City Council - Regular Meeting

Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance for September 21st City Council meeting.

Pledge of Allegiance.

Good evening. Thanks for joining us for the September 21st City Council meeting. Our first presentation tonight is in recognition of Eunice Desjardins' 105th birthday. So we have a presentation for that. Mr. Dreamer.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Brad Reamer, a city councilman representing the Northeast District of Fishers. I live in the Del Webb community of Britain Falls, and I have the honor tonight to introduce Eunice Desjardins, who also lives in Britain Falls. Her birthday was two days ago on September 19th, and mine was also on September 19th, but Eunice turned 105 years old. Eunice was one of six children. She grew up in New Hampshire. Her parents owned the local meat market back in those days, and her grandparents owned the local store with a gas pump up front. Those of us my age can remember the front with one gas pump up front.

24 cents a gallon. That much? 24 cents a gallon.

Thank you, Eunice. Eunice joined the Navy as a wave in 1944, served two years representing our country. While in Washington, DC, she met Bob and married Bob in June of 1946, and then later moved to Indiana. She had two children, Nancy and Dean. Eunice lives with Nancy in Britain Falls, and her first husband died in 1964. Six years later she married Joe and unfortunately he passed away in 1986. So she that's her first husband and the children Dean and Nancy and there's Dean and Nancy last year when we were celebrating her 104th birthday. She is also a greeter at the Heartland Church and all the kids come in and love to give her a hug before they go to class. Last year, the mayor went to visit her on her 104th birthday in LA, the deputy mayor, and they planted a tree out in Cynthian Park for her last year. And Nancy and Eunice go out and check on it and make sure that it gets watered so the tree does not die. asked her why or how she's lived this long. And last year, she told me, it's because I drink orange juice every morning. So happy birthday, Eunice 105. Mayor Fadness would like to make some presentations for you.

Happy birthday. So today I'm honored to have a special guest, State Senator Scott Baldwin, and he has a number of recognitions he's going to bestow upon you today from a variety of different leaders in the state of Indiana. And also we have nearly 200 birthday cards that were put together from community folks. So we won't ask you to open all these here today, but I'm going to have Scott talk about each one of these and who they are from, and then we'll hand them off to you.

I had to have a truck bring these in, Eunice. Mayor Fadness, Mr. President, members of the Fish and City Council, family, friends, members of the community. It's a genuine privilege to be here tonight to recognize an extraordinary Hoosier, Eunice, who celebrated her 105th birthday on September 19th. 105th birthday is more than a personal mileage or a milestone. It represents more than a century of experiences, relationships, challenges, accomplishments, and memories. Eunice has lived through remarkable changes in our state and our nation, changes that most of us only know from history books. But a long life is not measured simply by the passage of years. It's measured by the lives, touch, the family and friendships built, the lessons learned, and I'm sure you've learned a lot of them. and the example left for those to follow. Judging by the people gathered here tonight, Eunice has made those 105 years count. On behalf of the Indiana State Senate, it's my honor to present to you a variety of resolutions, Eunice, on the occasion of your 105th birthday. Happy 105th birthday. And what I heard there was that there was a little secret that if a person owns a meat market, possibly continuing to eat meat is okay. So that's what I took from that. So I won't ask you to carry all of these units, but the first one is from me. It's from the Indiana State Senate. It's a certificate of congratulations signed by me representing the occasion of your 105th birthday. You also have one from the Speaker of the House of the State of Indiana. And it's recognizing the occasion of your 105th birthday. He says, I extend my heartfelt congratulations and best wishes on this special milestone. May this occasion be filled with joyful reflection on your many accomplishments, treasured memories with loved ones, and continued blessings in the years ahead. Signed, Speaker of the House, Todd Houston.

Todd Houston's mother lives with us.

And then also, from your state senator, Kyle Walker, who couldn't be here tonight, he asked me to hand this to you. It's just like the one I'm giving you. The state senate felt you were more important than the house. And you might know this guy. His name is Mike Braun. He's the governor of the state of Indiana. And he gives you this recognition. To all who shall see these presents may come greetings. Whereas some individuals distinguish themselves through significant contributions to their communities, whereas the qualities and characteristics of such individuals reflect the best of the great state of Indiana, whereas the actions of these individuals endear them in the hearts and minds of all Hoosiers, and whereas the below-named individual is such a person who has earned the respect and admiration of Hoosiers, across the state and is worthy to join the ranks of those so honored. Now, therefore, Mike Braun, Governor of the State of Indiana, do hereby declare and appoint Eunice Tisjardins as a Distinguished Tutor, signed by Mr. Mike Braun, Governor of the State of Indiana.

Eunice, would you like to say anything?

One other thing, Nancy's son, Greg, is also here tonight. Greg, thank you.

Yeah.

All right, happy birthday.

All right, next we have Employee Service Awards, recognizing employees for their years of service to the City of Fishers. Sure. Yeah, that's all right.

So, Council, thank you for allowing me to do this. Chief at Gephardt, for the record. Personal call-up, Todd Crowder, who's here with his wife Missy tonight. We are celebrating 35 years of protection and service by Todd tonight.

Congratulations, Todd.

So Todd came to us in 1991, started serving patrol, worked on patrol up until he was promoted to sergeant in 1999. then to lieutenant in 2001, and then shortly thereafter, he's been serving as the investigations lieutenant, and he is overseeing and led most of the most notable scenes that happen throughout our community over time. Also, in addition to that, he's our vehicle operations instructor. He's denied being the lead instructor for some time.

That doesn't sit well with me, but that's okay. You can keep on serving in any capacity you want.

Then also, he sits on our board for paternal order of police for several years, looking out for our officers. He's also won a distinguished service award in his career in 1996 for a notable act to our department. And then he's also won a meritorious, which is you put yourself in peril for that of your community in 2013. Thank you for your support of 35 Years Missy. Thank you, Todd. Congratulations. Next up, I want to recognize Assistant Chief Mike Taylor, if you could come forward, Mike. Mike came to us in 2006, where he started his career with us. He was a lateral hire out of Illinois. I stole him out of the IMPD process right before they hired him. That's a truthful statement. He worked patrol for us for some years until ultimately started up the rank and file. So in 2012, promoted to sergeant. 2015 he was promoted to lieutenant. 2018 he was promoted to commander of patrol and in 2020 he assumed assistant chief of police where he now presides over the investigation sides of the house. He's also been involved in the drug task force serving our community in undercover capacity. He's also a member of our SWAT team and one of our founding leaders of the crime reduction unit. He also has won a couple of awards. Mike's got the distinguished service award in 2014 for a notable act our department. and also over the course of his career he saved two lives one in 2014 and one in 2016. Mike for 20 years and also tell Danielle we appreciate her support thanks for your service congratulations.

