The July Fishers City Council Meeting will be held on Monday, July 18, 2022. I warmly encourage you to participate.
WORK SESSION
A Work Session will be held at 5:30pm, prior to the 7pm City Council Meeting. No action is taken at a Work Session. It is a gathering of the city council members to gather information about a specific topic. Work Sessions are always open to the public to observe. It will be held in City Hall.
The topics for this work session is Code Enforcement, Chronic Nuisance and IFA Sewer. It is a follow-up from last month’s meeting. Councilor Stoller asked to have a report listing the developers with the number of permits they have received, violations received, and dollars they have been fined to date.
How to Observe and Participate in the City Council Meeting at City Hall
- The meeting will be held in-person and will be open to in-person attendees.
- A video of the meeting will be broadcast live at http://tinyurl.com/CityOfFishers starting at 7pm on Monday so you can watch from home. This is a way to observe the meeting only.
- In-person attendees are welcomed to address the City Council during any Public Hearings during the meeting – and during Community Comment, which is held at the end of every meeting.
- Fishers residents are also welcomed to submit public comments electronically prior to the meeting. In order to submit a comment, you need to designate the date of the meeting that you want to comment on. Look at the public meeting calendar. Then, complete the online Public Comment Form. Select “City Council” and that will open a comment box for you to type in. Submit your comments by NOON on Monday, the day of the meeting. All comments submitted before the meeting will be presented to City Council members. These comments are not read aloud but become part of the official meeting minutes.
- Community Comment at the end of each City Council meeting is always open for your comment on any Fishers topic. This is an “open mic” opportunity for 10 Fishers residents to address the City Council for up to three minutes each. The council members are not required to resolve or respond to your comments at that moment. Usually, pathways are identified for follow-up and additional dialogue.
- Meeting agendas and past meeting minutes can be found here, under City Council tab.
- Past meeting videos are supposed to be posted within 48 hours of the meeting. You can find the videos in the City of Fishers YouTube channel.
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
The City Council Meeting agendas are available here, under the City Council header. Each agenda has items on it that appear in blue. These are links to open the supporting documents.
Here’s a rundown of this meeting’s agenda items and my interpretation of them.
5. Council Committee Reports.
Finance Committee Report. The Finance Committee is charged with advising the City Council on matters concerning the general financial operations of the City. Since City Council is responsible for fiscal oversight, the monthly meeting minutes are very important. Typically, the report is reflected in action items for the City Council that are reflected in the “Budget/Financial” part of the meeting agenda.
NonProfit Committee Report. The NonProfit Committee is charged with advising the City Council on the award of $120,000 in grants to local non-profit organizations. The second meeting of the committee to review the grant applications and make award recommendations is Monday July 18 at 10:30am.
6. Department Reports. The monthly Fishers Health Department report is made available to residents about our city’s vaccine status, COVID community risk status, and other important public health info.
The new vaccination clinic is located at 8937 Technology Drive (behind Target). To schedule your vaccine, visit https://www.coronavirus.in.gov/vaccine/ and click on the red bar.
The CDC recently approved vaccines for 6-month to 5-year-old children and FHD is preparing for an anticipated higher demand for these vaccines soon.
COVID-19 rates are increasing in our community. Please get vaccinated and boosted to keep Fishers healthy.
The FHD 2021 annual report is now available.
7. Consent Agenda.
There are two items on the Consent Agenda.
Item a. is approval of last month’s City Council meeting minutes.
Item b. transfers funds. These actions transfer funds within the city budget, which is needed periodically. The transfers do not adjust the bottom line at all. This is a transfer of dollars from one budget category to another to avoid a negative balance in a category.
The Consent Agenda is a grouping of routine reports that should be approved in one swift action, instead of approving each one separately. I believe that all items included on the Consent Agenda should be approved as presented and approved unanimously. If not, the item that requires a revision, abstention, or other action needs to be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered as a separate voting item.
