Ceremonial groundbreaking

The ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony for three new ball fields in Brookside Park took place on Friday afternoon. The three fields take up most of the space between SR 114 on the north and the newest section of Weston Cemetery on the south. They will be known as the Blacker Fields in honor of the late Rex Blacker, whose trust donated about a third of the money that the Parks for People Campaign has raised. The layout of the fields can be seen here.

Moving dirt will begin very soon. The soccer games were using this area for Saturday games will be moved to the Staddon Field area. Soccer is having an inconvenient year but next year they should be enjoying first-class facilities. In other park news, outdoor exercise equipment has been delivered to the new walking trail in the Staddon/Monnett complex and will be installed next week. 

There are several more park events coming up. The Scare Crow Trail will return this year as will the Fall Festival. Plus there will be one more trash-can painting event, this one for adults only. It will be a sip and paint event.

The City Council met on Monday morning and because I was not paying close enough attention to what was on the agenda, I missed it. On Friday I stopped by City Hall to find out what had happened and found that the Clerk-Treasurer's office is now in what had been the police department half of the building. The staff is very happy with their new quarters.

According to the unapproved minutes, the meeting lasted about 25 minutes. Bids for the Eger Substation Project were opened and the low bid was approved. The electrical department has been having problems with the relays there (I do not know what relays are) and wanted to move them in the structure that is there. 

The Council approved waiving the permit fee for the construction of the Blacker ball fields.  Then the Council renewed discussion of a proposal to upgrade the City's computer server equipment. The Council approved their IT consultant's recommendation to lease the equipment so that they can get on a two-year replacement schedule.

Road work funded by the Community Crossings grant will begin on September 9.

I missed a meeting in June and for a while the minutes were not posted on-line. I only recently found that they had gotten posted, but had the wrong date. The June meeting that I did not attend can be reviewed here.

Earlier this week Ayda's had an open house for their new banquet room and outdoor patio. This space was previously not being used and was completely renovated. The room will hold about 75 people, as will the outdoor seating. 

The bricks for the patio and the service counter were once part of the Johnny Rusk building that was across the street. Currently the County owns the lot but with the recent purchase of the former PNC building, they may be willing to sell it.

Two other people were viewing the remodeled facilities while I was there and one of them commented that he remembered when the far eastern part of the building had housed a grocery store. I had heard that at one time the building had an ice cream shop/creamery but had not heard about the grocery store business.

I asked a high school teacher about the paintings on the school parking lot. There are a number of other schools in the US that have done this, including one that is nearby. The students pay for a parking spot, which they then decorate, though the design must be approved. The money collected goes to the Student Council to support its programs during the year. The student who pays for the parking spot is the only one who is supposed to use that spot during the school year. At the end of the year, the lot will be repainted and a new senior class will be able to claim their parking spots. Checking the Internet, I found that some of the local paintings were copies of paintings that had been done elsewhere. 

Did you notice that a couple weeks ago some City streets had an oily substance on them? This is a sealer, meant to seal the road from moisture.

Early this week the chipper was by the City's brush pile on Mattheson. I have not gotten back to see if it processed the summer's collection of branches.

Also this week, SJC was adding water to the reflecting pond. I wonder what their water bill is. They no longer pump their own but now buy City water.

This weekend the Fair Oaks Farms will have free apple picking in the new orchard. There is a limit of one bag of apples per person, so a lengthy trip would not be worthwhile. 

August Art

There is a new show at the Fendig Gallery that will run until September 26. The title is "Showcasing Our Artist Teachers" and as the name implies the works are done by art teachers, present and past.

There is wide variety of styles and media on display.

 Below is a dress made from men's ties.

 The show also includes pottery, baskets, and sculpture. The hours for the gallery are Tuesdays and Thursdays noon until 4:00 and Saturday noon until 2:00.

Mural fever is catching. Mount Hood Pizza has added this abstract design to its building.

The high school parking lot has been decorated by the seniors. I do not know the story behind this but I am sure it is interesting.

This one could win the award for most humorous.

 Most of the pictures say something about the students who painted them.

 The lettering on the picture below is crude but the pig is endearing.

 I would guess that this student runs track and plays basketball.

These pictures will be hard to see during school hours because there will be cars parked on them. If you want to check them out, Sundays are a promising day.

Signs on the Court House law are announcing events for September. August has flown by.

 The last of the brick pillars at Monnett/Staddon were finished on Friday.

The swimming pool has no water. It was open until Friday for a water aerobics class and each day the water would drop about an inch. By the last day water was ankle deep in the shallow end. I suspect that the pool leaks.

