The Fishers Arts & Culture Commission is stepping up its impact on art in development around Fishers, with the newest proposal for the Nickel Plate Trail, east of Lantern Road.  The commission is partnering with a local firm, Rebar Development, in a request for qualifications (RFQ), seeking an artist, artist team, or creative company to design and install an art sculpture.

The new trailhead plaza is part of Rebar’s $8.8 million Techway project announced earlier this year. The project includes a public plaza, parking, and a two-story office building at the entrance of Fishers Technology Park. Along with public art, the trailhead plaza will include bicycle racks, benches, a water fountain, and parking for trail users.

“The Fishers Arts and Culture Commission is excited to partner with Rebar Development on our third project along the Nickel Plate Trail,” said David Decker, chair of the Fishers Arts & Culture Commission, in a city news release. “In conjunction with the Blazing the Trail mural and the sculpture at Hamilton East Public Library’s new entrance plaza, we are continuing to invest in the vibrancy of our community. Art and cultural experiences are vital components of our vibrant and inclusive community.”

Artists are encouraged to maximize the use of color, texture, and lighting in their proposed work, which should not exceed a $50,000 budget. The trailhead sculpture is also required to use the daVinci Pursuit’s innovative Art Port. The installation must be durable and projected to withstand weather conditions for up to ten years with the ability to be part of a state-wide art sculpture exchange program through the daVinci Pursuit’s Art Port program.

For more on the RFQ, use this link.

“We are excited to work with the Commission on this unique public-private partnership along the Nickel Plate Trail,” said Shelby Bowen, president and partner of Rebar Development. “We were attracted to invest in this project because of the City’s investment along the trail and are thrilled to collaborate with the Commission to install an original piece of art for our tenants and the public to enjoy.”

Qualifications will be evaluated by the Fishers Arts & Culture Commission’s Grant and RFQ Review Subcommittee, comprised of local non-profit art organizations, Commissioners, and City staff.

When the Fishers Board of Public Works and Safety had their regular meeting Tuesday morning, the biggest news was not what was on the agenda, but what was missing.  For the first time in a long time, there were no 5G tower requests from Verizon.

The board decides on requests for 5G tower locations in Fishers.  For the past several meetings, the board considered a number of tower requests in several neighborhoods. The board has approved towers, and denied them when not consistent with the board’s general policy, which the city says is in line with state and federal law.

Fishers City Attorney Chris Greisl says there were no 5G tower items on the March 8 board agenda because of timing, there has been no indication that Verizon is slowing down its 5G program in Fishers.  There are still a few tower requests tabled from previous meetings due to return for board consideration.

The Fishers Board of Works and Public Safety consists of Mayor Scott Fadness and his two appointees, Jason Meyer and Jeff Lantz.

In items approved by the board Tuesday morning:

–A standard contract agreement for vendors of the Fishers Farmers Market and the Saxony Famers Market in 2022 is now in place.

–The city traffic code was amended to allow one-way traffic signs on Technology Drive during that roadway’s construction.

–The city will spend $78,641 replacing ballistic vests and helmets used by the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Service (EMS) staff when responding to dangerous situations.  The current equipment will end its useful life this year.

Fishers has announced the first summer concert for the outdoor Amphitheater in 2022, and the group is Houndmouth.  The event is set for Saturday, June 18, with tickets on sale March 11.  You can buy tickets  at www.npdamp.com and www.mokbpresents.com for $20 advance, or $25 the day of show. For ticketed shows the venue is an all ages facility and children ages two and under are permitted for free. Fans can also bring their own lawn chair and blankets.

The Fishers Parks and Recreation Department also reminds everyone that regional live music will return to the Amphitheater, with announcements later on that lineup. Updates on the 2022 summer schedule can be found at npdamp.com.

“Concert season is here! We can’t wait to bring a summer schedule with some old favorites, like Tuesday Night Concerts, as well as larger national acts to the NPD AMP,” said Sarah Sandquist, director of Fishers Parks, in a city news release. “With the Nickel Plate Trail opening this spring and this announcement kicking off our summer lineup, downtown Fishers should be on everybody’s summer bucket list.”

