I had the opportunity to record a final podcast with Sarah Sandquist after it became clear she would be leaving her position as Fishers Parks & Recreation Director.  Her last day was December 1st.

So, as of December 2nd, who is running the department?

City spokesperson Ashley Elrod says “Jake Reardon McSoley will assist on operational direction alongside Marissa Deckert.”  McSoley is the Director of Recreation and Wellness for the city and Deckert is the Assistant Director at Parks & Recreation.

Elrod says the city will post the opening for Parks & Recreation Director.

I have noticed a number of social media posts about the state of 141st Street at State Road 37.  Allow me to pass along the information I know about this situation as of December 4th.

The original plan was to award a bid earlier this year to construct a roundabout on 141st over SR 37, and an underpass beneath 141st to allow the free flow of traffic on SR37.

The City of Fishers experienced what others are experiencing as inflation has been a major factor, along with a shortage of workers in the construction industry.  When the bids were opened earlier this year, they were all far above the engineering estimates due to the sharp rise in costs.

City officials had been telling me consistently that they were looking at options on how to construct the roundabout at that intersection.  So far, an immediate solution appears not to be available.

With the work completed on 126th, 131st & 146th Streets on SR 37, traffic was flowing freely on the highway north-south and the roundabouts handled the east-west travel.  However, the traffic signal at 14st Street & State Road 37 was creating traffic backups in each direction on the highway and there have been a number of accidents as a result on SR 37 near 141st Street.

For that reason, Fishers announced that a right-in right-out will be installed on 141st at SR37 to alleviate the backups on 37, allowing free flow of north-south traffic there.  That means you will not be able to travel east and west across SR37 on 141st Street once the right-in right-out is constructed, sometime in December, during the HSE Schools winter break.

Fishers officials have emphasized they view this as a temporary measure and plan to open bids on the roundabout at 141st Street in the fall of 2023.

With winter here, road construction in and around Fishers is not very busy, with only 3 items on the week of Monday, December 5th.  It includes the ongoing road closure for a small part of Municipal Drive along with lane restrictions on Allisonville Road and Lantern Road.

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

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LANTERN ROAD  
Beginning on Monday, December 5, lane restrictions will be in place on Lantern Road at Fishers Pointe Blvd. to allow contractors room to work on the path. Flaggers will be in place. Work is anticipated to be completed by Friday, December 16.

When planning my HSE School Board candidate podcasts for 2022, I asked each of the 2 local high school principals to recommend a student to ask questions of the candidates.  Fishers High school Principal Jason Urban recommended Casey Alexander.  Reggie Simmons of HSE High School recommended Kate Lantzer.

Both students asked most of the questions in my podcasts with school board candidates.

I brought Kate & Casey back together post-election to talk about the experience.

Here is my podcast discussion with them, at the link below.

It was once called vocational education, but the name has changed to Career Technical Education (CTE).  All 6 Hamilton County school districts are now part of a joint program, the Pursuit Institute. to provide CTE to students in the county.

I spoke with Carrie Lively, Executive Director for Pursuit, and you can listen to the podcast at the link below.

Brad DeReamer has represented the Northeast District of the Fishers City Council for 2 terms and says that is enough.  In a message to LarryInFishers, DeReamer says he believes in term limits and has chosen to self-impose a limit of two terms on himself.

DeReamer, a former mayor of Greenfield, was instrumental in the city’s decision to end support for the Fishers Freedom Festival and establish the city-sponsored summer festival Spark Fishers.

It is expected that more than one candidate will be running to fill this open seat on the council in the 2023 city election.

Before I explain why I am writing about bricks, allow me to provide a short history.

One Fishers restaurant my wife Jane & I enjoyed visiting was the Nickel Plate Bar & Grill located in downtown Fishers, on 116th Street, not far from the municipal complex.  When redevelopment came to that area, Mayor Scott Fadness initially told me his intention was to keep that building, that had been named a number of ways over the years but was a part of the city’s history, remodeled and saved as part of our history.

A few months later, Mayor Fadness told me the engineers had inspected the old restaurant building and found it could not be saved and had to be torn down.

Once that happened, some local members of the Fishers community interested in the history of our city decided to recover bricks from that historic structure once the demolition had begun.

Now, these old bricks are being offered for sale to local residents with the proceeds going to Fishers nonprofit organizations.

The campaign is named “Bricks for Good.”

The supply of bricks is limited so if you are interested in buying an historic Fishers brick, do not wait.  Buy your brick at this link.