REGULAR AGENDA
Economic Development
8. Amendment to Economic Development Agreement. Back in 2019, the City of Fishers created an agreement with a developer (Masterstation LLC/Maple Sturup LLC) to build two buildings. The first was completed in 2018 – a 3-story office building at 11634 N Maple Street (Building #1). Another facet of the agreement was a second 3-story building on Maple Street. The developer received incentives from the City to build Building #2. This amendment to the agreement is extending the timeframe to waive all city fees including impact fees and to use for free the existing stormwater infrastructure that is in place. The agreement stipulated that these fees would be waived for the developer for 24 months. This amendment extends the waivers from 24 months to 36 months.
11634 Maple Street is located across the street from Handel’s Ice Cream patio, just N of 116th St.
Budget/Financial
Item #9 and #10 execute the steps needed to finalize funding for the new Arts & Municipal Complex/new City Hall.
In May, the Resolution was approved to fund the construction of the new Arts & Municipal Complex to replace the current City Hall, which is not structurally sound. The total cost of the project is $24,545,000. A bond will be used to pay for $17,445,000. And the municipal general fund (city budget) is paying for $7.1 million. The original funding plan was that $6.3 million ARPA (American Rescue Plan) funds were supposed to pay for part of the City Hall project. Now, that portion of the project will be paid out of the general fund. ARPA funds will now be used instead to pay for something that was originally coming out of the general fund.
9. Resolution Approving Petition. The City wants to enter into a lease with the Fishers Town Hall Building Corporation for the site of the Complex. The City Council must receive a petition from 50 or more taxpayers of the City requesting the lease and to find the project is necessary. These signatures have already been collected by the City. To allow the Town Hall Building Corporation to acquire the project site and another to-be-leased facility the proposed project and facilities must first be appraised by two appraisers. This Resolution accepts the petition, finds a need for the project, authorizes reimbursing project expenditures from bond proceeds, and provides for the appointment of the two appraisers.
10. Resolution to Approve Lease. Resolution makes a preliminary determination by the City to enter into a lease with the Fishers Town Hall Building Corporation, lays out approval for general terms of the lease. This is the second of two public hearings on this matter.
This agenda item will welcome public comments in a Public Hearing format.
A PUBLIC HEARING means that any resident is invited to comment on this topic. This is the only opportunity to make a comment and address the City Council on this specific matter. Fishers residents are welcomed to submit comments for the public hearing on this matter electronically prior to the meeting. All comments received by noon on Monday on the day of the meeting should be presented during this part of the meeting and will be part of the meeting’s official minutes. The Public Comment Form is live on the website right now.
If you do attend the City Council meeting in-person, you may comment on this matter during this part of the meeting. The City Council President will open the public hearing by asking if anyone would like to speak. If no one indicates that they want to speak, the public hearing can be closed quickly. So, please indicate immediately that you have something to say when the public hearing is opened. Otherwise, you may miss your chance.
Planning & Zoning
Both of these Voluntary Annexations will welcome public comments in a Public Hearing format. See above notes on how a Public Hearing is conducted.
A voluntary annexation is when a property owner wants to incorporate into the City of Fishers and receive city benefits, i.e., access to city utilities and city services like road maintenance and snow plowing. The annexed property will start paying city property tax to cover these benefits. Sometimes, annexations are a first step for a property being sold for development. Annexation Procedures can be found here.
11. Collins property. 16.9 acres at 12301 Florida Rd.
12. Farr property. 0.8 acres at 13562 E 116th St.
Unfinished/New Business.
Community Comment. All comments submitted through the online are supposed to be provided to the city council members before the meeting and become a part of the meeting’s official record. The Public Comment Form is live on the website right now. Select “City Council Meeting” and that will open a comment box for you to type in. Submit your comments by noon on Monday, the day of the meeting, so they can be distributed before the meeting.
Meeting adjourned!
If you have any comments or questions, please send them my way. Email is a good way to get a hold of me.
Thank you for reading all of this.