Carmel's new mayor-elect gets to work right away, with a surprise first decision

Republican Sue Finkam was always optimistic she’d win the Carmel mayor’s race, so she said it wasn’t a complete surprise when she handily beat Democrat Miles Nelson in Tuesday’s general election.

What was unexpected is that a top order of business as mayor-elect will be searching for a new top cop.

“Well, the first thing we have to do is hire a new police chief because ours is retiring, and crime prevention has been a big part of my platform,” she said of replacing Jim Barlow. “So, I’ll be making sure a chief is hired right out of the gate.”

Finkam's three terms on the City Council — where she earned a reputation as a policy wonk -— have prepared her well for just such executive decisions-by-fire, she and her colleagues say.

“She knows the nuts and bolts and ins and outs of government,” said former Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma, who worked closely with Finkam as a lawyer on the wonkiest of issues when Carmel switched to a second-class city and redrew council district maps.

Fellow Councilor Jeff Worrell said Finkam welcomes the tough calls.

“She was great on the council and asked questions no one else would think to ask,” Worrell said. “And then she would offer a solution.”

When Finkam takes office as mayor

The police chief search will be folded into Finkam’s transition planning, which she said starts Wednesday. She’ll have 53 days until she moves into the third-floor mayor’s office at Carmel City Hall on Jan. 1.

Melded into the early planning will be input from residents, she said, which will be a new approach for a city that had the same mayor for 28 straight years.

“We going to infuse the voice of Carmel residents in the administration in a different way,” Finkam said. “We want to get their voices into the transition as soon as possible.”

Finkam said she will seek outgoing Mayor Jim Brainard’s help in the transition. In the campaign she said she would continue growth and development in the same vein that Brainard charted to make it into one of the country’s most livable suburbs. At the same time, she’s got some of her own ideas.

“I think he will be supportive in our transition, but I’m a different kind of leader with a different kind of vision,” Finkam said. “I want to build on what he’s done and not necessarily replace what he has done.”

Conservative with Carmel's money

Finkam has indicated she would be more fiscally conservative than Brainard, who earned a reputation as a free spender on big-ticket projects that ballooned the city’s debut obligation, such as the Center for the Performing Arts and Midtown redevelopment.

“We need to talk about fiscal responsibility and excellence,” she said. “The next 10 years will not look like the last 10 as far as our financial situation just because the market is different.”

In her first year in office, and possibly longer, Finkam said she will push for “zero-based budgeting,” in which city departments justify their entire budgets before the council and mayor approve them, rather than using the previous year’s budget as a starting point. She said it is a common practice in the private sector.

And because of legislative changes decreasing Carmel’s share of the local option income tax, she might insist on some spending reductions to pay the city’s $1.5 billion in debt on time.

If the new mayor wants to slow Brainard’s economic roll a bit, that’s fine with Barb Freuchter, a 38-year city resident who attended Finkam’s election night watch party at Carmel Fire Buffs and Fire Department Museum in Midtown.

“I think she will keep Carmel grounded and keep it the small town it is supposed to be,” Freuchter said. “Brainard got a little crazy.”

Healing needed after divisive campaign

Finkam moved to Carmel in 2007 so her son could enter Carmel schools in kindergarten, and she was involved in civic groups before running for council in 2012. Those attachments made her protective of the city and during her victory speech Tuesday she decried the "nasty" tenor of the mayor's race. Nelson on several occasions pressed Finkam to denounce a far-right group, Moms for Liberty, that posted a Hitler quote.

Finkam criticized the quote but not the group, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an extremist organization. She said she was hurt most by the harm it caused to the city’s reputation.

“I thought this campaign would be about the best way to lead Carmel but it turned into something louder, nastier and negative when my opponent attacked me and put Carmel in a negative national light,” she said. “But rather than run a divisive campaign I decided to put Carmel and its people first, and run with integrity and clarity of vision.”

Nelson, the first Democrat elected to the Carmel City Council in 2019, garnered 42.2% of the vote. He said he knew his candidacy was an uphill battle in the Republican-dominated suburb in Hamilton County.

“The city’s just not ready yet, but I think we have certainly moved the needle and set up opportunities for the future,” Nelson said.

Finkam said repairing any divisiveness among the electorate unearthed by the acrimonious campaign will be part of her transition plan.

“We must come together for Carmel’s future,” she said.

Elisa Gordon, 33, attended the watch party with her husband, Daniel, 38, and their two small children.

Owners of a local insurance company, the Gordons moved to Carmel three years ago because of the the high standard of living, they said.

“We love the roundabouts, the low taxes and good schools and she will keep it that way,” Elisa Gordon said. “In New York, where we came from, it was the opposite. High taxes, bad schools.”

IndyStar reporter Brittany Carloni contributed to this report.

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418 or email him at john.tuohy@indystar.com. Follow him on Facebook and X/Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Sue Finkam, elected Carmel mayor Tuesday, already has a problem to fix