Okay, moving on to council committee reports. John Weingart will give the finance committee report.

Thank you, John. Good evening, everybody. Budget finance has been busy here the last month or so. We've had two meetings with respect to the budget that we're presenting tonight for first reading. The first meeting was with our uh consultant mike reuter to talk about our where we're at from a planned perspective budget and also where we're projected to be for 2027. certainly real excited to to tell everyone tonight we're in a very strong financial position as a city um we also had one other meeting uh here recently to with all the department heads to talk about their budgets and kind of have to ask questions so uh culminating with uh tonight having our uh first reading on the budget in a public hearing Thank you.

All right. Thank you, John. Moving on to department reports. Monica helps the director of the Health Department has put together the Health Department report that is available on line. On to item number seven, the consent agenda consists of two items, a request to approve the previous meeting minutes from the August 17th, 2026 Council Executive Session and Fisher City Council meeting and resolution R092126, authorizing the city control to transfer certain funds.

Motion to approve.

Second. A motion by Pete, second by John to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. All right, the motion passes. All right, on to number eight, ordinance 092126, a request to approve the 2027 municipal budget. And Mayor Fadness will present the budget.

Well, good evening council members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. This is probably my 20th budget or more that I've been a part of or at least had the privilege to present to the city council or town council back in the day. And I always appreciate the opportunity to walk through what our financial priorities are, what our challenges are, and what our opportunities are moving forward. uh this year i would say in general and i made this mention to larry landon this morning when we were talking about the budget in a time of turmoil i'm proud to say that this budget's pretty boring uh we're in a sound financial position we're able to invest in the priorities that are important and necessary for our community to continue to be ranked one of the best places to live in america so tonight i'm going to provide you an overview i will say at the uh outset of this budget presentation We are in a moment of transition in property tax law and policies in the state of Indiana. And so there are some shifting sands, if you will. We're going to do our best to explain what those impacts are, but literally to know exactly what the impact is from a property tax standpoint on this individual homeowner, you would literally have to pull their property tax card. and walk through their property taxes to understand the specific impact on the individual community or individual homeowner. But we'll try our best to explain to the best of our ability at least what some of those changes are. uh again councilman weingart did a great job explaining kind of the to date what we've worked on um this starts early on in the year with our department heads as well as our deputy town manager and our controller they really start looking at what our revenue is going to forecast to look to be and then we look at what our priorities are going to be and then we start to sit down with department heads we work through that process and ultimately start engaging our council and you can see those kind of key benchmarks throughout And then we start communicating to the public to let them know that the budget process is underway so that they can weigh in and provide comment or feedback throughout. Tonight is a first reading and it's a public hearing. Then we have a break for about 30 days. We come back to the City Council again for final approval. So tonight is really more for people to hear what's going on with the budget, share their input, input and feedback. And then the next meeting would be the actual adoption of the budget. Real briefly, in a review of fiscal year 2026, which we're still in the midst of, it's been a very, very busy year, but I think it's been a successful year. Our priorities and the council's priorities last year were really focused on how do we get back into the neighborhoods and reinvest. The community, the neighborhood matching grant has been incredibly uh popular yet again uh 23 capital improvement projects are underway or been awarded uh we're in the classrooms so i can't think of a better way to explain what our priorities are than we're we're in the neighborhoods and we're in the classrooms or where our residents are living uh and it's exciting to see the investments that we're making We're also, if you're here on any given day, you'll see a bunch of kindergartners running around here. We launched a new experiential learning partnership with our school system right over here at the Art Center. So you'll see kindergartners running around here. So we have third graders and kindergartners showing up here and learning about civic education as well as arts. When it comes to quality of life, obviously we've seen significant investments in our parks and athletic fields. We've seen significant investments on the Nickel Plate Trail Bridge. And you've obviously seen a lot of resurfacing in our neighborhoods. When it comes to operational excellence, from a public safety standpoint, I thought our police and fire department did an extraordinary job during the floods. Those individuals were well-equipped, well-trained, staffed, and were able to take care of not only our issues, but helped throughout the region. And that's a testament to years of good leadership in our public safety departments. You know, the right type of investments and the real focus on making sure we can get the job done Uh, when we need to, um, we're not quite there yet, but we're about to open a country store at the acre park, which we're thrilled and excited to have. Um, and we have our first full year community center operations. And one of the most important things about that first full year of community center operations is we are ahead of schedule financially. On where we thought we were going to be. We thought it was going to take probably 3 years to get to a point where we're breaking even. We have every confidence that by the end of this year, that budget stands on its own, that we have enough revenue coming to off-center operational costs, which is an incredible success story. And it's a testament, frankly, to how much our residents are appreciating that facility and are using that facility. Fiscal strength, again, AA plus bond rating, strong general fund cash reserves, and GFOA, this is a testament to Lisa's work. Her and her team in the controller's office, 37th year straight of achieving the excellence in financial reporting and the 19th straight for distinguished budget. That just tells you that from a transparency standpoint, from a best practices standpoint, not only are we passing what I think is good fiscal policy, but we're communicating it effectively, or at least have the ability for people to If they want to go read our budget, they can. I think it's great. I don't know how many people are going to do it, but it really is a good way to understand what our financial priorities are. So in 2026, this is a general breakdown of our total tax rate. As you can see, we represent the green in this pie chart, if you will, blue being the schools, light green is Hamilton County, and the other ones are Hamilton East Public Library and Hamilton County Solid Waste. So the two primary numbers that make up your municipal tax rate are the school system and the city. So let's talk about 2027 and what kind of the budget highlights. Our goal is to maximize the value of our property taxes as well as looking at public safety investments. When it comes to public safety, we're going to fully fund. So the additional 15 firefighters that we're bringing on board, they'll be fully funded. They're in recruit class right now. Next year, they'll be on board and operational. What does that mean? What does that mean to the average Fishers resident? Well, it means we're going to have a fourth ambulance. put into active duty. So we're excited about that. We already have the ambulance here. We're training our people now, and hopefully early next year or late this year, we'll be deploying an additional ambulance. That has a lot