Conflicts of Interest – Fishers Gov’t Style

The way you deal with Conflicts of Interest in Fishers Government is to ignore them and claim that isn’t so. Last night at the Fishers Planning Commission meeting we had a couple of Conflicts and of course they will claim “oh no” but folks it is OH YES.

The citizens of Geist want to form their own town and not become part of Fishers, Fishers of course wants to annex their homes for tax dollars. So the citizens filed to become a town and under state law the County Commissioners have to have the Zoning authority for that area do a review. The problem here is that the zoning for the Geist area is under contract by the County to the Fishers Planning Commission. This raises the first question can the Fishers Planning Commission; most of whom are appointed by Fishers provide a fair assessment? I will leave that unanswered for now.

Let zoom forward to the meeting on October 30, 2007 to review the plans for the Towns of Geist. Now lets zoom past the presentation for the towns and go to the remonstration by the Town of Fishers. This was lead by the Town Attorney, whoa, the Town Attorney, isn’t he also in a way the Attorney for the Planning Commission, I think so. But of course no undo influence when your attorney gets in front of you and says this is a very bad idea. To get around this they hired another attorney and from Ft Wayne no less, keep him far away so he can’t help out much. Of course, the Fishers Town Attorney can’t have any influence on the Planning Commission, when did they ever listen to him anyway. Maybe the State Bar Association should be asked this question, oh forget that idea, the Town Attorney is the head of the Bar Association.

Now lets zoom to the next bombshell. The statement by the staff member of the Planning Commission. This is someone who works and gets paid directly by the Town of Fishers. This is the person who said along with a few of the Commission members who volunteered he will be preparing the Commission report for approval at their next meeting. Yes, folks you read that correctly, a paid Town employee is going to write the opinion of the Commission, in fact you could see some surprise in the eyes of the Commission members. But, of course no objections. When is the commission going to meet to discuss this? When is the Commission going to have a question and answer period? When is the Commission going to have an OPEN public hearing? When is the Commission going to admit there is a direct conflict of interest and this should be turned over to someone else to review? Four questions and four easy answers- Never, Never, Never and Never.

A note to the County Commissioners - Richard C. Cushing once said “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, Icall that bird a duck.”