By AARON SMITH
Guest Columnist
Early on a brisk Saturday in downtown Noblesville, two dumpsters caught fire in an alley behind one of the oldest buildings on the Square.
It’s the kind of sentence that makes your stomach drop when you live nearby. That building has stood since 1880. It has outlasted different owners, recessions, and the constant churn of modern life. Bluntly, it exists today because people before us chose to preserve it – and because, in this moment, a downtown resident noticed something wasn’t right.
They made the call, and within minutes the Noblesville Police and Fire Departments were there. The fire was contained. The building was spared. The sun came up and life went on.
It’s tempting to chalk that up to good fortune, but it wasn’t. It was consistent investment.
In Noblesville, we place a high value on public safety. In our most recent budget, more than half is dedicated to police, fire, and emergency services so that when something goes wrong on an otherwise quiet December morning, our firefighters are able to respond – quickly and professionally.
That capacity exists because our community has consistently chosen to fund it. It’s also why conversations about local government funding deserve more nuance than they often receive.
Local government isn’t a private business, nor should it be run like one. Guardrails matter. Indiana’s constitutional tax caps are important, and I support them. They protect taxpayers and force discipline, as they should. Those limits are part of what makes Indiana fiscally sound.
The conversation that ultimately led to SEA-1 began in that same spirit: how do we ensure government lives within reasonable thresholds while respecting taxpayers? In practice, SEA-1 reshapes how local services are funded, especially in growing communities.
But there’s a difference between discipline and bluntness. When reforms reduce local capacity without reflecting local realities, or remove tools that allow fast-growing cities like Noblesville to keep pace as population and service demand rise, the consequences don’t stay theoretical for long.
Noblesville is growing. With growth comes more calls for service, more emergencies, more responsibility. Fire protection, police coverage, and EMS response don’t scale neatly or slowly. They spike when you least expect them to. Removing mechanisms that recognize growth doesn’t reduce those demands; it simply makes meeting them harder.
At the same time, our community has made clear choices about what we value. In 2022, we passed an ordinance to protect historic buildings on and around the Square because we believe preservation matters. We invest in our downtown because it’s the heart of our city.
But as that morning showed, preservation without protection is incomplete.
Saving historic buildings isn’t just about preventing demolition. It’s about ensuring we have the people, training, and equipment to protect them when something goes wrong – whether that’s a storm, an accident, or a fire in an otherwise quiet alley.
I’m not trying to unwind decisions made at the Statehouse. Here at home, we’re already making difficult choices in response. Noblesville is one year into a multi-year budget tightening process that reduces our budget by just under $9 million each year. Starting next year, we will end the Federal Hill ice skating rink. We’ve delayed projects like roundabouts on the east and west sides of Noblesville – right where growth is headed. And we’re stretching the time between road repaving cycles across our community.
Tradeoffs are required. But with a gap measured in the tens of millions over the coming years, the real question is whether communities like ours will still have the flexibility to fund the priorities that matter most to the people who live here.
As state leaders consider tweaks in the session ahead, I hope they recognize that moments like this reveal local funding isn’t abstract. It isn’t a line item on a spreadsheet or a talking point in a campaign mailer. Sometimes, it’s the difference between a close call and a catastrophe. Between a building that stands for another century and one that doesn’t make it through the night.
That morning, things worked the way they were supposed to. A neighbor noticed. First responders arrived. History was preserved.
That’s not something we should take for granted. It’s something we should protect – thoughtfully, responsibly, and with the understanding that strong communities depend on the ability to fund local priorities.
Aaron Smith serves on the Noblesville City Council representing District 3.