to do with, frankly, two things. One, our population continues to grow. And two, our population continues to get older. And so we're seeing a steady uptick in the number of calls that we have to take. And we want to make sure that we can maintain the highest standards in response to our residents when they're in need. The detective or additional police officer is really about meeting the need, particularly and unfortunately in crimes against kids and sex crimes and things of that nature. The caseload of our officers is growing by the day. We want to make sure that we have the resources to go investigate those thoroughly and bring those people to justice. Again, when we talk about being in the right places in our community, we're again going to fully fund our neighborhood matching grant. We're going to fully fund our teacher innovation grant. So we're back in the classrooms again next year in 27. We're back in the neighborhoods in our matching grants. uh and then to our point earlier about um frankly how popular the community center is uh we're actually we have additional funds left over from the construction of the community center and we intend to add an additional space or workout space there to meet the needs of the ever-growing demand so that was already always planned with this community center we just weren't sure we have enough funds to do it in the initial construction And now that we're done and we can kind of see what our demand signals are, we feel confident that we can complete that and add an additional amenity to that very popular community center. And then, of course, it never ends but continued investment in roads and sidewalk infrastructure. So in total, in order to accomplish those priorities, we're looking at a total budget of $224 million, roughly $78 million in cash reserves. I want to put a caveat there that $78 million in cash reserve is not all general fund. That's all funds combined. So that'd be sewer, stormwater, MVH, local roads and streets, things of that nature. Debt service of approximately 41.5 million. Your cash reserves. So the city council has done an incredible job of even through difficult times, you can go all the way back to COVID era times in 2021, 2022. We've kept our eye on making sure that we are in strong financial position. Here again, you see our cash reserves outpace our financial requirements. There's a couple things I would say about that. We are trying to save dollars to then pay for capital infrastructures with cash. Part of the reason behind that is the cost of borrowing is continuing to go up. The municipal bond market and government bond market, it's becoming more and more expensive to borrow money. To put things in perspective, when we were doing financing for vehicles, four or five years ago, it was 1%, 1.25% interest rates to borrow. It literally was free money, so to speak, in terms of lending. Today, municipal bonds are 6%, 7%. And so we really want to make sure that if we can pay for infrastructure projects out of cash, you're saving a significant amount of money in interest payments long term. So that's part of the reason that you see us building up some of our cash balances at the moment. Budget overview, as most municipalities will demonstrate, your number one investment in your operational budget is your personnel. We're no different. You see $75 million in personnel costs. I'm proud of what you get for that dollar investment. Our men and women punch above their weight class in terms of their productivity, and I'll demonstrate that here shortly in a moment. We are seeing some increases, frankly, in professional services and other charges. A lot of that has to do with inflation and utility costs. We're not immune from what everyone else is seeing in their homes in terms of the cost of goods, the cost of services continuing to rise. We're constantly trying to drive efficiencies, but there are increases in costs. And I think we've afforded through the budget to to be sure that we can meet our needs going into fiscal 27. To the point about our men and women punching above their weight class, this is just an example of your per employee. So we have about 107,000 people in the city of Fishers. Our total employee count is 557. When you look at that as employees, as a percentage of the population, we still outside of Westfield coming close to us, we are by far the most efficient level of local government when it looks at a per employee level of service. That's not because we're skimping on services. I think our men and women, again, provide exemplary service. It's just the leadership that we have here in our departments and some of the equipment and tools that we've invested in alongside of our people have really allowed us to provide a level of service with the least amount of cost to our residents, which is what we're frankly tasked to do both at your table and at mine. So let's talk briefly about budget priorities, as we talked about before. We have a new police detective. We're purchasing and training a replacement canine. We're transitioning that larger crew class into operational firefighters that will include the rollout of additional ambulance, which will put our total ambulances in service in any given day to four. And we're doing a continuing investment in fleet in general. And that is another cost that I know I sound like a broken record, but fire trucks today, ladder trucks, what once were $800,000 or $900,000 pieces of equipment are now $2 million pieces of equipment. What once took eight months to build now takes three years to build. Police cars and the build out of police cars have gone up exponentially. There isn't a piece of fleet equipment that we have that hasn't seen double digit growth in cost to the point where there's congressional hearings being undertaken as well as investigations into, you know, price fixed price fixing antitrust activities around fire truck construction. That's how dire the situation has gone and I really do truly appreciate Tabitha Miller, our fleet director, has done just an extraordinary job of trying to procure this equipment in a very, very difficult environment. In terms of quality of life, we've talked a little bit about AgriPark West. I know we've had residents come up and talk about AgriPark West here at this podium. We're excited. Construction is now underway. We feel like we have a budget to really take the next big steps regarding that. We'll have a full year of the country store operations at the original AgriPark. Again, that rooftop exercise facility at the community center. And we're gonna have a lot of new program that goes with that. And our Fishers Health Department, if you saw the press release just recently, we announced that we're going to have additional mental health services and really allow people to come in, kind of triage the situation, and then be provided navigational support to allow people in their difficult hours to find the help they need. We announced that last week, and we've already had several appointments booked for people that are in that need. So I think that's a great program that will only grow from here. Again, we're going to have $275,000 going to Fisher Youth Initiative. Excuse me, $165,000 going to Youth Initiative. $75,000 to Connor Prairie. Cherish Center, for those of you that are not familiar with Cherish Center, Chief Gephardt can speak to it more intelligently than I can because he works with them on a daily basis. But when we have people that have been victims of sex crimes and other things, especially children. Oftentimes bringing them to the police department to do a forensic interview can be a pretty traumatic experience. We partner with the Cherish Center to conduct those interviews offsite and with people that are specifically trained in that type of trauma to ensure that we're not further traumatizing individuals in a very difficult time. And they do extraordinary work and we're proud to partner with them. As we've talked about, the very popular neighborhood vibrancy grant will be back in full force at $400,000, teacher innovation grants at $50,000, and our ADA grants at $10,000 as well. Infrastructure, this is one that we're really excited about. Again, when we save up our cash and we're able to deploy it in larger chunks of money instead of financing, we have a half a million dollars for additional landscaping and beautification, particularly around our parks and additional meetings that have not yet been landscaped. If you recall three years ago, we did a sidewalk