Big park news this week! There will be a groundbreaking ceremony for new ball fields west of the Cruiser Shelter. On Saturday soccer games were being played there so I do not know how construction will fit with soccer.

Ayda's will have an open house on Monday and Tuesday to showcases their new banquet room and outdoor seating. Hours are from 11 to 4.

County meetings

A CAFO was the main topic of the meetings of the County BZA and Plan Commission on Monday evening. The proposed site is in Jordan Township at the intersection of CR 1200S and CR 630W. The proposal needed a variance and an exception from the BZA and a zoning change from the Plan Commission.

The application was unusual because until recently there was a CAFO operating at the site. In 1976 Tip Top Pigs built a confined feeding operation on this 20 acre site. In 2008 the operation was sold. The new owners did not have the funds necessary for an outright purchase so they arranged a mortgage held by Tip Top Pigs. The inference from the presenter was that the new owners did not run the facility well. Almost immediately they could not make the mortgage payments. There followed a series of declarations of bankruptcy and starts and stops in the raising of pigs. The buildings were neglected and began to fall apart. In 2017 the buildings were razed, leaving only the foundations and apparently the bankruptcy was finalized. The land should have reverted to the mortgage holder, Tip Top Pigs, but they refused to take the property back because of environmental concerns. There are two large lagoons that were used for manure containment that may leak and the site is a mess.

There is a group that would like to restart the operation. To do so, they need to comply with the IDEM permit that the facility had and which will expire in early 2020. To get the permit extended, they need to have all local approvals made and the title transferred to them. The IDEM permit will allow them to rebuild using the same specifications that the former facility had--the buildings must have the same locations and same sizes. Their argument was that they had the only viable plan to clean up the site.

Any CAFO needs a special exception from the BZA and it was granted. The variance was for setbacks to other properties and because the adjoining property owners all had given their consent, the variance was also granted. However, during the meeting the question was raised if the nearest house was in the buffer zone and if this house is too close, another variance may be needed.

The same presentation was made to the Plan Commission. The land had never been zoned A3, and that may have been an oversight when the current zoning classification was adopted. However, even if it had been zoned A3, the zoning would have reverted to A1 six months after the site was no longer capable of raising hogs. The Plan Commission approved a recommendation to the Commissioners to rezone to A3.

The Plan Commission had one other cause, a rezone request from A1 to A4 for a parcel in the very northern part of the County. A gentleman purchased land with a Quonset hut that he would like to use as an event venue.  It would be used seasonally from April to October. Two neighbors spoke, one for and one against. The one opposing said that he did not want loud parties next door and the possibility of drunken patrons roaming over his property. The one supporting said that the applicant was a good man trying to do something positive for the community and deserved support. The rezone was granted. Both the BZA and Plan Commission have some policies and procedures that they want to change but decided given the length of the nights meetings that they can deal with them at later meetings.

On Tuesday night the County Council met and approved several additional appropriations and transfers. Then they began their yearly budget hearings, which continue through the day on Wednesday and finish on the 27th. Budget hearings are intensely boring because the audience members do not have the pages of numbers that are being discussed and hence can only follow bits of the discussion.

The Coroner and auditor spoke first and then the Sheriff Williamson gave his presentation. He would like to change the way his people are paid. Currently a deputy with two years of experience is paid the same as a deputy with 15 years of experience. He would like to have a pay scale based on percentages of his salary (which is set by law at 60% of the prosecuting attorney's salary which is set by the State) so that pay increases as experience increases. His department has a lot of turnover and because training and equipping new deputies is very expensive, that turnover is a serious problem. His proposal would lower salaries for those starting out but would raise salaries for those who stay with the department. Currently 18 of the 24 deputies have been with the department for less than 10 years. He proposed a similar pay scale for other employees in his department (he has about 70 employees) but did not think that it would have a large effect on turnover because jail jobs and dispatchers frequently see their jobs as stepping stones to better jobs later. None of the 20 jail staff have been on the job for more than ten years.

The budget hearings for the night were finished but the meeting was not. Trane gave a presentation to the Council similar to that given to the Commissioners earlier this month. Trane recently completed work on the Community Corrections Center and has been monitoring the jail for about a year. They believe that the jail needs addition insulation and sealing—it has a lot of air infiltration. The heating and cooling needs some tweaking and the control system needs to be redone so that the jail personnel are in control of the building. The jail uses very little natural gas, even for heating, so is a heavy user of electricity. They think it is an ideal candidate for adding solar generation and a small solar field is part of their proposal. They said that with the addition of the proposed solar array, the utility cost of the jail over the next 25 years could be cut by two thirds. The Council moved to support the Commissioner's initiative to seek financing.

