When Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness presented his State of the City address last week, he looked back ten years, when Fishers transformed itself from a town to a city and he assumed the office of mayor in 2015.  As I watched the speech, my thoughts went back even further, to 1991.

That was the year I married Jane Johnson Lannan and moved to a small ranch home in Sunblest.  That was a time when Fishers was a good place to construct a starter home.  Those days are largely gone, as Fishers is a much different place now compared to 34 years ago, and that is not an altogether bad thing.

Fishers was a town 34 years ago, governed by a seven-member town council and the day-to-day operations overseen by a town manager.  The 1990 census counted just over 7,500 souls residing in Fishers at that time, but the area was already beginning to grow.

The Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) Schools were starting a growth in students at that time that is just now starting to level-off.  My wife Jane assured me that Fishers, while a small town in 1991, would grow into something special over time.  It has.

When my twin daughters entered the HSE Schools and started playing sports, that is a time when bonds and friendships blossom in a community, and that happened with me.  Helping out with the Dad’s Club and other activities are special memories.

I have watched as Fishers went from being a bedroom community of Indianapolis to become its own place, with parks, first-class infrastructure, economic development creating local jobs and the efforts to provide a special place for a family to grow.

Scott Fadness saw this when he first joined the Town of Fishers as an intern, then a staff member and eventually the Fishers Town Manager.  When I retired from my civil service job and started this volunteer news blog in 2012, Fishers was beginning one of the most important political campaigns in its history – a referendum on what type of municipality  the citizens of Fishers wanted.

We had a very complex ballot, but it boiled down to three choices – Do we remain a town?  Do we become a “reorganized” city that looks and feels a lot like a town?  Or, do we choose to be a traditional second-class city under Indiana law with a strong mayor’s office?

The vote was not even close.  The people voted for a second-class city with a strong mayor.  Once that was decided, the question was, when do we become a city and who will be the first mayor?

Under the normal political cycle, the election of the new city council, city clerk and mayor would have happened in 2015, and the new city would start in 2016.  But state lawmakers threw Fishers a curve.

The legislators provided for a one-year transition period.  The first city election was in 2014, for one-year terms, then the four-year terms would be decided in the normal 2015 balloting.

That set the stage for our first Fishers city election in 2014.  No Democrats ran for mayor in 2014, so the Republican primary election would elect our first mayor.  There were a total of six candidates.

There were two front-runners.  There was Walt Kelly, the former Fishers Town Council President that had been away from politics for several years, but still had strong ties to the local community.  Then there was Scott Fadness, the Town Manager, the candidate with the support of the local Republican establishment and the most campaign cash.

It was a close election between the top  candidates.  Fadness was the winner, but by only 393 votes out of 9,191 cast.

Scott Fadness wasted no time in getting to work once he was mayor-elect.  He made clear to me in those early months what his plans would be and he went to work.  He has never stopped over the past ten years.  If you don’t believe me, talk to any current or former member of his staff.

Fadness pointed to his many accomplishments when presenting his 2025 State of the City address, and who can blame him?  The venue for the address in itself is an accomplishment.  The Fishers Event Center is a very nice facility.  When I talk to people attending Fuel games from out-of-town, they are all highly complimentary of the Event Center.

The mayor did have a lot of other points to make, such as Fishers having the lowest property tax rate among Indiana’s ten post populous cities.  Then there is the economic development job growth, restaurant and retail expansion, a new west-side AgriPark, Plug & Play development for Launch Fishers, and, of course, the biggest news of the speech, the new Target store coming near Exit 210, next to IU Hospital.

Mayor Fadness says the State of the City is strong.  He makes a compelling case.