The February Fishers City Council Meeting will be held at 7pm on Monday, February 20, 2023. I warmly encourage you to participate.
IMPORTANT LOCATION CHANGE: All City Council meetings will now be held at Launch Fishers, 12175 Visionary Way. Launch Fishers is located in the tech park, just north of Super Target.
How to Observe and Participate in the City Council Meeting
- 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 the way to observe the meeting remotely.
- 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. The City Council is responsible for fiscal oversight and final approval of the municipal budget. Typically, the Finance Committee report is reflected in action items for the City Council that are reflected in the “Budget/Financial” part of the meeting agenda. The Finance Committee meeting was cancelled for this month due to a lack of agenda items.
6. Department Reports.
The monthly Fishers Health Department Report is usually made available to residents every month about our city’s vaccine status, COVID community risk status, and other important public health info. The FHD 2022 annual report will be available in early April.
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
Government/Miscellaneous
8. Council Committees. This proposes to do away with the Non Profit Committee. This is the committee that I and two other city councilors serve on to select and award city-funded grants to local non-profit organizations that serve our community. There is $250,000 available for non-profit grants this year. I have advocated for substantial improvements to the application, review, selection and reporting processes for these grants. I fully support devoting this amount of city funding to grants for non-profits that serve our community and citizens. I strongly disagree with this proposal and believe the Non Profit Committee should be re-activated, employing improved processes to execute the 2023 grants. SECOND READING. A second reading is the second consideration of a matter and no vote is taken. A vote is taken on the third reading.
Planning/Zoning
Wood Property is 8 acres located at Voluntary annexation of 11359 Cumberland Road
9. Wood Property Fiscal Plan
A fiscal plan details the city’s costs to provide services to this property when it is annexed into the city.
10. Wood Property Voluntary Annexation. FINAL READING. A final reading is the final vote to approve or disapprove a matter.
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.
Miscellaneous
11. Update to 2040 Plan/Housing & Neighborhoods section, as recommended in the January 2022 Housing Study.
FINAL READING. A final reading is the final vote to approve or disapprove a matter.
The Study articulated these four strategies the City of Fishers should prioritize.
In addition, the State of Indiana released a report from the Indiana Housing Task Force in October 2022 which included 16 findings and recommendations.
At the Feb 1 Plan Commission meeting, this 2040 Plan update was considered. At this meeting, Commissioner Bill Stuart suggested an addition that I believed was a good improvement. Commissioner Stuart’s addition has been included in this 2040 Plan update.
In Commission discussion, Bill Stuart mentioned the incentive to de-convert rentals to home ownership due to the cost of housing in Fishers. He suggested evaluating incentivizing home purchase costs for public safety employees, teachers, and veterans. Commission President Howard Stevenson supports evaluating this.
I have concerns about the data collections, accessibility, and application of one of the 2040 Plan revisions.
3.1.12. Maintain a real-time inventory of rental homes along with key property information (such as name of the owner, current mailing address, history of violations, etc.)
12. Voluntary Annexation. FIRST READING AND PUBLIC HEARING.
Ren property is 0.48 acres located at 10031 E 126th St.
A first reading is the first consideration of a matter and no vote is taken.
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.
13. Vacation of an Easement for IU Health Fishers Hospital building addition. PUBLIC HEARING and final vote. An “easement vacation” is when a city completely or partially abandons the public use of a road or easement. An easement allows the City government to use someone else’s real estate for a specific purpose.
14. Amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance. The UDO is the development standards of our city. This revision would allow an Home Owners Association to make changes to a subdivision covenants as long as 51% of home owners vote to approve it. This revision would probably decrease the number of home owners who would be needed to change HOA rules (covenants) – most notably, a revision that would cap or restrict rental properties. FIRST READING. A first reading is the first consideration of a matter and no vote is taken.
Background Info about HOAs and Rental Restrictions:
Indianapolis Business Journal, July 16, 2021
Larry In Fishers, May 12, 2022
Larry In Fishers, Nov 22, 2022
15. Rezone for Geist Waterfront Park. Rezone property to Open Space, the zoning type that governs all the other public parks in Fishers. FIRST READING. A first reading is the first consideration of a matter and no vote is taken.
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.