repair program where we put a million dollars towards sidewalks and we were able to knock out Sunblast, Avalon, a bunch of large neighborhoods that, frankly, when you look at the list of panels that we had issues with, Windermere was another one, I believe. We want to get additional tranches of money in there to, again, Public Works is doing a great job trying to do it in-house. but the number of sidewalk repair requests that we get outpace our ability to do that internally. That $250,000 we anticipate we'll be able to do at least eight or nine additional neighborhoods from front to back of that neighborhood, which I think means a lot to residents when they see somebody out there fixing that toe kick that's in their neighborhood. And then something we've talked about a lot, I know Council Member Weingart, Council Member Stewart, others affected by this, At some point in the 90s, we built a handful of neighborhoods in concrete roads, and those roads are aging significantly and they need repairs. The challenge with concrete roads when you have to truly repair them is it's extremely expensive and disruptive to go do that. And we have our normal resurface budget that we focus on resurfacing roads typically with asphalt. And what we're advocating for tonight is that outside of that, we want to keep those levels maintained at the current level so we don't fall behind. But we'd like to appropriate an additional million dollars to really start tackling some of these neighborhoods. And the million dollars is not going to be enough to fix all concrete neighborhoods and fissures. But it's it's a start as we begin to kind of chip away at those. And what we've tasked our public works director and our engineering director is to really find the best highest value solution of those concrete roads in terms of do you rip all the concrete out do you mill the part of the concrete and pave over it do you rubbleize it we have to figure out what the best solution is because again it is exceptionally when it comes to these concrete roads. And it's very disruptive to the neighborhood. Imagine if you would jackhammering concrete roads out of people's front yards. And so we're going to have some work ahead of us on this, but I think a million dollars will really help us start to get the ball rolling. And I would assume for several years moving forward, you should anticipate additional investment in that because it's just not going away anytime soon. Additional road projects. The long-awaited Cumberland Road will be under construction from 106th to 116th. We have our additional resurfacing packages. I'm also very excited about 131st and Brook School Road. That's a dangerous intersection. Very, very busy intersection. If you think as well about Target opening. That's going to be the back road to Target for a lot of Fishers residents is going down 131st Street and over to the Target. And so we are trying to get this roundabout done and completed in time for the target opening next year. And so utilities are actually if you drive by there today, that intersection utilities are already being moved and we look forward to building that road as well as track traffic signal upgrades. I know there was some talk at the committee hearing About the light at Spyglass on 116th Street, we're currently evaluating whether we can reuse some of the signal poles from 116th and Allisonville to be able to complete that project as well. In terms of just overall operational investment, I think we've gone through a number of these items already. When it comes to our people, we are asking for a 3% salary increase or cost of living adjustment across the board for all employees as well as a $1,000 increase on the 457 match. We are also increasing the longevity pay for police and fire to try to entice some of our longer tenured police and firemen to stay on the team for a number of years yet as we see a significant number of people retiring. It's part of the recruit classes we have right now are so large because we hired all of these firemen when Fishers was in the 90s. We were opening up new firehouses. We hired 15, 20, 25 firemen all at the same time. which is great, but they're all now reaching retirement age at the same time. And we're trying to spread that out, if you will, so that we don't have everyone retiring at one time. And so I think we're providing a competitive package for our employees moving forward and grateful for the work that they do. Okay, I will try to keep this brief. As many of you know, you start talking to me about property taxes and budgets and municipal finance. I can get long-winded and I can always tell when people's eyes roll on the back of their head that it's time to wrap up. But there is a changing landscape when it comes to property taxes. And one of the things that you're going to see across the state of Indiana this year, next year, and going forward, our property tax rates are going to increase. And someone might say, well, does that mean that my property tax bill is going to go up significantly as tax rates go up? I honestly sit here today and tell you not necessarily. The state legislature has reduced excuse me, the state legislature has increased the homestead deduction. So what used to be 35% is steadily going up, went from 35% to 40% this year in 2026. In 2027, it's going to go from 40% to 46%. It's going to continue to climb until it gets to 66%. So if you own a $500,000 home, by the time 2030 comes around, you will see a marked reduction in your net assessed value, if that makes sense. Well, as your assessed value declines across your community, let's say if all of our residential assessed value was reduced by 60%, then in order to collect the same amount of money, your tax rate will have to go up. And so today, what you see with us looking at a 6.7 cent increase in our tax rate has more to do with the reduction of assessed value than it does with us collecting additional dollars. And you're going to see this across the state of Indiana. This is a concerted effort by the legislature to reduce the to reduce the dependence on residential property taxes, if you will. So the best we could do tonight is to provide some anecdotal example of what all this means. So 6.7% increase in a 6.7 cent increase in our property tax rate for a home that doesn't see a change in its assessed value, which would mean honestly that it assessed at 6% or less increase, which I know this is all very confusing and I apologize, would result in about a $13 increase in the property tax, so $1 a month. And then you can see as you go down the list, if you were to see a 5% increase in your assessed value, what that means. So again, what I would encourage any resident to do is to go on the county's website and look at your property tax card and look at the property tax calculators and try to understand what the property tax rate and what your assessed value means. What I can tell you in generality, is that the majority of residents and fishers should see a market slowdown in the growth of their property tax bills because we've seen in the last four to six years you saw assessed values going up really quickly and that was causing people to see their property tax bills go up higher than what they'd seen in the past you should see that either plateau or I think in a lot of cases should actually see it start to go down but again that is specific to the individual homeowner's situation and they need to look at their own property tax card to with any degree of certainty What does our tax rate mean moving forward? These are the 10 largest cities in Indiana. We are, if by any population estimate, we're the fourth largest city in Indiana. And actually, as we're growing to date, we're creeping up on Evansville. We're not there yet, but I could see in the near two to five years, probably surpassing Evansville in population, which would make us the third largest city in Indiana, which is sometimes hard to believe when you think about it. But it would put us still at the lowest property tax rate of any of the ten largest cities in Indiana. So again, just in closing, and I'm happy to answer any questions that the Council may have, I look forward to over the next 30 days adjusting accordingly. But I think we're in a very strong fiscal position. We have new investments in public safety and we continue to invest in quality of life that is on par with being named one of the best places to live in America. At this point, I'd be happy to entertain any questions that the Council has.

