Surprises at the City Council meeting

In the last post, the 5K race on Saturday was identified as the Santa Shuffle. That was the old name; it was changed, if I remember correctly, to the Rudolph Run when people who had trademarked the name Santa Shuffle complained. I am surprised no one corrected me on that.

I did not expect much from the City Council meeting on Monday night because the agenda was short and routine. However, there were two items that surprised me. A person from Zing or TV Cable said that the Filson family wanted to sell their cable and Internet business to NITCO. The reason that this came to the City Council is that Zing leases access to City utility poles and for a merger to take place, the City has to be OK with switching the leasing partner.

NITCO is headquartered in Hebron and has a old Rensselaer connection. The first wires that were strung that eventually became Nitco were strung by Abraham Halleck, father of Charles Halleck. Both Abraham and Charles are buried in Weston Cemetery.

I would write more on this merger if I knew more. It will be interesting to see how this affects TV cable and Internet customers in Rensselaer and Morocco.

The other item that surprised me came near the end of the meeting when the various superintendents were commenting. Building inspector Kenny Haun said that the City had gone to Court and received permission to tear down the old Grandma's Kitchen building that is falling apart west of I-65. It is not in City boundaries, but there is a buffer zone around the City that the City regulates. Haun asked for and received permission to spend up to $35,000 to complete the demolition. He will be seeking bids for the job and the funding will not come from the City general fund but from some fund his office has. It was noted that pieces of the roof sometimes blow off and create a traffic hazard. The Rensselaer Republican headlined its Tuesday edition with this story.

I will write later about other things that happened at the City Council meeting.

The Library has several Christmas trees on display. People can vote for their favorite tree by leaving food donations for the food pantry. It seemed that the TOPS tree was ahead of the other three trees that are pictured below. TOPS stands for Taking Off Pounds Sensibly. Maybe the members are donating their food rather than eating--is that a sensible way to take off pounds?

I peeked in the old fire station on Monday morning and was surprised that the workers had removed the concrete floor. The floor was a problem because it was poured on top of the rubble of the old National Guard building and as the rubble settled, air pockets developed. I had thought that the air pockets would not be a problem for the new use as a police station.

Also there are two dumpsters at the site, one for concrete and the other for everything else.

By the way, the metal strips that were pictured a few posts back are bristles from the street sweeper brushes.