Some odds and ends

Rensselaer has begun construction of a decorative facade for the city parking lot on Front Street. It will, when done, resemble the city parking lot facade at Washington and Front.

Today (Wednesday) CSX tore up the Jefferson Street rail crossing, so Jefferson is no longer one of the streets you can use to cross the railroad tracks.

Jasper County Commission of Public Records met on Wednesday morning. It normally meets only once a year and its job is to approve the destruction of paperwork that various government entities accumulate. Some paper work is on a retention schedule, which means that the state requires that it be destroyed after a number of years. Whatever is not on a retention schedule needs approval before it is destroyed. The Commission managed to get a quorum--apparently some people who are supposed to sit on it never come--and then reviewed requests from entities such as the City of Rensselaer, the City of Demotte, the Jasper County Public Library, the Hanging Grove Trustee, the Sheriff's Department, and various county offices. The documents that are approved for shredding are things like old work schedules, canceled checks, claims, and paperwork that offices generate in their day-to-day business. After receiving approval by the Commission, the requests are sent to the state where they are reviewed and either approved or sent back with the request for more information. It was not an exciting meeting and now having been to one, I have no need to ever go to another.

The court house tree is now an Easter/Spring tree. It has a bunny for the top decoration.

The campaign for city offices has begun, with the primary election on May 5. Signs for Rick Williams and Russ Overton have sprouted in many lawns--the two are running for the Republican nomination for mayor. If you do not want to wait until May 5 to vote, you can go to the court house and vote early. After the meeting discussed above, I asked the ladies at the voting booth how many people had voted this morning and they said, "One."

On Monday evening I attended my first park board/park corporation meeting of 2015. It took a while to figure out what was going on--if you only attend occasional meetings, you do not know the context because most meetings are just continuations of conversations from past meetings. The main focus was the lack of consensus among various parties about what what should be built at Brookside Park. Those who control money (not the park board) want to build something that is first class and will make the community proud. Those who do not control the money (the park board) are worried that if too much is spent on one project, there will be no funds to pursue other projects. There is a meeting scheduled on April 16 at 4:30 in City Hall where various important people will meet and try to hammer out some agreements.

The current art exhibit at the Fendig Gallery is the annual SJC Faculty/Senior Exhibit. Since the gallery is only open on Tuesdays from noon until 4:00, not many people have seen it.

If you want to see it, your only chance, other than arranging a private showing, will be to attend the closing reception on April 11 from 7:00 until 9:00.