New Fishers Town Council, same as old.

I am so glad to see the new Fishers Town Council is the exact same as the old Fishers Town Council with a few new members. The behind the doors deals continued, the non-bid contracts continue.

I worked for the Federal Government for 30 years, I learned a long time ago sometimes you have to do things to be on the up and up even if it takes a little longer. Even when I knew what the outcome was going to be I would not side step the procedure to get to the answer faster. It just was not right.

Lets look at the crazy downtown development. Lets look at the misleading statements and misguided approach by the Town Council and the Town Manager.

The overall downtown development was shown to the public. When at 8 am on a weekday and once. Why wasn’t it taken to the people? Instead of at Town Hall only, why wasn’t it truly explained. What expect the public to understand?

How come the Town has given away land for these developments and tax dollars to the developers. Then make statements that the land is so valuable. If the land was so valuable why was it given away.

Fishers Council makes a big deal about open space and parks, so they put these monster apartment buildings in front of Town Hall on the only green space in the downtown. Oh excuse me “luxury apartments with retail” while at the same time on the other side of  116^th street we have a beautiful used car lot. Of course the owner of the beautiful used car lot comes out in support of the apartments and he lives in the unincorporated area. Not even a citizen of the town. He just wants the value of the land of his car lot to increase. Can’t blame him, but the Town Council could change the zoning and have forced the sale for apartments.

Have you been in front of Town Hall between 5 and 6 pm in the extended parking lot called a street. Between these apartments and the other big complex being built at Cumberland and 116^th traffic will be wonderful. Just think of all the time you will have in your car going home.

BTW- this is the same Town Council members and City Manager who did not want all of you from voting for a real city. So they have to get all this done before a Mayor and a real city come into being. Maybe that is why we having all the secret closed door deals. Maybe we need to elect new people who believe in an open door and real public input.

So I am glad to see nothing has changed, the government of Fishers still could care less about the people, only their developer friends.

Political Graveyard - Scott Faultless

Scott Faultless finally learns what politics is all about. He will be soon gone from Fishers town government. The end came at noon on Friday February 7th when he failed to file to ruin for elected office. The actual end December 31, 2014.

Scott who had been in office for years and years without opposition is finally gone for not paying attention to voters and ruling as if Fishers was his own private country club.

His end started with the Geist Annexation. Here he lead the Fishers Town Council to land grab 2200 homes in the upscale area without any increase in service and only an increase in taxes. This was a pure taxing increase issue and the people of Geist never forgot. The battle lasted three long years wasting two million town dollars.

Next came the refusal of the Town to convert to a city because of the structure of the election process. With a Town the Council elects one of its own to be the figurehead and Scott held this position year after year. In a real city the people elect a Mayor, this of course was unheard of to Scott. Further all the council seats were elected at large across the entire town giving an incumbent a major edge. In a real city voters in a district elect council members from that district with a few at large seats also being elected. They tried everything to stop becoming a real city even proposing a fake city that would be a town structure of government but called a city and then an election process designed to trick voters into this fake city. Because of a group of civil minded citizens and a real grassroots effort they got the real message to the voters and defeated Scott and crew by 63%. In today’s political arena 63% is considered a massive landslide. Another consideration is the Scott crew outspend the grassroots group by 10 to 1 and even used town money for “education” of the public.

 In the last Town election Scott was almost defeated by an unknown college kid and by voters from the Geist area, what saved him were the older parts of town. Now in a Geist district he knew he could not get elected. Running at large for the limited seats would mean that he actually had to run in an election and put on a real campaign.

 In addition to add insult to injury a few of the new council members refused to support Scott to remain as Council President another defeat for him. The tide of his rule had turned and it was time to retire.

 The time had come to withdraw from Fishers politics. Good-bye Scott. In the long run we the people won.