Questions? Yeah, Bill.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mayor. I'll get geeky with you if you don't mind. Sure. Tell me about the residential, I understand the residential property tax assessment issue. Tell me, kind of give us that same perspective on the commercial side.

Sure. So what will happen is you're going to have a shift from residential to commercial because they do not have any deductions, particularly any commercial that isn't multifamily. Multifamily has some sort of Kind of obscure neutralization or hold harmless provision in the bill from last year. But when it comes to a corporate headquarters or industry or industrial buildings. Because they have no deductions as the tax rate goes up, you will start to see commercial buildings paying more of the property tax burden than they were prior.

Thank you. And then what's happening to our base, our residential and our commercial base? Is it expanding still?

Well, we are continuing to grow, but because of the deductions that they're putting in the formula, our overall net assessed value, which is what you apply the tax burden over, is shrinking. Because if you look at... Between 2026 and 2031, I believe, they're going to reduce our residential tax base by 66%. Well, our residential assessed value makes up 80%. Well, maybe not 80%. Let's say 75% of our overall tax base. Well, if 75% of your overall tax base gets shrunk by 60%, our overall tax base is going to get much, much smaller, which means our tax rate will go up. But that tax rate going up doesn't necessarily mean that your individual home tax bill is going up. and if i could make it any more confusing i would but it's just uh and again and i'll put and i will also say this they plan to make additional changes at the state house this upcoming year so it could it could change materially from what we're talking about here tonight

SCOTT, IF I MAY JUST ADD ON TO BILL'S COMMENT ABOUT ON THE BUSINESS SIDE PERSONAL PROPERTY TAXES ARE TWO MILLION DOLLAR EXEMPTION. YES, YOU'RE RIGHT. AS WELL.

YEAH, ABSOLUTELY. SO THEY'VE ALSO ALMOST KIND OF THEY'RE ALMOST PHASING OUT THE BUSINESS PERSONAL PROPERTY TAXES. SO IT'S WHEN I SAY THE CHANGING SANDS, I MEAN, THE SHIFTING SANDS, IT IS TRULY The most substantive change in property tax that I've seen since probably the Mitch Daniels gaps in 08.

My CPA firm used to do 100 personal property tax returns for my clients. Next year I'm going to do two.

Yeah, absolutely.

Spend a lot of time out the track next May.

Yeah, you're exactly right. Any other questions?

Other questions or comments? Yeah, sure.

I love that we're attacking the concrete. We've heard for years about that, and I'm glad we've continued to. I know we have tried year after year trying to attack this. The million dollars going toward that, what percentage does that take care of? Is it just in terms of what we're thinking long down the road?

One half in one neighborhood. I mean, honestly. What we're really going to push the vendors and our engineering team is how do you make it three-fourths of a neighborhood? What can we do differently to make the money go as far as we can? again the costs associated with repairing or replacing those concrete roads could eat up your entire resurfacing package for the rest of the community just in one neighborhood right and so we're really going to push on this but we've got to make some progress i think this is a good start yep thank you

All right, Denny, we're going to do a public hearing. So I'll now open. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Now open ordinance 092126 for a public hearing. If you wish to speak on the budget, you may come to the podium and address the council. And please, yes, state your name and address for the record, and you'll be given three minutes.

Awesome. Well, I can't resist that. My name is Ross Reinhart, 7704 Creekside Court. And a boring budget sounds good. You don't want surprises with budgets. So it's pretty exciting. One thing that I think we can't afford not to think about um especially in light of things like how do we increase our tax base um you know is uh biking and public transit alternatives uh forms of getting around our city especially as we continue to grow um i know we often in our council meetings you know you hear the restriction that comes up when something's being proposed you know where's the parking gonna go where's the traffic you know there's too much traffic already um and so we need options um and We have limited money in the budget, obviously. So you can't just go and magically make money up here. But I think investing in those things are something that will return an investment. If we can be able to build in ways like we have, it's no density around the nickel plate, where we know that that generates more property tax for the city. it unlocks us being able to do that. It unlocks being able to spend less on infrastructure. And maybe we don't have to widen that road anymore that we would have to widen otherwise. So I don't think that we can afford not to invest in that, especially as we continue to grow both from the positive aspect of being able to build in a way that returns more but also in just in a way of making sure people can have mobility around the city as more people live in fishers and we welcome more neighbors. So we want to be able to alleviate those bottlenecks in the building. Also, it's something that gives us options as we face uncertain times with maybe cars or gas being more expensive. Right now, you might not have an option to not get that second car. I know right now, I just paid my registration today, and it was a lot of money. And I would like the option to maybe not have to have that second car. And gas prices, as they vary, it might be nice to have the option to say, oh, I can just take this other route to the grocery store and maybe avoid some of that cost. So giving us options that way helped us be more resilient and it helped give people options. I know I've spoken to neighbors that don't have a car in Fishers and I've heard their stories about how difficult it can be. Sometimes it means foregoing going to something because it's difficult to get to or spending a lot of money on an Uber. And while all this helps us save money and generate more tax base, it also comes with a lot of other benefits along the way. So it's a win-win. You know, we've got our culture of health. It can be more healthy to be able to walk or bike around someplace you want to get to. As our population ages, it can provide mobility when you can't drive anymore. So I would encourage us to consider ways that we can use some money in our budget to investigate how can we invest more in biking public transit, maybe support the Hamilton County Express more so that it can be a better service here in Fishers. I think it'll be good for our finances, our health, and our increased mobility.

Thank you. Thanks. Any other questions? Public comment? Seeing none, I will now close the public hearing.

First reading. And the first reading, thanks.

All right, next on the agenda, item number nine, ordinance 092126A, request to approve the 2027 salary ordinance first reading. Ethan, hi.

