Rain, rain, and more rain

The rains continue. The grass loves this weather.

On Wednesday the Park started filling the pool and it should open next week. Also on Wednesday the park got a new structure, a storage shed that sits on the concrete pad by the soccer field in Brookside Park.

I have noticed several bits of construction/destruction around town. Highway 114 was milled from Washington Street to Grace Street early this week. The railroad has made cuts in the pavement on their rail crossings so they are planning something. I peeked into the old Horton Building and saw that they have torn out the old plaster and lath. The house at 224 N Weston has been demolished. The property was purchased by the Methodist Church in February. Sayler Rentals is advertising the availability of new apartments and I suspect that these are the units that have been under construction on Elza Street.

I missed the first part of the City Council meeting on Tuesday because of a conflicting obligation. I arrived after the agenda items had been discussed and the discussion regarding the purchase by the City of 40+ acres near the waste water treatment plant was concluding. The City is buying this land for future water wells.  The Board of Works meeting that proceeded the Council meeting approved an employment offer for the Police Department for a person who currently is an officer at the County Jail. The Council vented their disapproval of the barricade on SR 114 that is near Brookside Park. The complaint is that forcing the westbound traffic into the eastbound lane creates a hazard.

After the meeting I heard that the rainy weather has delayed completion of the bridge or culvert replacement just to the east of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The crew needs lower water in the ditch before it can continue.

Jasper County Economic Development Organization announced a new director of tourism.

Indiana Dunes is now a national park. I suspect little will change but the new designation should make it more visible to potential visitors.

Odds and ends for the end of May

I had a quiet Memorial Day weekend. Summer seems to have finally arrived and I am late this year in doing the various things needed with the change in seasons.

I harvested some rhubarb from my back yard and noticed a rhubarb leaf that had its only mini-leaf growing from it. I do not recall seeing that before.

I visited the Farmers Market on Saturday and found only five vendors and none of them were selling garden produce. It is not too early for lettuce, radishes, and rhubarb. Maybe our wet weather has delayed planting of gardens as it has delayed farm planting.

I am trying to finish planting my garden before the weeds take over. Most of the fields around Rensselaer seem to still be unplanted. Some of them are full of yellow flowers that I believe are butterweed.

Late last week I went back to see the progress of the bridge replacement on SR 114 just east of I-65. The hole is much bigger. (You can see Kentucky Fried Chicken in the background.)

 Below is a view from a slightly different angle. I was hoping to see a new bridge or culvert that was partly constructed, not just a big hole.

 There are a couple of large pumps on the site. They may not be big enough for all the water in the ditch.

The data from the USGS water gauge on the Iroquois River shows that this has been a wet spring. Usually we are drying out by this time of the year but the trend is not down so far. The graph below shows the past 60 days. The little orange triangles show median flow and the blue shows what has happened this year.

On Saturday I noticed part of a tree down in Weston Cemetery. It was by the turn of the road near the top of the hill.

 Earlier in the week there was another large branch down and it had knocked over one of the tombstones. It was cleaned up by Saturday.

The Memorial Day ceremonies on Monday were well attended. The Mayor gave a nice speech.

I did not see any water in the pool on Monday and I have not seen any announcement for an opening date. However, the splash pad in Remington is now open for the season.

Stormy weather

A strong storm came through Rensselaer early on Thursday morning with almost constant lightning and strong winds. It knocked out power in many places, though I do think Newton County had more power out than Jasper County did. Many branches were down and a few trees. Below is a big one that was uprooted along Park Avenue. Utility crews from NITCO and others were on the scene cutting up the tree and repairing the lines.

We have had a wet, cold spring and the farmers are way behind schedule in planting. Unfortunately the forecast has more days of thunderstorms ahead. The cold spring is not confined to the midwest. My kids in Flagstaff and Nevada both have cold and snow this week.

I attended a couple meetings on Tuesday evening. JCEDO had its final Community Engagement Workshop, this one in Rensselaer. The attendance has been sparse in the other communities and this one also was lightly attended. In his introduction the director of JCEDO stated that the old view that people follow jobs is often not true anymore. Attracting employers who add jobs does not necessarily translate into more population. Now jobs often follow people. People chose where they want live based on the quality of life as they perceive it. As a result, JCEDO is concerned with making Jasper County and its communities better places to live. The workshop did some brainstorming on how that could be done.