An open letter to Brian Bosma on Marriage HJR-3

Dear Mr. Bosma Mr. Bosma I am little mixed up by your actions to bring to the State House the question of marriage in the State of Indiana, it appears what you are doing and the other elected officials is a total waste of time and money. It is pandering to the religious right and not viewing what is best for the state. I have a few points I want you to consider. In 1620 a group of about 100 people set sail from England on a ship called the Mayflower. They were seeking religious freedom in the new world. This concept of religious freedom was ingrained by our founding fathers in one sentence: "Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This statement is two fold; first it builds a wall where the any church is protected from government control. This wall, also has a second wall, it protects the citizen from the religion being applied to the population. In 1992 the Supreme Court stated: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Yet today we have a group of religious people trying to exert their will on the people of this state. I keep reading in the press how their bible says this and how they define marriage. Isn’t this exerting their religious will and belief on everyone else? Even within the framework of different religions we read different opinions on this subject. So why are you pushing for this amendment that is a religious view and even one not accepted by all of our religious leaders. Are you to afraid to stand up against a group of well meaning people who may have the wrong approach or concept? It appears you are. As Republican you are always claiming the need for "more freedom" and “less government interference” yet here is a law they want to pass that removes a freedom from people and freedom of choice. Another Republican fight "is waste of taxpayer money." Well this is going to be a very big waste in the long run. If passed this will go to the courts. Based on what is happening in other states the odds are it will be struck down and the state will spend millions on defending this law and the odds are only to lose in the end. So isn’t time to let this die.

Hidden Snow Tax in Fishers

This snowfall reminds me of the hidden tax and incompetence of the Fishers Town Government. First what do I mean by hidden tax, we all know Fishers claims to have the lowest property tax rate, which is not true in any case, but the reason is a lack of services that we as home owners have to make up. Look at snow removal as a prime example. How many of you live in sub-divisions and have to hire contractors to plow your streets. I see almost all of you, just like mine. This is not free, it costs money and that money is a hidden tax. Snow removal on town streets should be a government function and not a homeowner function. So if your sub-division is paying someone to clear the streets lets all send them the bills we get to the Town and demand payment for doing their job. Incompetence of Fishers government administration. The Town entered into a contact with the school district to clear snow from school parking lots. Contractors had done a job that previously. So instead of clearing streets the town crews are busy clearing parking lots. I want to know what kind of secret deal they worked out. What I find even funnier is that a group of all Republican elected officials, who rally against big government and demand government jobs go to the private sector, are doing the exact opposite in Fishers.

Restaurant Tax

I always hear that Republicans are for reducing taxes, but so far all I see, in Fishers, are Republicans that want to raise taxes and give tax breaks to rich Republicans. The 1% Restaurant Tax is a good example. When they first started talking about it was to raise money for the 911telephone system. Oh you didn’t remember that, well after a while they found the money elsewhere. So then it became a need for money to have economic development. Well that didn’t fly too good with the voters. After all why are apartments on town property being given tax breaks for the developer? Why am I supporting luxury apartments? Is my 1% going to support other developers? The Town Council has not been able to clearly define what they mean by economic development. My guess is because the money was going to be used to support their local buddies. Time to shift gears then they told us the tax was to help reduce property taxes. OK is any body is buying that story? The tax rate is set and it is not going down. Then the real funny story it would reduce property taxes about $35 a year per home. That is one visit to a restaurant. Maybe instead of enacting a new tax, if they want us to buy this story, just reduce taxes. Now they are starting to claim it will be used to help the schools. The School Board even approves, I have to wonder if the school board was told the whole story, since one of the highest paid executives of the school corporation is a paid consultant to the Town of Fishers. I have always wondered about the legal but morally wrong conflict of interest. If the Town wanted to help the school board they would stop the TIF districts and let the real property tax money flow to the schools. Now the town announces a new office building in the downtown area. Pay attention folks, it is being build on land that the town is buying up very quietly and being basically being given to the developer to use for free and on top of that they are giving him about $1.4 million in tax breaks. In return this developer is going to use the first floor for his offices and then rent the second floor to the town. Sweet deal. BTW- this developer’s name and address can be found on the candidate political contribution forms that were filed by the many of the candidates sitting on the town council as well as the effort to block Fishers becoming city. On top of all of this the word is the Fishers Redevelopment Commission is paying top dollar to buy up this land. Did you know the Town is buying up all the downtown land? Since when is the Town in the real estate business? What happen to private business? Notice how these deals all of a sudden pop up as a done deal. So here we have a Republican Town Council wanting to raise taxes, just to raise taxes because they think they can. Then they give land and tax breaks to certain developers, I call them their buddies. Isn’t it funny how these developers donated a lot of money to political campaigns?