Good evening, Council. Ethan Lee, Director of Human Resources, here to present the first reading of the proposed 2027 salary ordinance. Of course, the salary ordinance aligns with the budget for the overall city. Specifically, as already noted, the ordinance would include a 3% increase to the maximum biweekly salary for all position titles for the city. Also, specifically under police and fire, increase the clothing and allowance by 4%, a maximum of $1,400 annual. It would also be increasing, as already noted, the longevity pay for the service time between the 21st and the 25th year of service for police and fire, up to a maximum payout of $10,500 for those longstanding employees. And then police department, we have a shift differential that we'd like to add a dollar per hour for the night shift patrol. Uh, so hours worked during that period. A dollar extra for that shift. And lastly, a new position title under police of criminal forensic supervisor. Happy to answer any questions.

GREG BRUDNICKI Make a motion to approve on first reading.

Do the first reading or do you want to suspend the rules and approve?

I want to make a motion to approve on first reading, so I guess I want to suspend first. Do we need to suspend on this? Can we just approve on first reading? And my first motion stands.

I'm going to make a motion to approve on first reading.

Say again, John?

Can we pass that on first reading even though we have not passed the budget?

I'm just reading the agenda.

Yeah.

All right, I have first reading.

All right, first read. Thank you. All right, next on the agenda, item number 10, resolution R092126A, a request to approve a declaratory resolution designating certain property tax as an economic, certain property as an economic revitalization area and authorizing personal and real property tax abatements for 11100 USA Parkway.

Yep, Council President DeLucia, uh, Megan Baumgartner apologizes. She had a personal issue tonight, could not make it, so I'm standing in. But, uh, as many of you remember, we, uh, celebrated the landing of JD Sports corporate headquarters, uh, here in Fishers with an economic development agreement. This is a continuation of that process, uh, where we're declaring a resolution to make, uh, an abatement for any additional growth and assessed value around their personal and real property on that site. They have now acquired the building and are under design for renovations of that building and will be bringing their employees in sometime in the fall. So everything's progressing as it should. Tonight is an administrative step in that process.

Motion to approve. Second.

All right, motion by Pete, second by John. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right, next on the agenda, number 11, Ordinance 081726, a request to amend Chapter 71 of the Fisher's Code of Ordinances regarding traffic rules. Hi, Lindsay.

Good evening, Council. Lindsay Bennett, Corporation Council. Good night for second reading of this with a few changes from first reading. We received several public comments about concern on running like in residential neighborhoods. So we exempted the residential streets from the definition of roadways. This does not apply to residential. We also clarified that a sidewalk or trail must be present and available for pedestrians to require use of that sidewalk or trail on the main roadways. And then we also added some additional criteria for the temporary structure, the permit, so that engineering will administer the permit application, the approval, the denials, and revocations, and then added an appeals process. Does that answer any questions you may have?

Questions from Council motion to approve. Motion by Pete, second by Todd. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Alright, motion passes. Alright, next on the agenda item number 12 ordinance 081726A. consideration of a rezone of 3.51 acres from the exit five sunbeam PUD to the yard phase two PUD. Ross.

Good evening, for the record. Ross Hillary, Community and Economic Development. Before you, as mentioned, is Ordinance 081726A. This is the final reading before council. Consideration of a reason of 3.51 acres from exit 5, Sunbeam, to the Yard Phase 2 PUD. The Yard Phase 2 PUD is the PUD that resides over the event center. So these properties would be brought into the Yard Phase 2 PUD to assist with the contrast multifamily townhome development. This did receive favorable recommendation from planning commission earlier this month. As a recap, these are the two parcels that would move from the one PUD to the adjacent PUD in response to the development that is shown here on the screen. Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from council?

Motion to approve. Second.

A motion by Pete, second by Tiffany. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes. Thank you. All right, next, item number 13, ordinance 092126B, consideration of a rezone of 1.91 acres from Legends at Geist PUD to R2 Residential and a property located at 10569 East 116th Street.

Yes, Ross Hillary, Community and Economic Development. Before you is Ordinance 092126B. This is known as the Randall Sisters Rezone. This is for approximately 1.91 acres shown here right along the Lake Stonebridge property. This is something that we believe is a clerical error going through our records. During that Lake Stonebridge annexation, this parcel was included in that rezone, as you can see here on that screen. We believe that this is an error and we would like to have that rezone to R2 property and I'll show you that in a second. This is first reading before council. We anticipate having the public hearing at Planning Commission in October and then back to final reading here in October as well. SHOWN HERE IS THE R2 PROPERTY THAT IS ADJACENT. THE PROPERTY IN QUESTION IS OUTLINED IN RED. AT OUR PLAT COMMITTEE EARLIER THIS MONTH, THE RANDALL SISTERS PROPERTY IS LOOKING TO REPLAT THESE FOUR LOTS INTO FOUR LOTS, BUT NOW ALLOWING ALL THREE OF THOSE PARCELS TO HAVE LAKE FRONTAGE. SO YOU CAN SEE THERE ON THE RIGHT THE NEW OUTLINE. CONDITION OF THAT PLATTING WAS THE REZONING OF THIS PROPERTY. IF WE DID NOT REZONE THIS PROPERTY, THE LOTS WOULDN'T HAVE THE SPLIT ZONING, WHICH IS SOMETHING WE DO NOT LIKE. SO HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS ON THIS.

NEW SPEAKER P. ANY QUESTIONS FROM COUNCIL?

NEW SPEAKER P. I'LL GIVE IT A FIRST READING.

NEW SPEAKER P. ALL RIGHT. FIRST READING. THANKS. ALL RIGHT. ITEM 14, RESOLUTION R092126B. I'm approving a resolution adopting the fiscal plan for the Dillehay property located at 15106 East 136th Street.

Item 14 and 15 are on the same property, 0.78 acres, looking to be annexed into the city for sewer connections. Happy to answer any questions.

Motion to approve. Second.

And motion by Pete, second by John. Is that for both of them?

I can only do one at a time. Okay.

Yeah, on item 14. Okay, I'm going to do that one first. Motion by Pete, second by John. All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Now I'll make a motion to approve item 15.

All right. Motion by Pete, second by John. Item 15. And all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion passes. Wait, there's more. Number 16, Ordinance 092126C. Approving voluntary annexation of 7.757 acres. Known as the Henson Property. East Lantern Road, 12985 Lantern Road. Ross.

I'll correct that. That may be a staff error. So this property is located at 12985 Lantern Road. This is .7, 7.57 acres sewer connection. This does require a public hearing.

