Why Fishers doesn’t care

Fishers Switch,IN
then
Mudsock, IN
then
Fishers, IN

Year Population

1963 350
2000 37,835
2004 52,390
2008 66,000?


I should say why the people who live in Fishers don’t care. You see Fishers has grown so fast it not yet a community, it’s just a place to live. I have to wonder how many people can say I have lived in the Town of Fishers 50 years, 40, 30, 20 or even 10 years. Even if they lived in the area that is now Fishers, it wasn’t Fishers a few years ago.

Maybe this is the root of the problems of the politics of Fishers, too many new people with no sense of community, too many young families with more of an allegiance to the HSE School System than to the community. The young families more concerned with the upkeep of a new family and a new home. More allegiance to the SPORTS program as it affects their children a lot more than the town government. They don’t have the time to worry about the town government, they are more worried about getting home and the traffic battles and they hope someone will solve the problem. There is a lack of older citizens that have grown up with the community to provide that sense of direction that many other towns and cities have. It’s these older folks in most towns that solve the problems, provide direction, which helps the government to solve their problems. But not in this community.

You can see it in the spending profile of the Town government, someone at the Geist public hearing said they were spending like “drunken Sailors” how true. The town folks have no idea how much they are spending and how it will affect them in years to come. The town government believes they can bail themselves out by building a bigger tax base. Turn the airport into a industrial park with lots of commercial concerns to bring in tax dollars, who cares about all the extra trucks on 96th street, turn the area around town hall into a major 100 million dollar tax base with no regard for the citizens or business already in the area, after all they don’t bring in a lot of money to the town, 100 million dollars will do nicely for the tax base. Then there is the Geist War of 2007 and the goose that can lay one golden egg year after year. Actually 2-3 millions dollars in income above spending every year to help bail them out. Forget Geist for a minute and look at all the other annexations, Fishers skips areas and creates a swiss cheese community by only annexing areas that would provide a positive income to the tax base, while very smart for the government, not smart for the people.

Citizens of Fishers, while you are very busy building your families, your government is actually failing you. Just like a person living beyond their means one day it will come crashing down on all of you. The Town Council won’t admit to you they are in trouble, instead they slowly raise taxes every year by the legal limit. When will you find out, it depends, it depends on all of you, and if you want to find out. Or you will all find out in 10-20 years when you send the kids off to college and have some time to start to view the Town Council and the government of Fisher. Please don’t wait.