The final item of the night (the meeting lasted until about 9:45) was a discussion of a scorecard for tax abatements. The idea is that the County should make known what it is looking for in granting abatements, and if a company scores high on the score card, it should be able to expect that it will get an abatement. The score card would prioritize investment over job creation (Jasper County needs assessed value and has a very low unemployment rate) and would reward proposals with higher wages. In addition, a company that gets a tax abatement would not be able to appeal the assessment without losing the abatement. The consensus of the Council was that that work on the proposal should continue.

The Council then recessed until Wednesday morning.

I do not have much in the way of pictures for today. Below is Jasper, who greets people who attend meetings at the Court House.

Valley Oaks ribbon cutting and more

Valley Oaks had a ribbon cutting on Thursday evening, which was a bit strange because the office was built in 2001 and expanded in 2011. However, it has never had a ribbon cutting or open house and until the sign in the picture was erected earlier this year, it had only minimal signage.

 Valley Oaks is the new name for Wabash Valley Alliance. The organization is headquartered in Lafayette and the Rensselaer branch office serves both Jasper and Newton Counties. The local branch was very understaffed a year and a half ago and received some negative comments at a Commissioners' meeting. Since then they have increased their staff, hired a new CEO, and are undergoing a rebranding campaign, trying to correct their problems. The open house was part of that rebranding effort.

Before the ribbon cutting there were several short statements by employees, the Mayor, and Rein Bontreger, who is on their board. After the ribbon cutting, there were tours of the facility. It is not very exciting—most of the space is used for offices or small therapy rooms. The room below is used by case workers. They spend most of their time visiting clients but have desk space for paper work.

 Among the therapy rooms was this one for child therapy. Valley Oaks serves the schools in Jasper and Newton County. They also serve the county jails and get referrals from local doctors.

 The Rensselaer branch has 27 employees and an annual payroll of $1.1 million. They serve more than 400 individuals each month.

Also on Thursday evening there was a Jasper County Town Hall hosted by the Jasper Newton Foundation the marketing firm Crane + Grey (which happened to be the firm that advised on the rebranding of Valley Oaks). The firm was hired to help determine what can be accomplished to make Jasper County more attractive to those who live here and those who might consider living here as well as businesses who might locate here. This is a project that will extend over several years. The firm had previously conducted a survey (which you can still take here) and had talked to community and county leaders for their input. The purpose of this meeting was to give the general public a chance to provide input.

The program was supposed to get comments about eight areas (Healthcare, Education, Technology, Environment, Government, Culture, Infrastructure, Economy) but people were so willing to talk that several of the items were never addressed in the two hour meeting. I was surprised to hear that the County has numerous dead zones for cell phone reception. (If I used a cell phone I probably would have known that.) The lack of high speed Internet was also considered a factor discouraging new businesses. A gentleman from the DeMotte area who advises firms where to locate was highly critical of the County's high income tax. He stated that it killed the County's economic growth. Many of the things people cited as weaknesses are the result of low population and low population density. Places with bigger populations can support more varied services and retail businesses.

The brick work for the entryway into the Monnett-Staddon Park is finished and the workers are building a smaller entryway by the old Monnett building.

 Speaking of brickwork, a crew from Diadem in Kentland is tuck pointing the SJC chapel. Water was getting inside and damaging the plaster.

 The SJC sign is advertising office space for rent. I assume that means that the Phoenix Team will move onto the main campus soon because the office space for rent is Drexel Hall.

 More trees have been cut down in Weston Cemetery and there are still other dead ash trees along the Maxwell Ditch that need to be removed.

 The remodeling of the Horton Building continues. The back part of the building should be finished fairly soon and an insurance company is slated to move in.

Last weekend I asked a local farmer about crops. He said that Jasper County is in relatively good shape compared to the rest of the corn belt. A lot of corn was planted late and as a result it will have a lower yield. The life of the corn plant is determined by length of day, so the earlier the crop is planted, the more it yields.

Heros honored

It was standing-room only as Monday's City Council meeting began. The crowd was there to watch the Mayor give citations to eleven people who helped save the life of a man who had a heart attack on July 5 at Smith's True Value Hardware north of town. The person closest to him when he collapsed was a City employee who had gone to a session offered by the City on CPR. He started CPR and was quickly joined by two other citizens. The ambulance crew arrived within minutes as did a police officer and four people from the fire department. A helicopter airlifted the man to a Chicago hospital where two surgeries were performed. A week later he regained consciousness and suffered no mental impairment. The Chicago doctors said that the quick response by bystanders and paramedics saved the man's life. For a more detailed account of this part of the meeting, see Wednesday's Rensselaer Republican or view the article on-line here.