All right, do you have anything you want to talk about first or any questions from council? All right, I'll open the public hearing for 092126C. If you wish to speak, please come forward. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. And I'll give our first reading. And we'll call it first reading. All right. Next, number 17, Ordinance 092126D, approved voluntary annexation of 5.89 acres known as the Randall Sisters property.

So this is the one that we just talked about. It's adjacent. So the one that we referred to is that parcel on the south side. As part of this replatting, they are also looking at doing a sewer connection here. This does require a first reading.

All right. And we do a public hearing, I think, for this as well. So I'll now open the ORDINANCE 092126D FOR A PUBLIC HEARING. IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE TO COME FORWARD. SEEING NONE, I'LL CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. I'LL GIVE IT A FIRST READING. ANYONE GOT A FIRST READING? ALL RIGHT. NUMBER 18, ORDINANCE 092126E, APPROVED VOLUNTARY ANNEXATION OF 2.96 ACRES KNOWN AS THE WALTERS PROPERTY NORTH OF EAST 136th STREET WITH A COMMON ADDRESS OF 634 East 136th Street.

This one is very similar to the other ones. This is a new sewer connection. It does require a public hearing.

All right. Any questions from council? All right. I'll open the ordinance 092126E for a public hearing. All right. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing.

I'll give that one a first reading. First reading.

All right. Do we have any new or... unfinished business, no? Now open it up for community comment. Any member of the public wishing to speak may come to the podium and address the council. Please state your name and address for the record. You will be given three minutes.

Good evening, my name is Denise Webster. I live at 12058 Clubhouse Drive, Fishers, Indiana. I am the current president of the River Glen Homeowners Association. I am here to both want to thank the fire department of the city of Fishers for their valiant efforts in trying to save a home in our subdivision. The home was totally lost. However, their efforts were to be congratulated by saving the two homes that were very, very close in proximity. My second reason here is to let you know that I have filed a complaint with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission against Citizens Energy, and I will read part of it for you. On September 3rd, there was a house fire at 7323 Pembroke Place, Fishers, Indiana, located in the River Glen subdivision. The Fishers Fire Department arrived. Engines were directed to lay hose, access fire hydrants. One of the fire hydrants broke and was unusable. The fire department continued on. And the fire was eventually put out and the home was declared a major fire with flame, smoke, water damage resulting total property loss and occupant displacement. Many residents were eyewitness to the scene and witnessed broken and unusable fire hydrant as well. Subsequent phone calls were made to Citizens Water asking for maintenance reports, inspections, and inspection reports. The requests for reports were denied and even asking to speak to a supervisor fell on deaf ears. The inoperable fire hydrant discovered on September 3rd was still not repaired when I emailed the mayor official, Scott Fadness, and let him know the lack of response from Citizens Water. I emailed the mayor on Wednesday, September 16th, and he did respond that he himself would contact citizens. Mayor Fadness called on September 17th to say he had been in touch with citizens and they would be out to fix the hydrant on Saturday, September 19th at 9 AM. My concern is simply this, until the mayor of Fishers became involved, Citizen Energy was totally unresponsive to resident life safety concerns. The customer service component at Citizens Energy is totally lacking in any type of interest in complying with customer requests for information. And more importantly, their lack of concern of a prompt repair of an integral part of fire safety is alarming at best. There is no excuse for this lack of concern and response. Should our mayor have to intervene on every cause of concern for lack of maintenance and repair to the equipment that is vital to the fire safety in Fishers, Indiana. Our fire department did an amazing job. My mayor did an amazing job contacting citizens, but it should not come to that. This council needs to be aware of the lack of concern that Citizens Energy, who controls 40,000 fire hydrants in their service area, refuses to give citizens maintenance reports. I've already filed a hydrant flow system report that I have not yet received. I did that last week. It is unconscionable. And I believe this council has the power to bring citizens energy responsible to the citizens in this community. I thank the mayor immensely for what he has done to get that fire hydrant repaired. There's 298 homes, 30 houses on that street where that fire hydrant serviced. One house is now destroyed in a very, very lovely neighborhood, I might add. Thank you for the fire department, for your three engines, your ladders, your EMTs. We greatly, greatly appreciate what you did for us in saving the other homes. Thank you.

My name is Michael Colby. I live at 7105 Cold Lake Drive here in Fishers. I want to just pick up on a little bit of what Denise is saying. She pointed out that we have a problem with fire hydrants here in our community, whether they're operational or not. I was surprised to learn that the fire hydrants are owned by Citizens Energy. because they supply the water and the way it's set up but they require through the maintenance well as you just heard there's 40 000 fire hydrants within their their area my suggestion would be that the fisher's city council create a study to look into how this could be improved. I believe there needs to be standardized testing. I think maintenance and testing are two separate issues. Whether the city is responsible for it, or we will hold their feet to the fire so to speak, to citizens to be more responsive. We don't know what fire hydrants in our community work and what don't work. And we found that out when one of our homes caught on fire. Two of them didn't work. And we've had several water main breaks in our community. Are those hydrants functional? We don't know. And we can't get any answers out of citizens. So whether it's something the council wants to do, a study group, who would be responsible for doing the testing, whether it stays with citizens or goes with the city. Maybe it's time to have some state legislatures involved and do some state legislation, because this is not just a problem for us. I'm sure it's a problem for the entire area. It's rather scary to think about And I don't know whether my house will catch on fire or not, but if it does, I want to know if those hydrants are working. And there should be a way that whoever has responsible for maintenance, if they assume testing or whether that could be broken out, and somebody else be responsible for testing those things. And then report back to citizens for whatever repairs might be necessary. We as citizens can do that, but you can hear from what you just heard from Ms. Webster. We don't get responses, and I think it takes the city, the mayor, to make the phone calls, because he has the juice. And if there's some way to create some legislation to require whoever to do the testing, maybe that's something that should be done at the state level. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mike.

John. We thank you guys for bringing that up. We had the same problem myself as you're right across the street. Had to get the mayor with weeks running. So I understand what you're saying. Chief, is there some way an HOA can be trained to test those fire hydrants?

It's pretty technical, because you've got to measure the flow. And you have to have the meters to do that. It's one thing to have water come out.

Fire departments have an ability. It would be cumbersome with 40,000 down here. But yes, we do have the ability to test flow rates.

