Meanderings and Meetings

On Friday and Saturday evenings the Carnegie Players presented Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. The play is based on her most popular novel, which did not originally have the name And Then There Were None.

The play did not have the same ending as the novel.

Part of the scenery was a bear rug, something I have not seen in years.

A few days ago I found some statistics for the 2015 harvest. Corn production in Jasper County was especially hard hit, with an average yield per acre of 98.3 bushels per acre. In 2014 the yield was 174.2 bushels per acre. The damage from flooding was localized. Newton, Jasper, Pulaski, and Starke Counties had horrible yields, but Benton was only lightly affected and Warren to its south seemed totally unaffected. There is a map in this publication that shows yields. Soybean production was poor, but not nearly as poor as corn production. Jasper County will not be Indiana's leading agricultural county for 2015.

There was an interesting exchange on local taxes on the opinion pages of the Rensselaer Republican recently. On February 24 State Senator Hershman rather aggressively attacked Garrit DeVries for his role in cutting the county income tax. On March 2 DeVries responded with a defense of his position and an attack on the position held by Hershman. The issue of the Local Option Income Tax will be on the agenda for the next County Council meeting.

On Monday morning the other branch of county government, the Commissioners, met for their monthly meeting. On the agenda was a discussion for codifying the ordinances passed since 1983, the last time the ordinances were codified. At present, trying to find what the ordinances allow and prohibit is a bit of a chore because they are not organized. The Commissioners heard a presentation from a representative of a company based in Cincinnati that specializes in codifying county ordinances and has worked with about 50 Indiana Counties. For $8400 they would put the ordinances in a booklet, a CD, and online. That would not include the Unified Development Ordinance. For $495 per year they would keep the codification up-to-date. Included in that price would be suggestions for changes to eliminate contradictions with other ordinances and with state law. The discussion will continue at next month's meeting.

EMCOR gave a short presentation about the state of the climate control updates for the third floor of the court house. 95% of wiring is done and they think the whole project will be finished in three weeks.

The Commissioners approved a recommendation from the Planning Commission for a rezone and then discussed amendments to the UDO recommended by the Planning Commission. Almost all the discussion was on the setbacks of wind farms from Jasper-Pulaski, and the changes were approved with those setbacks held over for more discussion.

There were a few other items discussed, but this post is long enough. The rest can wait until tomorrow.