August year end

1

The two front entrances to Clark-Pleasant Intermediate School were closed, due to construction along Sheek Road. A shared access road leading to the intermediate school and Clark-Pleasant Middle School was clogged with traffic, especially during drop-off and pickup times.

Nearly 75 percent of houses in Greenwood were entry-level homes, worth $100,000 to $150,000, and the city wanted more higher-priced homes to balance the options available. The city council wanted homes with price tags of $300,000 and up, with larger lot sizes and materials like brick or stone.

3

Businesses on Madison Avenue in Greenwood and Jefferson Street in Franklin had to change the way their customers and patients got to their buildings with construction on both roads. They used banners and social medial to combat issues related to customers being unable to find them.

4

Two Johnson County sheriff’s deputies were cleared in a shooting. On July 9, the officers began looking for Daryll Hedges after his former girlfriend called police saying that she was getting threatening text messages and that Hedges had access to weapons. Police shot him after a confrontation at a southside park.

The City of Greenwood was awarded a $400,000 grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs to help cover the cost of restoration on 22 downtown buildings.

5

One of the wettest summers on record in central Indiana resulted in lagging crop growth and widespread losses in farmers’ fields. Wet weather delayed planting of row crops in the spring, and the continuing rain drowned fields. Johnson County is one of 53 Indiana counties requesting to be declared agricultural disasters.

6

A van traveling from Illinois crashed on Interstate 65 near a construction zone, killing a Chicago man who was thrown from the vehicle. The van was traveling from Chicago to Kentucky and was heading south on I-65 near Franklin when it ran off the side of the road and rolled over, killing the man and injuring seven other people in the van.

7

The city of Greenwood shut down a project that garnered hundreds of complaints, caused a gas leak that shut down Smith Valley Road and left homes without water for several hours after crews hit a water main. Metronet, a high-speed Internet company, began a project to install fiber optic cables in several Greenwood neighborhoods, as they had done in other communities across Johnson County.

8

A woman was arrested on a charge of prostitution after Greenwood police noticed that Golden Spa, at 191 U.S. 31, was open without filing any massage permits with the city. Undercover officers set up an appointment to get a massage. The masseuse — Zhi Huang, who was living at the business — gave an undercover officer a massage and touched his genitals, police said.

10

Patients of Franciscan St. Francis Health-Indianapolis got frustrated at the delay and lack of information they were given regarding a data breach affecting their personal information. The overwhelming volume of callers to a hotline and credit-monitoring service resulted in problems for local residents affected by the breach.

11

Rain caused decreases in the number of children served lunches by schools over the summer. Clark-Pleasant served about 3,000 fewer children than the year before.

12

With the construction zones stretching for miles on Interstate 65, motorists were frustrated at their commute times. Repeated accidents snarled traffic and killed and injured motorists and their passengers. State officials said construction wasn’t the only issue causing accidents and implored motorists to slow down and pay attention.

13

Parents supported a redistricting plan proposed by Clark-Pleasant schools to move more than 1,300 students to other schools and change Clark-Pleasant Intermediate School into an elementary school.

14

A police chase from Bargersville to the Center Grove area that reached 100 mph ended when the vehicle struck a home in the Windsong neighborhood. Three people were arrested.

15

The man police called the mastermind behind a southside explosion that killed a Greenwood teacher and her husband was sentenced to life without parole. A judge ordered the sentence for Mark Leonard, saying he was the main person behind the November 2012 blast that killed the couple next door and destroyed or damaged more than 80 homes.

Center Grove was planning to add a $10 million, 60,000-square-foot athletics fieldhouse, where teams and clubs can practice and compete indoors, that would be twice the size and cost of the facilities at other high schools in the county.

17

The state put up signs every mile along Interstate 65 for at least 3 miles directing motorists to a split in traffic due to construction. But motorists said they struggled to see the signs in the median or on the side of the road and due to backed-up traffic blocking the signs.

18

Police were investigating whether a serial flasher was at work in Johnson County after police received at least five reports of a man in a truck exposing himself to women. A Greenwood woman told police she was riding her bike near State Road 37 and County Line Road when a man in a white truck with a camper shell followed her from a gas station into her neighborhood and exposed himself, the fifth report of indecent exposure involving a man and a pickup truck.

19

A man who was convicted of bilking local investors was ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution in a civil lawsuit. A judge ordered Parry Clark to repay the money to investors from Johnson County. In 2014, Clark pleaded guilty to four felony fraud charges and was sentenced to four years in prison and six years on probation and to pay $1.7 million to his investors.

20

A Martinsville man who is a registered sex offender and had been arrested multiple times was arrested in a recent indecent exposure case. Justin M. Wagers was arrested on a charge of indecent exposure after a woman riding her bike said a man followed her from a gas station and into her Center Grove area neighborhood.

21

New construction crews were working in Greenwood neighborhoods to clean up the mess left behind when new Metronet fiber optic lines were installed. They filled holes that were dug in yards, put down new grass seed and got rid of the tubing that has been sticking up out of yards.

22

Center Grove moved forward with a plan to build a fieldhouse that could be used for sports, academic teams and other extracurricular activities. School board members approved spending $10 million on the 59,500-square-foot student activity center, which is one of the first steps in building the facility.

24

A $672,000 project would give Clark-Pleasant Middle School and Whiteland Community High School the technology needed so that all students could have their own devices in class, like students at Center Grove, Edinburgh, Indian Creek and Franklin already do. But officials weren’t sure yet how they would pay for devices.

25

Police suspected a man arrested on indecent exposure charges was linked to four cases, were investigating four others and believed even more likely had happened. In each case, women said a man exposed himself to them and then left. Justin Wagers was arrested and connected to at least one incident.

26

After hitting a clerk in the head with a hammer and stealing cash and cigarettes from a Franklin gas station, a homeless woman fell asleep on a relative’s porch two blocks away. Elizabeth Bower, who had been living in a Franklin park, was charged with interfering with reporting a crime and robbery with injury.

Police continued searching for the man who led officers on a high-speed chase through the Center Grove area, damaging crops and putting schools on lockdown.

27

Heather Waterman-Huneycutt, a 2011 graduate of Franklin College who competed in the cross-country national championship, died after the motorcycle she was driving struck a tree in Harnett County, North Carolina, near Fayetteville.

28

Greenwood was looking at hiring three firefighters and three police officers. Franklin wanted to hire one police officer. But before that can happen, city officials have to approve spending the money. In Greenwood, that likely would require cutting other spending, officials said.

Greenwood officials set strict building standards for parts of the city, including the new interchange on Interstate 65 and along State Road 135. Officials wanted to ban fast-food restaurants, multiple gas stations and rest stops from the Worthsville interchange.

29

Police were investigating a death in a Greenwood apartment complex where shots were fired and were searching for a man seen running from the scene. Officers were called to Park Greenwood Apartments, just off U.S. 31 south of Fry Road.

Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers wanted to spend more money on a lobbyist with two goals in mind: gaining legislative approval for an increased food and beverage tax and getting grants to make railroad crossings safer.

31

Construction was delayed on a 50,000-square-foot indoor sports facility with outdoor softball and baseball diamonds in Bargersville. The project, which would be used for baseball tournaments and softball leagues, was planned on a 45-acre site near State Road 135 and Two Cent Road.