Uncommon and more

The topic of the Jasper County Historical Society meeting on Tuesday evening was "Uncommon Jasper County." Included as uncommon were things that could be considered unusual, rare, unexpected, unfamiliar, odd, curious, or extraordinary. "Uncommon Jasper County" is also the current exhibit that highlights, among other things, the Chicago Bears Training Camp (1944-1974), the Miniature Train Company (1932-1956), sandhill cranes, Gehring Farms that at one time was the largest spearmint producer in the U.S., the Gifford Railroad, actors Dwiggins (40+ movies), Phillips (134 movies), and Jennings (1 movie), and the RMD track meet that began in 1915 and still continues.

I found results for the third RMD meet on the Internet. It continues to surprise me what can be found on the Internet.

Below is the poster for the bowstring truss bridge. It is the only surviving one of its type in Indiana. It originally spanned Carpenter Creek near Remington, then the Iroquois upstream from Laird's Landing, and now is in the middle of Rensselaer.

In the business part of the meeting, chinking days were announced. These are three days when volunteers are welcomed to come to the fairgrounds and help chink the log cabin. 

I did not stay to the end of the meeting because I wanted to attend the Jasper County Council meeting. I expected a short meeting based on the agenda. It lasted almost two hours.

The Coroner gave the Council pages of reading material and the issue of per diem allowances was left for the next meeting. The Sheriff had three items of additional appropriations. One was for jail overtime, needed because a couple of inmates had been hospitalized and that required guards at the hospital. A second was for the part-time kitchen help fund, which was caused by medical problems of a cook and the need to fill her schedule. A third involved a squad car that was totaled when it hit a pothole. The car was old and the transaction had something to do with the account into which the insurance settlement was placed. 

There was a discussion about the request from Tri-County Schools for a SRO (school resource officer). The position would be 75% funded by the school corporation with the other 25% split between White and Jasper Counties. The details of how the 25% will be split are not yet worked out. There followed a long discussion of the pension fund for the department. Currently the pension plan has 38 participants, 15 drawing the pension and the other 23 paying into it. The plan is currently underfunded according to actuarial tables. Several Council members voiced concerns that the underfunding problems seem to be getting worse with time. At the end of the meeting, in the public comments, the issue of the pension came up again. The plan has been assuming a much greater rate of growth of assets than it has been achieving, which is why the underfunding problem has been getting worse even though the amount that the County has been paying into it keeps increasing. Currently the program is doing OK but the underfunding raises questions about the future. Ultimately the problem is that the plan is a defined benefit program and most of the private sector has moved to a defined contribution program. 

Next up was the director of Emergency Management, Karen Wilson. She had obtained a State grant for $100,000 that was used to purchase two-way radios for several fire departments and a police department. The grant was a reimbursement grant, that is, it would reimburse the County for bills paid. She needed an additional appropriation of $100,000 to pay for the equipment so she could submit the payments for reimbursement.

Commissioner Culp then updated the Council on various things that the Commissioners had been doing. He reported that Hamstra had been awarded the contract to remodel the former PNC building and had begun work. There are lots of little issues and problems coming up but the expectation is that the offices currently in the annex will be moved before the end of the year.

The Court House renovations are nearing completion. On Tuesday much of the installation of a second door to provide an airlock was completed. This will help with heating in the winter and cooling in the summer.

The work on Community Corrections is complete and has been showing good results. The problem was poor building design. At the next Commissioners meeting there will be a discussion of solar panels at the County Jail. The current idea is to install only enough to meet the base load of the jail. Because IMPA buys surplus power at about one half the rate that it charges for power, it does not make economic sense to build with the idea of selling excess power.

The Community Services has had new furnaces installed. The CCMG grant will be used on roads in subdivisions and most or all of that work will be contracted out. The Animal Shelter is raising money for a new building. Planning continues for the Rensselaer Downtown project. Some of the project envisions changes to County-owned properties. Various NIPSCO issues are taking a lot of Commissioner time and energy. There is a dispute about property valuation between the County and NIPSCO that is ongoing. Officials at the State level are aware of the problems that the closing will have on Jasper County. An estimate of the tax loss is $4 million. Other utilities seem also to be planning to reduce their use of coal. A reason that NIPSCO is not shutting down its coal plants before 2023 is that they need to have more capacity in transmission lines and they are currently working on that. NIPSCO is busy lining up wind power because in 2021 the current subsidies or tax credits are scheduled to expire. It costs about $1 million per mile to connect to the grid, which is a reason that Kankakee Township appealed to the solar farm developer.

The recent electronics recycling day was a huge success in the north, with three semi trailer trucks filled. FEMA has or will award Jasper County a large grant for Kankakee River stabilization. There is a match to it and it reimburses, so there will be issues with financing. SJC does not want to drop the covenant on the Youth Center; they want to control what happens to the property. SJC is still trying to repurpose itself and now seems to be thinking the way forward lies in education for agri-business. After the meeting one of the Councilmen told me that not everyone at SJC was happy at that direction because they still had not accepted that the College will never be as it once was. There has been a delay in replacing the culvert on SR 114 because the box culverts are not ready.

And to close on a lighter note, I smile every time I see this car. And every time I see it, it is a bit different. And most definitely uncommon.