OK. Thank you. I think for the purposes of this conversation, I know we're scheduled, Chief, scheduled to go meet with the HOA. I'm happy to have a sit down conversation with citizens and take the fire chief with me and have a discussion about what their maintenance schedule is. I think the other thing to note, and Chief can speak to this, but our people are trained for any scenario that might come our way. So if there's a hydrant that isn't functioning, we can adapt accordingly and have done so in fires and otherwise. I'm not giving them excuses for having a malfunctioning fire hydrant. I just want to give some reassurance to our residents that if a fire hydrant isn't working, we're going to overcome that and continue to provide the service we need to. We'll follow up with citizens and understand what their maintenance schedule is and if they are indeed adhering to it. And we'll try to hold them accountable to the best of our ability.

In this particular instance, the fire department did make the adjustment. They brought their, it's an engine or a pump, I don't know what the term is, but they were able to put water on the fire and eventually went to a second fire hydrant, which didn't work, and went to a third and were able to get water. So that just shows you one little area, two fire hydrants weren't working. Thank you, Mike.

I hope to have some answers for you guys when we meet at your neighborhood meeting. Thank you, Mike. Yep.

Any other public comment? Yeah, please.

My name is Susan Mendenhall and I live at 12801 Whisperwood Way and I'm representing Whisperwood Neighborhood Association. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak this evening and this is regarding the zoning of the property proposed to become Heart and Soul Community Campus on 126th Street. I want to be very clear first this evening that our concern is not for Heart and Soul Church, not for its congregation or for its mission. We respect their desire to establish a place of worship, a place of community, recreation and service. And we have no desire to stand in the way of those purposes. Our concern is the rezoning of the entire property and specifically the commercial and retail development that the proposed zoning would allow. And we think that that distinction is very important. The church proposed campus is one thing, giving a much broader zoning designation to the property. One that could allow the commercial use far beyond what our residents currently understand to be part of the campus. It's a much larger and potentially long term land use decision. Once the zoning is going to be approved, future development may not be limited to the specific vision or to the tenants that have been presented to the city or to our community. Before approving the zoning, we would respectfully ask that the council require clear answers to several fundamental questions. Number one, what commercial and retail uses would the presumed and proposed zoning permit. Would future commercial tenants be able to operate the property without another public hearing or rezoning? What protections are in place for the residential neighborhoods adjoining the property? How will access and emergency access be addressed? How will lighting, noise, security, hours of operation be controlled? And how will storm water and runoff be managed as additional buildings and are all developed here. What guarantees exist that the property will remain consistent with the community campus concept that has been presented? We believe that these questions deserve answers before rather than after the zoning has been approved. So we respectfully ask the council to pause or deny the approval of the rezoning until these questions and concerns have been adequately addressed and the surrounding community can have confidence that this zoning that is being granted is appropriate for this location.

Okay. Thanks.

Ma'am, I would just encourage you, uh, for any of your neighbors to make sure to come out to the plan commission next month, Ross. Uh, at the next plan commission meeting as well. Okay. Yeah. Uh, and hopefully we'll have some of those answers for you.

Any other public comments? And I think the timer is misfunctioning a little bit, but.

I'm Zach Cho at 7402 Northfield Boulevard. Tonight I want to talk about flock and the broader use of mass surveillance technologies. I'm an IT professional doing a mixture of software development and cybersecurity work. In cybersecurity, there's a saying, if it's not, It's not if you'll be compromised, but when. This saying is particularly important when collecting data. You want to minimize what you collect so when you're compromised, it isn't as bad and your liability isn't as high. Mass surveillance is all about scooping all that data up, license plate data, photos of people, cars, pedestrians, kids, pets, et cetera. Combine that with the time and the level of detail at every flock camera, and flock becomes a very compelling target. All you have to do is get access to flock and its systems, and then from there, you have access to a ton of sensitive data. And it's only a matter of time when flock gets breached. In late 2025, a well-known security researcher, GainSec, informed Flock that there were significant security vulnerabilities in the hardware and platform that Flock uses, or uses in phishers. That's a lot of sensitive data about anyone driving or just walking around phishers. Flock takes those reports and supposedly fixes those issues They then issue a press release saying that they fixed it. But even if they didn't fix it, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Fast forward to a week or so ago, there was another publicized hack of Flock where hackers were able to obtain Flock software and share it. GameSec was able to get a hold of that software and review the updated software to see if the vulnerabilities have actually been fixed. GainSec found that a lot of the same vulnerabilities still persist in the updated software. This is a security company that can't be bothered to address security issues. Our tax dollars shouldn't be going to a security company that can't prioritize security. This is also a company that can't prioritize safety. They can't be bothered to install their cameras on breakaway posts in the city of Fishers. So not only can they not do basic cybersecurity, they're actively creating a risk for everyone who happens to be around those cameras. I recommend the city take the following actions. Immediately sever ties with block, remove the cameras as they are safety hazards, and then evaluate whether or not ALPR technology is appropriate going forward. Thank you.

Thanks. Any other questions?

Hello, my name is Kyle Venoni. I live at 15537 Kingsway Street, actually a resident of Westfield, but I'm here tonight to thank the city of Fishers. Back in 1997, I lost my mom to breast cancer and I've been fighting and fundraising for Susan G. Komen ever since then. A lady came up to me at the 2016, More Than Pink Walk, Susan G. Komen said, thank you for all you do for Susan G. Komen and for the money that you raise. I was able to tap into those funds to detect my breast cancer, treat my breast cancer, and beat my breast cancer. I'm now cancer free. And those are some of the most powerful words that anybody's ever said to me. So in 2017, I started an official 501c3 charity of my own, Tour de Komen. It's a 100-mile bike ride from Fishers, Indiana, to Terre Haute. I did live in Northfield Estates in Fishers, Indiana for 10 years. And in 2017, when we started that, it was just seven cyclists, including myself, out of my garage that started it. And this past Saturday, we celebrated our 10th anniversary. We started right here, right across the street from the fire station. And we had 75 cyclists this year. So I want to thank the city of Fishers for supporting us. The police for escorting us out of Fisher safely and into Carmel and all the other police escorts, so on and so forth to keep us safe all the way. I'd ask for your continued support, but also a growing partnership so that we can continue to raise more funds and save more lives. So thank you.

Thanks. All right, any other community comment or I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.