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.

Comcast - the zombie's are in charge

Having to deal with Comcast is like having to deal with a bunch of Zombie's but maybe it would be easier to deal with Zombie's. It started a while ago with a TV that was having problems the picture would go digital and then back to normal, a call to Comcast and after three days they figured it was something on their end. But was it? A few weeks later no sound on Channel 13, another call to Comcast and after an electronic refresh everything back to normal. Then 10 days ago no sound on 8 and 13 again an electronic refresh but after the “please wait 30 minutes” no sound. So a call back to Comcast. Call one - cut off after two minutes on hold. Call two - cut off after 29 minutes on hold. Call three - a live person after 14 minutes on hold. Not sure if this person was in India or China or gods knows where a lot of please repeat that. You can always tell when talking to an overseas center when they address you as Mr.Joe. So after 29 minutes she agreed I had a bad digital adapter, you all other TV's worked fine. Then she said you could take it to our repair center. I said no, "we can ship you one but that costs $9.95 again I said no ship it for free since it is your equipment that failed and I paid for it to work every month. I told them they could send out a repairman and that would cost Comcast even more. After two supervisors they agreed to ship it for free. Being a rocket scientist and aerospace engineer I took an adapter from the guest bedroom and put it on the TV that was not working and guess what it now works- dead adapter. Fast forward one week later no new adapter. I called Comcast again but not on a weekend and during business hours. After a one minute wait a real person. He looked up my account etc and then said yes it was marked for free shipping but they can't ship it in their system free even after they said it was waived. He could not explain this, two alternatives I could go to their repair center or sent out a repairman. OK lets waste Comcast money and sent out that repairman. Then I asked to be transferred to billing and told them what happened. They refunded 13 days of service they knew we had service to the other TV’s. But they understood the Zombies in service department were in charge. So lets see Comcast lost 13 days of revenue, 2-3 hours on the phone, and a service call for the “cable guy.” So if you are not doing anything Monday between 2 and 4 stop over and join me and the cable guy for a cup of coffee. It only takes 2 minutes to install a new adapter. Wouldn’t have been a lot cheaper to just mail me the adapter? Joe

Fire in Fishers next to unmanned fire station

Well, well, well. Across the street from the fire station on 116st a house burns to the ground and no one responds from the station. Oh, the fire truck was on reserve and all the firefighters were moved to the new station. You mean Fishers build a new fire station and didn't hire any new firefighters. Yup that appears to be the case. Instead they are going to remodel the old station and then who knows what they will do with it. Now the problem is that they could have kept a crew at the old station and worked around them, but not Fishers. They should have hired new firefighters when the new station was completed but not Fishers. Or maybe the firefighter were out on Geist on their boat. It seems they love to spend money in all the wrong places. I heard they are going to waste more money on an $8,tear down. It seems the current Town Council is going spend crazy. Maybe they want the new City to start with zero in the bank. Or maybe in debt and say we told you not to become a city. Well Mr. Fadness you want to be Mayor but it seems you didn't manage you Fire Department too well. How can you manage an entire city. Next time any of you meet Scott Fadness ask him why the fire station on 116th was empty on August 27th.

Fishers Mayor Race to get Interesting

Rumor’s are flying, quiet evening meetings being held and another person about to announce a run for Mayor. The rumors all are about Scott Fadness, Fishers Town Manger. He joins Walt Kelly and has something in common with him. Both were opposed to having a real city and a real Mayor, now they want to be Mayor. Could they be a real Mayor or is this just another way for the old guard to keep power and things very much the same. The Town has already announced they are going to lobby the state to delay the election, give them more time to try and kill the real city. So for Scott this makes sense, he might lose his job if a real Mayor came to the city. But in running he keeps his job, may have to take a pay cut as Mayors make less than City Managers around here. Or would the new City Council reward him with his being the highest paid Mayor in the state. His buddy and best man at his wedding is our Fire Chief so I guess he is counting on the support of the fire department. I wonder how he got the chiefs job? Will the Town Council allow him to stay in his job while running for Mayor, I hope not, but I am sure they will. Also as a member of the International City/County Management Association, he has agreed to a code of ethics that states “Refrain from all political activities which undermine public confidence in professional administrators. Refrain from participation in the election of the members of the employing legislative body.” Well so much for ethics. I guess he can resign from the association and it makes it all OK. So here we have Walt Kelly a throw back to an old era and now Scott Fadness who has shown a lack of leadership and vision but then again he would do the bidding of the no change Town Council due to become the City Council.

July 4, 2013

Did someone forget it’s the 4th of July? The citizens of Fishers recently voted to become a city, the Town Council figured they had until 2015 to convert, giving them time to plot how to stay in power, how to mold districts, how to plan who is to become Mayor or how to screw up things to make the new mayor look bad. Then along came a new state law that because of old Fishers tricks set time limits on when things needed to be accomplished. Vote to change to become a city then the next year you have to vote in the new government. This was done because the old law did not have a time limits and a government could wait forever to go to the next step just as Fishers did when the request for the election was submitted. They waited and waited to put it on the ballot hoping to trick the voters but the people were smarter than the Council. Rumor was they expected to win to stay a town or a fake city by 80% and then lost by 70%. So much for evil plans. So here we are on another 4th of July when citizens of the land in 1776 told King George we want to govern ourselves. Dear Fishers Town Council – we the citizens of Fishers in the year 2013 want to govern ourselves, it is time for you to stop playing your games. What are you waiting for to set up the new six districts? Oh are you waiting to the last minute to prevent others from running. Must be. The tricks kept on coming. The latest rumors on who’s running: the list is now down to three names: Reene Cox John Weingard Walt Kelly (backed by Scott Faultless) (More on this later) And hopefully an outsider. Someone just told me John Weingard, Scott Fadness and Fire Chief Orusa are all on vacation and by chance wound up at the same place in the Virgin Islands.