Reflections

I have spent the last few weeks since the Fishers City Council election reflecting on the results of that election, and lessons to be learned from it.  In no particular order, here are some of them.

• I got votes from about 40% of those who voted, a very respectable showing for a Democrat. But despite my fiscal conservatism on local financial issues, some people only vote for Republicans, period, and paid too little attention to the very real financial issues related to our overuse of TIF financing and rapidly rising debt.  
• It is exhausting to be a candidate, physically and mentally.  That is doubly true when you are the only candidate of your party on the ballot. 
• Voter turnout in non-Presidential elections, especially for city offices, is nothing short of horrible, and it has been getting worse.  I have heard all sorts of ideas about why this is so, including blaming the one-party nature of local politics to voters simply not understanding why local government is important. I will do my small part about the problem, but even my Republican friends don't understand this. Is it apathy, futility, ignorance of local government, or something else? 
• Democratic Party involvement is probably part of the solution, but the problem there is two-fold, both at the bottom where too few people want to do the hard grassroots work to make it happen, and at the top, where there is a lack of resources, training, communication, and involvement. If Democrats could somehow get their act together, it would drive more citizen involvement in the process. 
• As an alternative to the comment above, I could support non-partisan local elections for mayors and city councils. If there is a Republican or a Democratic position on most local issues, I have yet to see it. It's hard to put a party label on a road construction project. And the stereotype about Democrats being big spenders is just false.  In Hamilton County, the big spenders are all Republicans. But not all of them support that. 
• Both Democrats and Republicans need to learn to talk to each other in a civil manner and be able to work together for common cause. CityYes was a great example of how citizens could put aside party label for a shared vision. 
• Fishers still needs to pass a human rights ordinance. I have no faith in the State doing this right any time soon.
• Fishers also needs to pass a version of an ethics ordinance and campaign finance reform to limit special interests who do business with the City from essentially buying access to city government via large campaign donations. 

I will continue to speak out and write about matters that concern me.  Although I do not expect to write any more posts for this blog, please follow my Hamilton County Politics blog, which also posts to Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to follow it, and me.  Thanks to everyone who supported and worked for me, words cannot express how much I appreciate it. 

The First Fishers City Council Election

Tomorrow, November 4, 2014, the voters of Fishers will go to the polls to elect their very first CITY council.  This has been a long time coming, and was over the determined opposition of those in Town Hall, who did everything possible to delay, obstruct, and defeat the City referendum which passed in 2012.

But tomorrow's election is only for a ONE year term. This only lasts until NEXT year, 2015, when Fishers goes on the regular municipal election cycle again and elects Mayor, City Clerk, and City Council for a full 4-year term.

Why is that?  A little history is in order.  CityYes was formed in 2008, with me as its first chair, to promote the change to a city.  In May 2010, the day before the primary, we submitted our petitions asking for the referendum to be held in the November 2010 general election.  But at that time, the Town Council had total control over when to schedule the referendum.  So what did they do?  They created a "merger" process to create a "fake city" with an unelected/appointed figurehead "mayor" and stalled the referenda (there were now two, one for the city, one for the "merger") to November 2012.

Remember the black on yellow "Don't Be Tricked" signs?  Well they worked, and the merger went down in flames, defeated nearly 2-1 and the City referendum passed by a healthy margin.  I am proud of the work I did with CityYes in making sure the will of the people was heard.

But if the referendum had passed in 2010, we would have had our first City election in 2011 for a full four year term and these races this year for mayor and council would not be happening.

So, if you don't like that, and NONE of the current council members supported the City referendum, then I ask for your vote tomorrow, for that and many other reasons.  Remember, I fought HARD for the will of the people to be heard, and I will continue to do so if elected to the City Council.

Remember, always remember....

DON'T BE TRICKED!