As that meeting was concluding, an hour-long executive meeting of the Jasper County Council was finishing up. There was not mention during the regular meeting what had been discussed. The open meeting had a short and not-very-interesting agenda. The Council approved a payment amount for coroner deputy training. It approved a couple of small additional appropriations and then a series of much larger transfers for the highway department. They are needed for matching and spending the Community Crossings grant that the County uses to resurface County highways. Paving for those projects should start June 3. The Sheriff was asked if he had any comments and he remarked that the jail population has been a bit lower this year than last.

On Thursday morning INDOT was paving part of US 231 from Elm Street to Kellner.  Both the milling machine and the paver were in operation.

I asked the flagman how much of the road they were going to do but he did not know.

There are a couple of changes downtown. A new business, New Millennium Mortgage, has an office behind the Beaver Law Office on Van Rensselaer Street.

The space next to the Bakery is being remodeled and will soon be the home of Healthy Haven, a smoothie and juice bar. You can learn more from their facebook page.

In other downtown remodeling, the old Horton building is being totally gutted for a complete overhaul.

Wednesday was the last day of school for the local school corporation though some of the sports programs have not finished their seasons.

NIMBY rides again

On Monday evening the Jasper County BZA meeting attracted another standing-room-only crowd. The topic on the agenda was a special exception for the proposed Dunn's Bridge Solar Farm in Kankakee Township that Orion Renewable Energy Group LLC is planning. Orion brought at least six people to the meeting to make its case.

The project has been in the works for about three years. In 2018 I kept hearing rumors about it but it was not until December that the company appeared at a County meeting to discuss their plans. Since that time the County has put together a solar ordinance and granted the project a tax abatement. (See here, here, here, and here.) The Dunn's Bridge project will be approximately 2,500 acres but only 800 of those acres will have panels. Roughly 40 different families have made agreements with Orion for this project and most of them are local. The project is expected to generate about $25 million in tax revenues to Jasper County over its lifetime and about $35 million in revenues to landowners who are leasing land to Orion.

 The presentation began with a short summary about the company and the project. An item that I thought was interesting is that Orion will be building another wind farm close by, this one the 400 MW Jordan Creek project in Benton and Warren Counties.  The company then went through its findings of facts. (The BZA has a series of five items that it must vote on. It requests that the petitioner submit their rationale for why it meets the requirements of each item, such as whether the use is consistent with the comprehensive plan, is in harmony with adjacent land uses, etc.)

The project proposes planting native prairie plants between the rows of panels. They company argued that at the end of the project this use would result in better farm land because the land will have been idle for years. They also brought in a professional land assessor who did a study on the effects of solar farms on adjacent residential property values. He studied data from seven existing solar farms and could find no consistent effect on property values.

Then it was time for the the audience to comment. There were a variety of concerns raised but there were also a number of people, some who will lease land to Orion, who spoke in favor of the exception. Among concerns were noise from the motors that tilt the panels, effect on wildlife, danger of fires, leaching of toxic chemicals, the aesthetics ("I do not want to look at them—they are ugly"),  and worries about the safety of parts made in China. One speaker in favor was interrupted and heckled by another citizen despite the fact that the ground rules had made clear that there were to be no interruptions. The speaker got angry and started arguing with his heckler and both were escorted out by Court House security. That speaker apparently was renting land and he commented that he understood why the landowner wanted to lease to Orion, which would pay the landowner several times as much as what he paid as a renter. After the public had voiced its concerns, the Orion representatives were given a chance to respond to them.

Several people who lived in the area said that they had heard nothing about this project until a week or so ago. I found that both astounding and appalling and wonder how seriously the Board should take comments from people who admit that they pay no attention to what is happening. This topic has been heavily covered by the Kankakee Valley Post News.

After about two hours of the meeting, the Board, which had only three of its five members attending, voted to table the matter until its July 15 meeting. At that meeting there will be no public comments. The Board will discuss the matter and vote.

Miscellaneous Pictures

Tee ball and baseball games have begun in the parks.

 A walking trail has been cut out in the Staddon/Monnett park. It has an interesting circle in it. Soon the trail will get a layer of stone and after that it will be paved.

Rensselaer's first roundabout?