Houndmouth, from New Albany, Indiana, call themselves an American alternative blues band formed in 2011, consisting of Matt Myers (guitar, vocals), Zak Appleby (bass, vocals), and Shane Cody (drums, vocals). The band formed in the summer of 2011.

Parts of Fishers that had been served by HSE Utilities for sewer service are now being handled by the City of Fishers, following the city’s purchase of HSE’s Fishers operations that took affect in 2022.  However, there have been some issues with the transition. HSE Utilities is answering questions from their former Fishers customers dealing with the  cancellation of Auto-Debit “ACH” payments taken from a customer’s bank account.

Kathy May, Administrative Coordinator for HSE Utilities, issued a statement to LarryInFishers.com Tuesday saying February 15th,  2022 was the last and final date a draw (or Debit) was pulled from Customers’ Financial Institutions which are now being served by Fishers.  No future Debits will occur by HSE from these customers’ bank accounts.

According to Ms. May, HSE customers receive their bills in arrears (meaning later), so the February 15th debit would be the final one for customers now being serviced by Fishers.

If you are a former HSE customer  carrying unpaid balances for previous charges at the time of the transfer to Fishers Utility (for service prior to January 1, 2022)  you have received statements from HSE dated February 20^th with a due date of March 15, 2022.  These customers switching to Fishers will incur no new HSE charges after these statements.  HSE will continue to send statements to those customers with a remaining balance until the account have been paid.

If you have a credit balance with HSE and are due a refund, those refunds are being processed and checks will be  mailed over the “next few weeks.”  Ms. May says the HSE staff has been reduced and that has resulted in any delay in refunds being issued and phone messages being returned.

Weather forecasting is a dicey business.  Weather can form quickly without a lot of advance warning.

I went to bed just before midnight Saturday without any clue that storms of any consequence were possible.  Normally, weather forecasters give you some heads up that bad weather is at least possible.

After I was sound asleep early Sunday morning, forecasters at the National Weather Service began issuing watches and warnings about severe storms popping up and headed our way.

I turn off my cell phone overnight, but my wife Jane leaves her phone on.  Just before 3am, her phone began shrieking.  She told me a tornado warning had been issued and it included Fishers.  Two minutes later, the sirens began sounding in Fishers.

The National Weather Service in Indianapolis makes the decision to issue watches and warnings.  The Hamilton County Emergency Management operation saw to it that sirens sounded and the alerts went out.

Jane & I spent about 30 minutes huddled in our safest home location until the warning expired for Fishers at 3:30am.  We could hear the storm, with lots of thunder, rain and wind.

Fortunately, according to Hamilton County Emergency Management, power outages were scattered and generally repaired quickly.  A tree  did down a power line in the Sheridan area resulting in a longer outage there.

The emergency management people and the National Weather Service say the Tornado Warning was issued due to rotation in the storm clouds in the area of State Road 32 and the Boone County Line, detected by weather radar.  No tornado was ever observed or reported.

My thanks to the weather forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Indianapolis and the Hamilton County Emergency Management staff.  They did their jobs in the middle of the night.  Fortunately, no tornadoes formed, but if one had hit Hamilton County, at least we had fair warning.

Russia invaded Ukraine just 2 weeks ago, but so much has happened in that short amount of time.  The United States has led an international move to isolate Russia from the rest of the world, most importantly economically, but also in the areas of the arts and sports.  Russia risks the same treatment North Korea receives from most of the world.

The grit and courage of the Ukrainian people have impressed the entire world.  Ukraine’s president refuses to leave the capital city, even after offers of safe passage from the United States.

As I read more information written by people with long and extensive knowledge of Ukraine, some important facts should be considered.  For instance, there are strong social connections between Russia and Ukraine.  Many Russians and Ukrainians marry each other, resulting in stronger family ties between the two nations.  Of those residing in the Ukraine capital of Kyiv, 20% are Russian.

One story reported by an American journalist deals with a group of Russian solders surrendering to a group of Ukrainian civilians.  The soldiers were not jailed, they were invited to homes in the area and provided a nice meal.  Each soldier was allowed to make a phone call to their respective mothers in Russia. The Russian mothers had no idea their sons were sent to occupy Ukraine.

