Miscellany, mid June 2019

On Saturday I visited the construction site for the bridge replacement on SR 114. The concrete structure of the bridge is now in place.

 Below is a view from the top. It appears that the concrete structure came in eleven sections and that they have been joined. To finish, fill must be placed over them to get the grade up to the level of the road and then it must be paved.

Also on Saturday I found that there were fields with corn sprouting. There are still some fields that do not appear to have been planted.

This has been a busy week for meetings. On Monday the Airport Authority Board had a special meeting and because I have not attended any of their meetings for a year or more, I decided to go. The Board has been negotiating the purchase of about 73 acres to the west of the airport. The land is owned by the Phegley estate and I believe it is the last bit of the land that John Makeever owned that is still owned by his descendants. The purpose of the meeting was to approve a request for an additional appropriation from the County Council, which should be on the July agenda of that body. If the Council approves the request, the item still needs approval from the State's Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF).

The land will allow an extension of the east-west runway, which is currently a grass runway. Part of the purchase price will be paid by an FAA grant, which is being processed. The additional appropriation will take money from other airport accounts.

The airport has several events planned in July. The annual Fly-In, Drive-in will be on July 6 from 10:00 to 2:00. There will be bi-plane rides on July 26 and 27. I do not know what the price of those will be. And on July 21, 22, 27, and 28 Busy Bee will be selling ice cream at the airport. I think the Busy Bee event is designed to cater to people traveling to and from a big airshow in Wisconsin who stop to refuel. Jasper County Airport has some of the lowest fuel prices in the area and pilots take advantage of them.

The airport meeting lasted eight minutes. The Jasper County Planning Commission meeting later in the evening took much longer, about an hour, even though the only item on the agenda was a request for a two-lot subdivision in Barkley Township. The person making the request wants to build a house on one of the lots. This sort of request often is quickly passed, but there was opposition. A former owner of the land said that the drainage was bad and it should not be built. A neighbor complained about the storage of materials that are currently on the site. After discussion, the Commission decided that because it could not approve the request with conditions, it would continue the matter until the July 15th meeting to give the owner time to clean up the lot.

The Commission finished the meeting by discussing two items that will be on the agenda of a future meeting, a review of their rules and procedures and an update to the UDO to make sure that developers and others actually follow through with what they say they will do.

On Tuesday evening the last Walk with a Doc took place. There will be another series of Walks beginning in August. The Jasper County Historical Society had a meeting with a presentation on the Fountain Park Chautauqua. The Society has been remodeling the bathroom in the museum and for the meeting had a working toilet. The new bathroom will be much bigger. It is the only spot in the museum that has running water.

The final meeting on Tuesday night was a short meeting of the County Council. They approved a memorandum of understanding with Soil & Water Conservation District in which the County supplements the salary of the manager of the district. (The manager is new to the job.) It also approved three additional appropriations for CASA that are funded by matching grant funds and also a transfer for the Motor Vehicle Highway Department (from chip and seal to stone).

With the agenda items out of the way, there were brief discussions of the Fairgrounds and development in northern Jasper County. The Fair Board will have its annual 4th of July fireworks on June 29th at dusk. A new carnival will provide rides this year. The company is east-coast based and will provide a limited number of rides this year and a larger selection in 2020. The Fairgrounds has a new office building, is installing a new sound system, and new electrical lines are being put in place.

The Council members from the northern part of the County remarked that there is very rapid turnover of houses for sale and that the number of houses under construction seems to be the most since 2008. Some of the increase may reflect, directly or indirectly, the emigration of people from Illinois, which has been losing population for several years.

After the Airport Authority Board meeting, I got an update on what is happening to the old Horton Building from its owner, Sean Yallaly. The first part of the building that will be finished is the back part, which will be the new office of Shelter Insurance. Next the three upstairs apartments will be finished. Finally the front half of the building will be finished and will become the office of Edward Jones for Mr Yallaly. The current office of Edward Jones, a couple blocks further north, will remain an Edward Jones office and will serve the clients of Kenneth VanHouten.