 Fencing for the new dog park has been installed.

On Saturday morning the annual running of the Chloe 5K started from the Fairgrounds and came through Brookside Park. When the runners and walkers arrived they got some musical encouragement from a Tri-County High School band and some water from the water station.

Later on Saturday the SJC Alumni had a Little 500 race at the fairgrounds. The race featured a huge trophy.

 There were six racers and the race was run in three segments. The track circled the area in which the carnival sets up during the County Fair.

 I noticed a new gazebo in near the livestock barns.

Last October I posted a picture showing the construction of the new office building  Here is the completed building.

 On Thursday a semi truck drove west on Jackson Street and then turned north on Abigail. On Abigail it hit the overhead lines and brought them down. The lines were not those of the electric utility but those of NITCO and CenturyLink.

Workers spent most of the rest of the day cleaning up and getting the lines off the road. On Friday a crew from the City replaced a utility pole that had been cracked. (The City owns the utility poles and CenturyLink and NITCO pay to use them.) More crews came and worked until after dark on Friday. There were more workers doing something with the lines on Saturday and today (Monday) a CenturyLink crew was doing something with the line.

Medical news

The Walk with a Doc program sponsored by Franciscan Health meets every Tuesday afternoon at 5:00. The program starts with a short talk by a medical professional and then participants walk a mile-long loop through Weston Cemetery.

On Tuesday afternoon the Walk-with A Doc program featured Dr Ibekie who recently opened an office in Morocco. Dr Ibekie is a native of Nigeria who has a medical practice in Merrillville. In 2016 he decided that the time had come to give back to the community by providing medical services to an underserved area and Morocco fit that bill.

He drove to Morocco to check out the town. He parked in the downtown and was looking through the windows of one of the many empty buildings when he turned around to find a policeman behind him. The policeman was very friendly and when he learned that Dr Ibekie was interested in establishing a clinic in Morocco, took him to town hall where the town clerk was so excited with the prospect that she called the entire town council to come to meet him. The clinic is open only on the weekends. It is a non-profit organization and charges a fee of $30 for services for those who have no insurance.

The medical topic he addressed was the opioid problem. He believes that it is a medical problem that should be handled by the medical profession, not the criminal justice system. He talked about a bunch of drugs that I did not recognize, but his point was that with proper prescribing of drugs and counseling, people can overcome their addictions. This summer he will be introducing the program he is using, the Medically Assisted Treatment Program or MAT, to Rensselaer's Franciscan Hospital.

On Wednesday Franciscan Health Rensselaer had an event called "State of Health Care". It was mostly about the services that the hospital offers, but the presentation began by reviewing statistics that show that Jasper County residents do not have healthy lifestyles. We smoke too much and are obese. The data can be found here.

Franciscan Rensselaer is a Critical Access Hospital. The federal government created this designation in the 1990s to help rural hospitals stay financially viable. There are certain payments that the designation gives that hospitals without the designation do not receive. (For more, see here.)

One of the features of the hospital that I had not been aware of was their in-house training using simulations with a mannequin. I wanted to take some pictures but my camera jammed. Fortunately the nurse in charge sent me one that she had taken. (The simulation room is the old obstetrical nursery.)

The mannequin is wired to a computer and the computer operator/trainer can control pulse, breathing, and blood pressure. The trainee is given an initial set of conditions and then must decide what treatment is best. The mannequin responds to the treatment (with the help of the trainer at the computer) and the student may then need to adjust the treatment or do something else. The end result can be death even if all the decisions were made correctly. It may be good to experience death of a mannequin before one experiences death of a real person.

The hospital would like to upgrade the mannequin with one that is wireless. This would allow the trainer to be in a different room, which would make the simulation more realistic. They would also like to record the sessions so they can review the playback with the trainee.

The hospital offers a wide range of services by using visiting doctors who come one day a week or every other week.

They currently offer several areas of telemedicine using telecommunications with a physician offsite. They are working on adding telecardiology to their telemedicine menu.

Below are slides of services that the hospital provides.

Improvements in offerings of radiology are in the works. The leadership of the hospital is always trying to add more visiting specialists and some new areas may be added this year. There seems to have been a lot of negative feelings toward the old Jasper County Hospital and the Franciscan leadership is trying to change that image. When the people attending were asked what additional services were most needed, several mentioned mental health.

