New PA, mining, solar, and walls

On Monday Jacob Taulman was sworn in as Prosecuting Attorney. His stay in office will be brief, only a couple weeks. In late November Christine Haskell Bogen resigned. The governor declared the office vacant and the Jasper County Republican Committee met to name a replacement to fill the remainder of her term. It was no surprise that they chose Mr Taulman, who won the election in November. He will serve the remainder of Mrs. Bogen's term and in about a week will be sworn in for the full term that he won in the election.

My camera had dust on the lens and it does not do well when there is bright light in the background. Judge Potter swore him in on Monday morning.

During his term the prosecutor's office will move from its present quarters in the former REMC building to new space in the former PNC building.

On Monday evening both the Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeal and Plan Commission met. The BZA had only one case, a variance for sand mining. The petitioner, who is from the Wheatfield area, wants to expand a pond from less than an acre to four or five acres. That action is an allowed action under the code and does not need BZA approval. However, he would like to get rid of the sand that is removed, selling it to offset the cost of the pond. Selling sand is considered mining under the code, and that does require approval. He wants the pond to be 9 feet deep, which will require about 90,000 cubic yards of material to be moved. The Board discussed this issue for half an hour before finally approving it. One member of the audience stated that there were other people in the area who were mining sand with no permits and he thought it unfair that the BZA subjected the petitioner to the long, drawn-out hearing.

The only issue that the Plan Commission had was a proposed solar farm ordinance. The Commissioners had requested this ordinance because there are companies looking at Jasper County as a site to put solar farms. Mary Scheurich, Director of Planning and Development, had assembled the ordinance using ideas from ordinances from other counties. The members of the commission were reluctant to do anything with it. They referred back to their experiences with the Wind Farm Ordinance. In late 2016 they had approved changes to the ordinance based on input from wind farm companies. Then concerned citizens attacked that action by proposing a very different set of changes, and that led to hearings that had so many people attending that the meetings were moved to the Fairgrounds. Several members said that they needed to do more research.

There were representatives from two companies that are interested in building solar parks in Jasper County. I did not get the name of one of the companies, but they are at a very early stage and have no firm plans. The other was Orion Renewables, which develops both wind farms and solar parks. If I have the right company, they were the developers of the first Benton County wind farm and are currently working on a large solar farm in Spencer County, Indiana. They want to do a project in Kankakee Township and it sounded as if it was quite a large project. They said that even though once a solar  park is installed, it uses virtually no local labor, there are economic benefits to the community in addition to the tax revenues. Many companies want to be located near renewable energy sources, so having solar in the County would make the County more attractive for certain kinds of businesses.

The Plan Commission voted to set up a technical committee to research the subject. The next two meetings will be on the fourth Mondays of the month because of holidays on the third Mondays (MLK and Presidents' Day). I am confident that this ordinance will not generate the widespread public opposition that the revised Wind Farm ordinance did.

When I checked the Autumn Trace site on Monday morning, there were a lot of workers but nothing was happening. A day later a whole lot of walls are up.

Who knew that Strack and Van Til would be my one-stop Christmas shopping center. I am sure my grandkids will be very excited to get the presents I bought for them ;-)