Two short meetings

Tonight's City Council was very short--it was over in about 15 minutes. The most interesting bit was in the administrative comments with a discussion of the Internet/TV Cable outage on Saturday. (Must have been tough for people wanting to watch football.) The farmer farming a field at SJC cut the TV Cable feed. It was in the same trench as a city power line that is 30 inches below grade. The TV cable line had to be at least a foot away from that cable. It was less than 20 inches below grade, and apparently a lot less than 20 inches. The mayor said that TV Cable will probably have to do a separate trench so they can get their cable deeper.

A couple recommendations from the ad hoc insurance committee were approved. The Council chose a dental/vision insurance provider and opted to continue continue funding employee Health Savings Plans at $1500. The tax laws will not affect that until 2018. 

The water will be shut off in Weston Cemetery this week and the Street Department would like to remind residents to separate piles of leaves from piles of branches to make life easier for those picking up leaves and branches.

City elections are almost upon us. There are three contested elections.  Steve Wood and Russell Overton are running for mayor.  In Ward 3 George Cover is being challenged by Todd Luddington. In Ward 4 Ernest Watson is being challenged by Richard Comingore.  At-large Councilman Scott Barton and Ward 1 Councilman William Hollerman are unopposed, as is Rich Odle who is running to fill the Ward Two seat now held by Russell Overton. Frieda Bretzinger is unopposed for the Clerk-Treasure position.

Forty five minutes later the monthly BZA meeting convened in the Court House. The only item on the agenda was for a meteorological tower in Carpenter Township. It would assess wind resources for a possible wind farm. The project is in a very early development stage and, if I heard the presenter correctly, it is being considered by a group that has done one of the White County wind farms. It will be a temporary structure 298 feet tall and will have an expected life of 4 years. This duration caused some discussion by Board members because the county code only allows 18 months for a meteorological tower. The variance was approved but the Board noted that in 18 months the owners would need to come back and apply for an extension.

The Court House Tree on the second floor now has its Halloween decorations.

The Fall Sports season for RCHS came to a close this past weekend. The team that did the best was the band team (marching band), which placed 6th of 14 according to today's Rensselaer Republican. Last year they also made it to the state finals but finished 14 of 14. There are two classes in the state competition and obviously Rensselaer competed in the one for smaller bands/schools. (The band's Facebook page is here.)

Over the weekend I stopped by the quarry again and there is now very little equipment left at the bottom. A picture in this post show what used to be there.