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The previous post mentioned that the City Council approved the continuance of some tax abatements and this seems to have been misinterpreted by some people. Tax abatements usually last for several years (10 is common) and decline in value with time. They are given with conditions attached and are reviewed every year. If a company does not meet the conditions under which the abatement was given, the abatement can be canceled. What the City did at its last meeting was approve continuing existing abatements. There were no new abatements granted.

Land purchases

A couple of land purchases were the major topic of interest at Monday's City Council meeting. The first was for 1.13 acres east of town needed for a gas distribution pipeline that the City is planning. Presently the City taps into the gas trunk line south of town and that is its sole connection. It would like to add a second connection in the Pleasant Ridge area that would become the primary connection. It has been negotiating for the purchase of a small plot of land for about six months and has come to a verbal agreement to pay $24,900 for two plots of land (and if I understood correctly, it is $24,900 for each of the two). The Council approved going ahead with this purchase.

The second site that the City wants to purchase is 46 acres adjacent to the sewage plant. This is land that sold at the Farm Credit auction of SJC land and the acres that the City wants appear to be mostly wooded. The purpose of the purchase is to provide sites for future water wells. The company that helped the City with the last water well thinks there are a couple of promising well sites on the land. The Council had been polled about the purchase before the meeting and the vote at the meeting was to ratify the poll. The City Attorney will now draw up the necessary papers to purchase the land.

In other items, the gas tracker for May will be a 12¢ increase per hundred cubic feet. The Council transferred $50,000 from the general fund to the rainy day fund. It appointed Kevin Armold to the Rensselaer Central School Board. He had been serving the last months of the term of Jacob Ahler and was the only applicant for the four-year position. The Council approved the Mayor's holiday of July 5, so there will be no City services on that date. Lenny Larson was given a watch for 30 years of service. The Council approved the recommendations of the Tax Abatement Board and also approved an abatement for IMPA's Solar Park #2 that had not been considered at the Abatement Board meeting.

The Council approved the purchase of a truck for the Park Department. The low quote was $26,423 from Feldhaus Chrysler. The Electric Utility is purchasing a new aerial truck and the trade-in on the old truck was given as $20,000. The Utility sought bids to sell it directly and received a bid from a construction company willing to pay $22,510. The Council approved the selling of the truck to the construction company.

The crews for bulk pickup filled 25 garbage trucks with 190 tons of garbage and picked up 61 tires, 19 loads of brush, 38 loads of grass and yard waste, 27 boxes of electronics, and 18 loads of scrap metal.

55 to 58 trees have been cut down of the 84 to be removed. I asked the Street Superintendent after the meeting where the large trunks were going that I had seen loaded on semis. He did not know. My guess is that it is going to a sawmill somewhere. Ash is used in making furniture. It can impersonate oak.

Mostly transportation

SR 114 has been closed this past week. On Friday the old bridge or culvert structure was still being removed. The machine on the east bank was jackhammering the large pieces of concrete that remained. The machine on the west bank was loading concrete into a dump truck.

 Volunteers for the Jasper County Historical Society have spent a couple Saturdays chinking the log cabin at the Fairgrounds. They have one more work day scheduled, this Saturday from 9:00 until 2:00.

 Their May meeting on the 21st will feature a presentation about the past and plans for the future of the Jasper County Airport.

The Jasper County Airport held its annual Career Day on Friday with over 1000 students from areas schools attending. The event had some scheduling problems because weather delayed some of the exhibitors. The Blackhawk helicopter came in a few minutes after a group from KV High School left after waiting at least 20 minutes for it.

 The weather was cool and windy and even the students who dressed appropriately were cold. The ones who were in shorts or in short-sleeved shirts were pretty miserable.

 This year there was again a display of drones by the Sheriff's Department and County Extension. The two groups use them for very different purposes. The Sheriff's Department has a drone with a heat-sensitive camera useful in finding people who are lost or who are trying to hide.

 I meant to post the picture below earlier this week. It shows the very large crowd that attended the Fish Fry at the Fire Station last Friday.

A North Newton student earned a perfect 1600 on his SAT test. I am impressed. I recall meeting only one person who had accomplished that. He had graduated from Princeton and was a math graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. After two years there he decided that he was not smart enough to make an impact in math so switched to something he considered easier, the Harvard Business School.