Before that exciting and emotional part of the meeting, the Council approved a request by the SJC Alumni Association to serve beer at Brookside Park for its Homecoming and also approved the closure of a block of Susan Street for the Saint Augustine Fall Frolic on September 14. In addition, a new police officer was sworn in.

Almost all the audience left after the Mayor finished issuing the citations. The Council then had a public hearing for several additional appropriations at which no one spoke. It then passed the appropriations. A bit later it approved several transfers of funds.

The gas tracker for August will be a 13.25¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet.

The Council approved the resurfacing of "Mural Alley" between Front and Van Rensselaer as part of the road work for this year. Some road work has started but most of it will not begin until the end of the month.

The Police Department was granted permission to purchase two new squad cars. They will be 2019 models. One replaces a car removed from service and the other a car that was damaged in a crash. The Council also approved the request from the Cemetery Superintendent to trade in an old mower and purchase a new mower.

There was a discussion about replacing the City's three computer servers, which are 12, 8, and 5 years old. The proposal presented is to go to two servers plus storage and in the future replace each server every four years. Most of the discussion concerned whether to lease or purchase the servers, with the City's IT consultant leaning heavily toward the lease option. No action was taken at this meeting except the appointment of a committee to take the matter under advisement and report back at the next meeting.

As the meeting ended, there were several complaints about the railroad crossing at Cullen Street. Alas, this is something that the railroad handles and the City's attempts to get a response from the railroad often end in frustration.

Columns for the entry way to the Monnett/Stadddon Park are rising along College Avenue. The masonry work began on Tuesday and the picture shows the the work as of Tuesday evening.

 Another culvert in the dog park has a new coat of paint.

 The fields just north of Rensselaer that I thought were planted in very short corn are in fact sorghum, as the picture below shows. I do not know much about this grain, though I have seen fields of it in the past couple years on drives to and from Monticello. Here is a bit more about it.

Autumn Trace has tenants for about 60% of its rooms.

The Jumping Frog from Jasper County

Today something a bit different, a book review of Jim Ellis, The Jumping Frog from Jasper County: Hoosier Boy Lands on Madison Avenue. Abelard-Schuman Publisher, 1970. 240 pages, no index.

Almost no one in Rensselaer recognizes the name James Ellis (1893-1978) but few people from Rensselaer had a bigger impact on the nation during the first half of the twentieth century. We know about his impact from his professional biography, originally titled From Billboards to Buicks and reissued as The Jumping Frog from Jasper County. The book discusses his personal life only when it affects his professional life. The only information we get of his first marriage is on page 131: "I had been a widower for two years."

The book begins with a few details about the author's early life in Rensselaer. His mother died when he was seven and after her death the family ate its meals at a local hotel. (It was the Makeever House.) His father ran the Ellis Opera House, which hosted the many entertainers who traveled from city to city in the days before movies. His father was mayor of Rensselaer for eight years, but the book makes no mention of that. When his father died in 1915, Ellis returned to Rensselaer to take over the family business. Part of the business was a small billboard company. Ellis discovered that he could claim billboard franchise rights to 31 communities around Rensselaer, which he did, erecting new billboards. After finishing the expansion, he left the running of the business to an employee and returned to school at the University of Chicago. While there he heard that advertising copywriters could earn large salaries and decided to enter that field.

His first job in his quest to become a copywriter had no pay but he took it to gain experience and credibility. Jobs with several small agencies followed as he learned his craft. At the end of 1928 he joined Erwin Wasey in Chicago, his first large agency. In 1935 the partners of Erwin Wasey had a falling out and one of them, Art Kudner, split off to form his own agency. Ellis followed Kudner and spent the rest of his career with the Kudner agency, eventually heading it. Over the years the Kudner agency handled many accounts. For most of them the agency not only wrote ads but also planned the ad campaign. Early in the book Ellis wrote that the challenge was to find in your client's product something that would get the public to want to buy it and then tell the story in a way that intrigued the largest number of people. The plan would set the theme that the individual ads would follow.

During the Ellis years the largest account of the Kudner agency was the Buick account. Before the agency got the account, Buick was selling poorly and GM was considering dropping the line. Ellis believed that he and Kudner, both of whom worked closely with Buick management, were partially responsible for the subsequent revival and success of Buick. By the late 1930s Buick was the fourth most popular automobile in the United State, surpassed only by Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth, the cheapest and least prestigious brands of the big three automakers.