How much to buy Fadness?

Mayor candidate Scott Fadness or someone for him has sent out an invite to a fundraising event on December 10th. To be a "Host" at this event requires a small donation of $5000.00. Of course you can be a Gold Sponsor at $2000.00 or just a Silver at $1000.00, then for you ordinary people, or as Town Attorney Doug Church use to call them "Little People," the "Individual Contribution" is $25.00. I am wondering is he running for Mayor after he and his team worked so hard to keep Fishers a Town or is he running for Governor? Seems to be trying raise enough money for Governor. This comes after last years arm twisting effort to sort of force those doing business with the town to join an insiders group where you paid thousands and in return you got Town information before you see it in the media. What will be interesting will be the finance reports to see which law firms, engineering firms and developers folk over the five grand for an inside seat in the new mayor's office? Brings new meaning to "you have to pay to play." Maybe they should inscribe this over the entrance to city hall.

Fishers Town Council once again is showing its true colors.

Fishers Town Council once again is showing its true colors. Some how I can’t understand the concept of helping the rich developers get richer at the expense of the citizens of the town. It seems everything is aimed at helping developers. The real questions becomes why? If Fishers is such a great place to live and one of the fastest growing places in the state, do you need to hold out a carrot to a car dealership, to a food market, etc and then to pay for some of these carrots with tax the citizens who want to go out to eat at a restaurant. The Town Councils has set up is called TIFs - Tax increment financing, is a public financing method that is used as a subsidy for redevelopment, infrastructure, and other community-improvement projects. TIFs were originally sold to state legislatures as a tool to redevelop blighted areas. Places like Gary or Detroit would be prime examples not Fishers. Abuse of the TIF concept is where development would have occurred anyway. In Fishers a prime example are the new car dealerships, with 80,000 well to do people in the community do you believe the car dealerships would not have come without tax help. The dealers will come where the buying public has a checkbook and Fishers is one such place. Most of 116th is a TIF district, do we need tax incentives for 116th street development. Does Fishers need TIFs at all. Would the Town Council please show me a blighted area in Fishers. One of the major criticism about TIFs is that “The TIF process arguably leads to favoritism for politically connected developers, implementing attorneys, economic development officials, and others involved in the processes.” Now that would never happen in Fishers? Hmm. Oh I think it has. Another adverse effect is on school districts, lets say a tif is used to expand housing, such as a large apartment complex and the result is more school age children, yet the tax income is frozen to repay the TIF. Also the tax structure could be frozen as the needs for more police, fire protection increase and the revenue doesn’t meaning the others of the town will have to pay for this. Another example of what is wrong. Then the Council wants to have a new tax to help get more development, like loaning over ten million dollars to build the ugly depot apartments in front of town hall. Part of this was the concept of mass transit and up and coming people would live in the apartments and hop the train downtown. Well it looks like mass transit is slowly dying and the apartments could become a white elephant and in a few years go out of business leaving the $10 million up in the air for the taxpayers of Fishers. Look at their fancy design but who is going to want to live in an apartment above a restaurant or by the road when fire engines roar out at 2 or 3 am. (Firemen please make sure you ring your bell and siren full blast as you pass the apartments.) Another example of what is wrong. It seems that they willing to grab at anything to try and use the current buzz words. And anyone who does not lock step with them comes under serve criticism. Maybe we need more people to question what they are doing. But then again this is Fishers where the elected official forgot to listen. They are the only ones who best.