Fair Oaks Farms is offering free admission to residents of Jasper and Newton Counties on June 3 and June 13. You will need a valid ID showing residence.

Addendum: While talking to the drone operators, I wondered why the quadcopter design had not been invented many years ago. There were two reasons suggested. The first was that it needed the development of more efficient batteries. And the second was that there was some complicated electronics needed to get the four propellers operating together to make the device fly in every direction.

More May meetings

Here is the mandatory picture for this post, a crane lifting something at the elevator.

The start of each month brings several meetings. The Rensselaer Park Board had its monthly meeting on Monday evening. The Park Director reported that 183 kids were signed up for baseball, which was slightly down from last year. There will be seven adult softball teams. The Board reviewed their accountant's financial statement. It showed that the Rensselaer Community Recreational Development Corporation (the not-for profit corporation that allows spending that does not go through the City accounts) and it showed that the ending balance sheet was slightly improved from last year.

There was discussion both of park improvements and park programming for the coming year. The dog park needs a bit more concrete work, then the remaining fencing, and some landscaping. (The concrete work was finished on Wednesday.) The new soccer fields have been regraded but not seeded. Two basketball courts will be coming to Staddon/Monnet. There are still meetings going on with the engineers for the new ball fields for Brookside Park. The hope is that in early June the bid packets will be sent out.

There will be many programs in the parks this summer. Nature programs will focus on birds, butterflies, and an family camp out. Youth programs will include the STEAM Thursdays, Kids Camp, a Back-to-School Bash, Little Hands Workshops, and art workshops. Wellness programs include Fit Fridays, Yoga, National Trails Park Hop, CPR/First Aid training, and a suicide prevention workshop. Community events include the Scarecrow Trail, Holiday Tree Trail Display, a Fall Fest, a Night in Santa's Village, and visits with Santa. There will be a celebration of the 70th birthday of LaRue Pool on June 12.

Someone at the meeting mentioned that this year there will be no December Christmas parade.

Several actions were taken at the meeting. A motion to take $1000 from the fund that is restricted for dog park use and spend it for landscaping the new dog park passed. A motion to spend funds to fence in the controls for the sprinkler system at the new soccer fields passed. (There was concern that kids were playing with the controls.) And up to $5500 was approved to purchase a storage shed for Brookside Park. The existing storage shed near Roth field is scheduled to be removed.

Related to park news, the Walk with a Doc series presented by Franciscan Health has resumed. It meets at the Hall Shelter in Brookside Park on Tuesdays at 5:00 pm and after a short presentation by a medical practitioner, the participants walk through Weston Cemetery, about a one mile hike. The series continues until June 18.

On Tuesday morning there was a Tax Abatement Compliance meeting held at City Hall. It approved the continuance of several tax abatements: four for ConAgra, one for Genova Products, two for IMPA, and two for National Gypsum. Most or all of these tax abatements have a ten year life but must be reviewed each year. There are separate abatements for real property (buildings) and personal property (equipment). Representatives from ConAgra said that they are currently hiring 235 people and a representative from National Gypsum said that they currently have 52 employees.

Last Friday the Jasper County Tourism Board met. The current Director of Tourism has resigned and will leave on May 29. Her replacement has been hired and will start on May 20th.

The last of the Community Engagement Workshops sponsored by the Jasper County Economic Development Organization will be held on May 21 at the Carnegie Center at 6:00 pm. Everyone is invited.

The Board heard four requests for funding. Fountain Park Chautauqua began in 1895 and has met continuously since then. Originally the Chautauqua movement had a heavy religious training emphasis but now is largely a celebration of the arts. The Remington Chautauqua has a hotel with 30 rooms and four bathrooms and 70 privately owned cabins. It is open to all, with a $5.00 daily admission fee. Its dates are July 13 to July 28.

Stout the Cat came to present for the the second annual Whiskey and Whiskers event on July 6. He let his human do the speaking while he explored the JECDO offices. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Animals Shelter and the money raised from it will go to help build a new building at the Animal Shelter. Last year the event attracted about 350 people and this year the hope is that it will draw 450 to 500. It is scheduled for the same day as Cruise Night.

