet.  However, there is one piece of good news for those living in the area of 131st St. & SR 37.

If you are traveling east on 131st street and approach State Road 37, you are now able to make a right turn onto the highway heading south.  Also, if you are traveling south on State Road 37, you may now make a right turn onto 131st Street heading west.  This change has been planned since December but was opened in recent days.

Here is the latest update on Fishers area road construction, as provided by the City of Fishers:

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The justices of the Indiana Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) Schools must provide a “factual basis’ for the suspension of former teacher and Fishers High School football coach Rick Wimmer.  The court remanded the case back to the Hamilton County Court “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The ruling, written by Justice Mark Massa, says HSE Schools, when responding to television station WTHR’s request for a factual basis, provided only general statements of Mr. Wimmer’s failure to “classroom management strategies” and did not act consistent with school district policies, but provided only large sections of school policy.

The court’s ruling states the HSE Schools response “provides no facts about Wimmer’s actions that led to his suspension. It only concludes that he violated a broad policy. It does not even say when he violated that policy. A reasonable person would not know what Wimmer did to merit discipline, only that HSE decided to discipline him because it decided he violated a policy.”

The decision goes on to state:

“The policy HSE references only compounds the insufficiency of its response. That policy is as broad as its name—’Staff Conduct.’ Id., p.42. It contains several requirements that could result in discipline if violated; for example, an employee could violate the policy by failing to ‘demonstrate behaviors which contribute toward an appropriate school atmosphere.’
Id. Any number of actions could violate that one requirement. Here, it is unclear which requirement Wimmer violated, let alone what he did to warrant discipline. No reasonable person could read HSE’s statement and policy and understand why HSE disciplined Wimmer.

“HSE’s ‘factual basis’ was merely a bald conclusion that Wimmer violated a broad policy. It did not contain facts about Wimmer’s actions that would allow a reasonable person to understand why he was suspended. HSE’s “factual basis” was insufficient.”

When Mr. Wimmer was suspended roughly 5 years ago, WTHR made two requests that went to the Indiana Public Access Counselor’s Office.  HSE responded to WTHR’s request for a factual basis for the suspension of Mr. Wimmer, only saying he failed to control the classroom and provided a section of school policy with a long list of possible violations.  The HSE District provided no other facts.

The Public Access Counselor’s office appeared to side with WTHR, saying a factual basis for the suspension needed to include more than HSE provided to the television station’s journalists.  Public Access Counselor opinions are advisory.

WTHR, with the help of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed suit seeking more details of the reason for Mr. Wimmer’s 5-day suspension.  The Hamilton County Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals sided with HSE Schools, leading to the oral arguments, September 16 last year, before the state’s highest court when WTHR appealed.

Rick Wimmer has since retired as a football coach and teacher at Fishers High School.

Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) Schools Superintendent Yvonne Stokes emphasized Wednesday night that her administrative team is monitoring COVID cases in each HSE school building.  Any decisions on closing a building and going to virtual classes will be done on an individual building basis.  Many school buildings in central Indiana have recently announced COVID closures and virtual learning, but HSE has managed to keep all school buildings open so far this school year.

Assistant Superintendent Matt Kegley told school board members Wednesday night that any virtual learning that may be needed this semester will look much like past virtual learning experiences and the district is prepared for that eventuality.

Dr. Stokes reviewed another matter before the board – the process for parents to challenge books available in school libraries.  She used her authority to take four books from library shelves for a 30 day period.  Those books remain unavailable and are being vetted by school officials. Dr. Stokes did not name the books that have been removed for review.

Dr. Stokes announced the district is receiving a $406,000 “Stop the Violence” grant.  The money will be used for a number of security needs, including evaluating threats.

Speaking of security, central office administrator Ryan Taylor, will be retiring from the school corporation.  The board and Dr. Stokes recognized him for his long service to the local schools, particularly in the area of security.

Julie Chambers assumed the gavel as President of the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board Wednesday night, but there was some controversy over the other officers.

The first slate of officers proposed had Ms. Chambers as President, Sarah Donsbach Vice President and previous Board President Janet Pritchett as Secretary.  Then another officer slate was presented – it kept Ms. Chambers as President, but had Suzanne Thomas as Vice President and Brad Boyer as Secretary.

After some discussion, the board decided to initailly vote on the first slate, and that passed on a vote of 5-2, with Suzanne Thomas and Brad Boyer voting no.

So, when all was said and done, here are the HSE School Board officers for 2022:

President – Julie Chambers

Vice President – Sarah Donsbach

Secretary – Janet Pritchett

Sarah Donsbach could not attend the meeting in person, but joined and voted virtually.