Tuesday's meetings

The Jasper County Historical Society held its monthly meeting at the Rensselaer Library on Tuesday evening. The focus of the meeting was Charles Halleck and his legacy and the topic was chosen because the Library recently received several boxes of documents and tapes from Henry Scheele, who wrote a biography of Halleck. Indiana University, where Halleck was a student, has his papers, but the collection of material from Mr Scheele has information that is available nowhere else. The Library plans to digitize the written material and to transfer the audio tapes (much of it is old reel-to-reel) to a digital format. The plan is to put most of it on the Internet.

The meeting had a big attendance because Paul Norwine's students from KV attended. Mr Norwine was the individual who gave Mr Scheele the suggestion that the Rensselaer Library would be a good home for the material. (A video of the presentation is here.)

The County Council also met on Tuesday evening, though an hour later than the Halleck meeting. It also had a big attendance as the KV students got to see what happens at a Council meeting. First up was Sheriff Risner who requested an additional appropriation for Hepatitis B inoculations for his department. This issue had been discussed at the previous Council meeting. He also reported that "gray death", a mixture of drugs including carfentanil, an opioid used to tranquilize large animals. There are currently about 75 inmates at the jail, seven of whom are serving sentences under the new Indiana law that keeps minor offenders in county jails rather in state prisons.

Community Corrections had asked the Commissioners to approve hiring one full time person rather than four part-time, but since that meeting there has been a part-time applicant and if the applicant is hired, Corrections will not seek to hire full-time.

The Coroner wanted funds transferred to allow purchase of two very expensive radios. A council member asked why the radios were so expensive and was told that they had a great many features that were useful to law enforcement and emergency responders that are not on regular cell phones or radios. Plus, the government buys them so that makes them more expensive.

Next the Council reviewed tax abatements. The only company with a representative present was Wilson. They currently are seeking truck drivers and that is a difficult market. Wilson needs long-haul truckers who carry hazardous cargo and who sometimes must be away from home over the weekend. Because there are many opportunities for truck drivers, the market is very competitive. The Council will decide abatements at their next meeting.

At the close of the meeting a lady from Candlewood Subdivision near DeMotte wanted to know what could be done about the noise of traffic coming off I-65. She was given guidance on how to bring the matter before the Commissioners.