Main Street Rensselaer requested help for its Oktober Fest in September. Main Street spends about $20,000 each year making improvements in Rensselaer. The Welcome-to-Rensselaer signs east and south of town are their doing, as is the fencing of the City parking lots in the downtown. Recent projects include the path through Milroy Park and the trail head at Potawatomie Park.

The final request was for a capital improvement in the form of a mural on the retaining wall by the bowstring arch  bridge. The Tourism Board wants to move to doing more funding of capital improvements but currently its budget has more money in the events category and less in the capital improvements category than it would like. They agreed to provide funding but less than they would have liked. There will be artists in town from July 2 to the 6th working on murals. The main artist is the one who did the bird mural on the wall of eMbers.

Autumn Trace posted more pictures of inside of the building. Unwind Massage has expanded into most of the building next to the bowstring bridge.

Finally, congratulations to the winners of the contested Rensselaer Council races in the primary election, Noelle Weishaar and Russ Overton. If they are elected in November, they will be the first father-daughter pair to serve at the same time. Complete results are here.

May's Commissioners meeting

The May Commissioners meeting had an unusual twist at its start. For several years the meetings have begun with a veteran leading the Pledge of Allegiance and then the vet gives his military background. On Monday the vet, Tim Flynn, mentioned something about picking up a job application and turning it in. The application was for the job of Veterans Service officer and after he spoke, the Commissioners approved his hiring for that position.

Turning to the agenda, the Commissioners approved buried cable requests. One that had several parts was from CenturyLink and was for broadband as part of the Connecting American Communities program. I did not catch all the details.

A representative from Honeywell presented a close-out report for the energy savings project of the Court House. He said that the project went very smoothly and that a few loose ends were still being handled. The Commissioners voted to accept the report. The Sheriff's Department received approval to replace a correctional officer who is resigning. The Commissioners also approved an ordinance that the Sheriff had requested at a previous meeting. This ordinance authorized the Sheriff to collect some fees from violent and sexual offenders when they register or change address. Other counties are collecting these fees but until now Jasper County has not. The purpose is to offset the costs of administering the registration of these individuals. The Sheriff also reported that the jail inmates were ready to plant the newly established jail garden.

Community Corrections received approval to spend $975 to repair dry wall on the ceiling of the men's dorm. The problem existed before the recent installation of insulation. The State is changing some grant administration from a fiscal year to a calendar year basis and to make the transition, Community Corrections had to file a for a grant extension. The Commissioners approved the filing though it was not clear if their approval was needed.

The Commissioners approved replacing a part-time animal control officer who is leaving. They then heard a presentation from a representative of Assured Partners who offered to evaluate the County health insurance plans.

Next up was a presentation from RPG Energy for a solar project at the County Jail. They propose using fixed-mounted panels (they said that the panels that move to track the sun are only economical in larger installations) that would cover 2.05 acres with a capacity of 570.2 Kilowatts. (That is about half the size and capacity of the Rensselaer One solar park.) The project is sized so that it would meet the base load of the jail and is not meant to produce electricity to feed into the grid. IMPA pays only wholesale for any excess energy and that rate is about half the retail rate. As I understood the project, there will be no out-of-pocket costs to the County and the County's benefit will be reduced rates for electricity. The projected savings for the County will be about $68,000 per year. The Commissioners took no action but noted that there is another company that is interested in the project.

 The Commissioners approved renewing postage meter contracts. I do not know enough of what the services provided in the contracts to make sense of the discussion. The next item on the agenda was the wind turbine ordinance, but it was scheduled for 9:45 and so it had to wait. The Commissioners turned to the odds and ends that they do at each meeting. They approved some training requests. Trane, which had done work at Community Corrections and the County Jail, had filed a project completion form and the Commissioners approved it. There was a brief discussion of the new paper work that the County Highway Department has to file. The County gets money from the recently raised gas tax, but the State requires that 50% of that money be used on road work and the County must document that it is spending it in that way. The Commissioners approved use of Airport Road and Bunkum Road for the Chloe 5K. The County Clerk was given permission to purchase a Surface Pro. The Commissioners signed a letter to St. Joseph's College asking the College to enlarge the permitted uses for the Youth Center. And the Commissioners approved seal coating the parking lot of the annex north of town used by Extension the the Surveyor.