I am hopeful that these close personal connections between the two nations, which goes back many, many years, will, at some point, lead to an end to all the fighting.  But there is one aspect of this conflicts that scares me.

Military actions almost never go as planned.  Many Western military experts are saying Russia expected to occupy Ukraine in a few days, not weeks.  The attack on a Ukrainian nuclear power plant indicates a reckless approach, whether it was orders from Moscow or a local commander’s risky decision.

There are NATO nations bordering Ukraine and the United States, along with the NATO allies, are beefing-up the military presence along the boarder with Ukraine.  Once Russia begins to occupy Ukraine, NATO and Russian military personnel and equipment will be eyeball-to-eyeball with each other.

That’s where an unexpected development could result in a conflict between Russia and NATO.  That results in World War III, pitting nuclear armed nations at war with each other.  Military people who game out what could happen in such a war have generally come to the conclusion that the end of such a conflict results in nothing but scary scenarios.

There is another wild card in this situation – China.  It appears Russia and China are cooperating, at least to some extent, but if this economic strangling of Russia continues, China will need to decide whether supporting Russia in this military adventure is worth what is happening to the world economy as a result.  China has a lot to lose if world trade is reduced.

One always holds out hope that cooler heads will eventually prevail.  But Russia’s aggressive actions against neighboring Ukraine are not decisions made by cool heads in Moscow.  The Russian government’s crackdown on independent media, including the foreign press in Russia, is an indication that the war is not going well and there are at least factions within Russia strenuously opposing the government.

The unintended consequences scare me the most.  But I also wonder how this conflict ends.

It is not often the Fishers Plan Commission unanimously votes to send an unfavorable recommendation to the City Council, but that is what happened Wednesday night.  The Bel Canto proposed apartment complex, consisting of 292 units, requires a rezoning and the Plan Commission members voted not to support that change.

The proposed site of the project is the southeast corner of East 136th Street and Cyntheanne Road.  The land where the development would be located is currently zoned as commercial, requiring a change in zoning to residential for the proposed apartment project to move forward.  That proposed change resulted in all 7 Plan Commission members present for the meeting unamimously sending the unfavorable recommendation..

Attorney Steve Hardin presented the case before the commission for the project and the developer also argued their case as well.  Five people spoke during the public hearing, four from neighboring Barrington Estates and one from Britton Falls, all opposing the rezone.  A petition was filed with the commission and many written comments were filed with the city planners, all in opposition of the zoning change.

Two members of the Fishers City Council, Pete Peterson and Selina Stoller, also serve as Plan Commission members.  Both supported the unfavorable recommendation for the zoning change, saying this is not the right location for such a development.

“I am a huge proponent of multi family projects,” said Plan Commission President Howard Stevenson.  “There is still a need for that here in the city of Fishers.  But I agree with (Peterson’s & Stoller’s) sentiments.”  He added that this proposal is not consistent with the Fishers comprehensive 2040 plan.

The request for rezoning the property now goes to the Fishers City Council for a vote.

It was 1968 when I began my radio broadcasting career.  I just changed records & tapes, along with running a control board and watching the transmitter readings, for a local radio station owned & operated by a man named Martin Williams.  I was 18 and Mr. Williams was in his 60s when I started work for him.

Think about this…Mr. Williams, as a young man in radio engineering school, met and spoke with Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless communications.  It is a reminder of how fast technology has advanced in last 120 years.

I later moved into radio announcing, graduating from a broadcasting trade school in 1969 and moved into disc-jockey work and sports.  In those early days, the station manager was crazy enough to assign me duties of hosting a talk show.  I had a quick and rude awakening.

All those talk show hosts I watched on TV and heard on the radio made it look and sound easy.  What I didn’t know was the immense preparation that goes into a successful talk radio program.

Learning the lessons of making mistakes, I found myself hosting an all-night radio talk show in the Indianapolis area from roughly 1975 through 1977.  Imagine four hours of talking on the phone with people 5 nights a week.  It was fun, but a lot of work for little pay.

I learned the power of talk shows on radio.  They were different in those days.  I respected my callers, even when I didn’t always agree with them.  The station manager encouraged me to be provocative and stimulate conversation.  Let’s just say I did that.