Finally the time arrived for the Wind Ordinance. About twenty people had attended the meeting for this item and had waited patiently as the Commissioners went through the rest of the agenda. As expected, there was virtually no discussion and the Commissioners approved the ordinance as it had been proposed by a special committee and then passed by the Plan Commission in April.

Before the meeting I noticed the spokesman for the wind company that wants to do a project in the Southwest corner of the County. I asked him if the project was still doable with the revised ordinance. He was noncommittal, saying they would reevaluate it. He also suggested that if any project does get built, it will be smaller than it otherwise would have been. I also notice a representative for RES, the company that wanted to build a wind farm in eastern Jasper and western Pulaski Counties, at the meeting. I am not sure why he was there.

As most of the people left, there was a brief discussion about an automated phone system that I could not hear because of the noise. The surveyor discussed drainage issues that NICHES caused when it cut some tiles in Milroy Township. They have been told to hook the tiles up again until they get proper approval to act. There was some discussion about what can be done with a grant to stabilize the banks of the Kankakee River. Finally there was more discussion about County roads and how to deal with state requirements. The plan is to have the bid opening and awarding of contracts at the July meeting. With that the meeting was continued until an executive session that was scheduled for 10:30.

This week is bulk pickup week in Rensselaer. It is fascinating to see the sorts of stuff that people are throwing out.

PAC Art Show and other things

The Second Annual PAC Member show is now on exhibit at the Carnegie Center.

 It features original work by current members of the Prairie Arts Council.

 The show runs until May 16.

 The gallery is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon until 4:00 pm and on Saturdays from noon until 2:00 pm.

 Stop by if you have a chance. There are a lot of interesting paintings, photos, and sculptures on display.

 The two items below are a collaboration. On the right is a photo and on the left is another artist's rendering of the photo into fabric art.

 Spring is definitely here with lots of rain. The river crested on Thursday a bit above 12 feet, which is minor flood stage. There is more rain in the forecast so it may rise further.

The Indiana State budget passed and it does not include funds for the Hoosier State train line. Service will end at the end of the June. That will leave the Cardinal serving Rensselaer three days a week. More info is in the Rensselaer Republican here.

I noticed that some of the brick facing for the Autumn Trace building has been finished. From pictures that Autumn Trace has posted on Facebook, it appears that the drywall is all or mostly installed. I saw vans that belonged to a flooring company on site last week. Autumn Trace has hired the executive director for the facility and is advertising for the chef. The planned opening was and may still be July.

Next week is bulk-pick-up week in Rensselaer.

News regarding solar panels keeps popping up. There is an array planned for land of the Kankakee Valley School Corporation and another possible project is on the agenda for the May Commissioners' meeting on Monday morning.

A quick visit to Goodland

On Saturday I stopped by Goodland for the Frog Hop 5K on the way to another destination. I occasionally pass through Goodland but have never really explored the town. The race started and ended at Foster Park, which is along the highway and is fairly large. It has no ball fields, but does have several horse shoe pits. In the picture below you can see a gazebo or band shell in the distance--I did not check it out.

There is one shelter and it is near the playground equipment.

Also near the playground equipment and the shelter is a memorial bench.

There is a memorial for veterans. In the background is the Goodland library.

 The bell from the old Goodland high school has a place of honor in the park.

 Across the street from the park is the Goodland Community Center and Town Hall in a building that was once a school.

I took a stroll through the downtown. It is like most downtowns—its best years are past. A lot of the buildings seem to be empty and at 8:30 on a Saturday morning nothing was happening. The downtown has a bank, First Financial Bank, which is a branch of a larger bank headquartered in Cincinnati. There is also a second financial institution, Newton County Loan and Savings, which the Internet tells me was acquired by the Bank of Wolcott in 2011. There are also some restaurants and bars, a laundromat, and a barber. The Dressing Room was unusual. It is sponsored by the Goodland Baptist Church and a sign in the window says, "A Clothing Shop Where Everything Is Free". The biggest building in the downtown is a factory, 3D Machine.

 There are signs that some of the old buildings have been demolished.

Below is all that remains of the building that is missing in the picture above.

 I do not know much about the history of Goodland, but I did find this interesting little excerpt. And here is the fire insurance map showing what was in the downtown in 1892.