I had no staff, except for an intern from IUPUI for a few months and she was a big help.  But it was up to me to book any guests for the program.  I didn’t need a guest every night, but getting them to come in at 11pm was not an easy sell in many cases.

I got a taste of what it’s like to produce a radio talk show.  Most good ones have several guests every day with a staff of people supporting the host.

There is a lot of talk radio commercially today, most conservative, a little on the liberal side, but ideology drives most talk on the commercial band.  If you want intelligent, reliable radio talk shows, public broadcasting generally does an excellent job.

That’s why I was saddened to learn of the cancellation of “All In,” a daily afternoon talk show on WFYI radio in Indianapolis.  I read rumblings on social media but IndyStar reporter Clair Rafford’s story appeared in the print edition of the Star Wednesday confirming it and can be accessed at this link. (NOTE:  You may be limited in accessing Star stories online if you are not a subscriber.  Again, please subscribe to your local media!  Online subscriptions are not that expensive)

It appears this is a financial decision by the powers-that-be at WFYI radio.  Public broadcasting is financially supported by members from the community and foundation grants.  Public broadcasting does receive some taxpayer support nationally.

I listened often and could note the great staff work to get good guests, often several for each one-hour program.  Mariam Sobh does an excellent job as host of All In, but she is located on the south side of Chicago.  It got a bit awkward when local people pressed her to visit a location or event locally and she finally had to admit she was doing the program from Chicago.

It is sad that WFYI is losing a very good talk radio program due to a lack of financial support.  I truly believe that having a radio program that allows local people and national figures of importance to sit down and talk in an extended interview about issues important to local people has great value.

But I also understand how much work goes into this.  I try to produce a weekly local podcast featuring local people and it is a lot of work just doing that.

I hope all those people staffing “All In” land with good jobs as they move on in their careers.  They were part of something that impacted the local community and should be proud of what they accomplished as a team.  Let’s hope intelligent talk finds a local radio place in the  future.

The Fishers Health Department had been providing weekly video updates on the COVID-19 situation locally, but has just gone to once-every-two-weeks for updates.  It has been two weeks since FHD has offered an update on COVID from Epidemiologist Josh Robinson.  Let’s just say this is the best COVID news Fishers has seen in quite some time.

“Since we had our last community update 2 weeks ago,  we’ve seen a continued decrease in the number of newly-reported COVID-19 here locally, regionally, state-wide and nation-wide, ” says Robinson in his latest video.  “We have also seen an improvement in the health care system capacity, in terms of an increase in ICU bed availability and a decrease in the occupation of hospital beds by those with COVID-19.”

Some numbers he shared tell the story best. FHD has seen a 97% reduction in weekly cases since the peak of the omicron wave.  The case incidence rate is down dramatically, from 42.7 to 13.4.  Only 56 positive tests have been tallied locally in the most recent reporting period.

The Centers for Disease Control issued new local guidance recently.  Robinson says the Fishers Board of Health will meet in March and discuss how to align metrics used by the Fishers Health Department with that new CDC guidance.

Below is the video from Josh Robinson, posted Tuesday afternoon.

Students at Fall Creek Junior High School displayed their art work at Fishers City Hall as part of Black History Month, and those students will be switching roles and teach others  about art as part of the new Community Canvas initiative.

Teacher Michelle Feeney will lead her FCJH students as they become teachers in this new painting program.

“As soon as I told the kids about it, they were so excited to participate,” Feeney said in a Fishers Arts Council news release. “They’ve been learning about Cubism and will be guiding guests on how to create their own painting to take home as well as contributing to the community artwork.”

If you are not familiar with cubism, it involves bringing different views of subjects together in the same painting, which results in works that appear abstract or fragmented.

The community artwork will focus on the Great Squirrel Stampede of 1822, where thousands of squirrels destroyed cornfields as they migrated West, against their natural path. The artwork will feature squirrels with Hamilton County landmarks in the Cubist style.

The community art project will take place on Friday, March 11 from 6-8 pm in the Art Gallery at City Hall, One Municipal Drive, Fishers. The gallery will also be open to enjoy the student’s artwork alongside Alcove featured artist, Judy Mintze. Live music and refreshments will be available; some artwork will be available for purchase. There is no fee to participate in the community art project or the personal paintings, and no registration is required.