Although the Buick account gets far more pages than any other account, Ellis did not believe the Buick advertising was his most significant professional accomplishment. Rather, discussing the advertising for the Association of American Railroads, he stated, "I wrote the plan and practically all the advertisements—and I felt that this was the greatest single accomplishment of my advertising career." (p 164). The reason for this opinion is explained later on page 202: "I felt that, in the case of the railroads, I may have headed off nationalization of American industry during World War II." He convinced the railroads to tout their accomplishments and improvements rather than complain about their problems, and he believed that this public relations campaign significantly changed the public's perception of railroads.

Another case in which Ellis strayed from product marketing was the 1952 presidential election. Ellis presented a marketing plan to the Republican National Committee that he believed was largely adopted by the Eisenhower campaign, though that campaign did not use the Kudner agency. The traditional plan, the one used in the Dewey campaign in 1948, was to maintain the base and appeal to the independent voters between the parties. Ellis suggested that instead of trying to win the independents, the campaign reach out to the almost 50% of the electorate that had not voted in the 1948 election. Voter participation increased in 1952 and although Stevenson received more votes than Truman had in 1948, Eisenhower won in a landslide.

Ellis was contemplating retirement in 1944 when the unexpected death of Art Kudner changed everything. Ellis stepped up to take control of the agency. He reorganized the company and instituted a profit sharing plan. In the late 1950s, worried about who would take over when he retired or died, he hired a man who he thought would be an able successor. He misjudged. His planned successor led a rebellion when new management and problems at Buick led Buick to switch advertising agencies in late 1957. Ellis was put into a position where resignation was his best option. With some satisfaction he noted that after his resignation in January of 1958, the agency floundered and a few years later was absorbed by another agency.

Ellis eventually came to the conclusion that his ouster from the agency was not the curse that he initially thought but was rather a blessing in disguise. He was diagnosed with ulcers and heart problems and if he had continued his workaholic way of life, he might have missed the warning signs and suffered the early death that a number of his colleagues suffered.

James Ellis wrote millions of words that were read by millions of people, but only a few insiders recognized his accomplishments. In the 1950s he helped launch several television shows by connecting advertisers to program ideas but again his role was behind the scenes and received almost no recognition. (His obituary mentions “The Milton Berle Show,” “Your Show of Shows” with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, and the “Jackie Gleason Show” as shows he and his agency brought to television.) There are many others who have had a profound impact on the nation that we do not recognize, and for most of them their stories are lost because they did not write a book as Jim Ellis did.

 The book offers insight not only into the world of advertising but also to the history of the automobile industry during the first half of the twentieth century. However, it is not an easy read. Focused on his professional life, it jumps around chronologically as it discusses various clients Ellis served. It is filled with names of people who were important to Ellis but mean nothing to the reader. Ellis comes across as a workaholic. He constantly mentioned how many pages he wrote for various plans and how he often worked long into the night and on weekends to finish work.

James Ellis retired to Reno, Nevada and Hot Springs, Virginia. He died on June 12, 1978 in Virginia and is buried with his brother John and his parents in Weston Cemetery in Rensselaer, Indiana.

Above is a picture of James Hervey Stewart Ellis Jr from the 1911 Chaos Yearbook. (Available here.) The very first Chaos yearbook was issued 1911 and Ellis was the editor. (Did you know that in RHS had a girls' basketball team in 1911 that was undefeated until the final game, when they lost to the alumni by a score of 2-6?)

Below is his draft registration card for WWI.

James Ellis will not be featured on this year's Weston Cemetery Walk that is scheduled for September 21 at 3:00 pm. He is not buried in the area that this year's walk will be touring. He certainly has a story interesting enough to make him a candidate for some future walk.

Tickets for this year's walk are now available at Brown Garden and Floral Shoppe, Willow Switch, and Jordan's Floral. The price for adults is $10 and for children under 12 $5. If there are any tickets available the day of the event (space is limited), the prices will be $12 and $6. Last year there were four golf carts available for those who have difficulty walking. This year there will be eight.

Comings and goings

On Tuesday a new trailhead marker was being constructed along the College Avenue side of the Monnett/Staddon Park area.

 Below is the finished result. There are holes for the foundations of three entry ways to the park and as of Thursday they had rebar in them. They may be filled with concrete by the time you read this.

 As things were going up at the parks, a house on Jackson Street was being torn down. Going,

 going,

almost gone

 and gone. You can see a doorway at the back of the basement (middle left in the picture) that was the entry to what seems to have been a bomb shelter. The excavator was on top of it as it knocked down the house and did not damage it. It had, according to the person who purchased the property to demolish the house, 18 inch concrete walls.

 With the structure down and the debris trucked away, the hole was filled.

 After this is smoothed and grass is planted, there will be no evidence that there was once a house here.

I think most of the neighbors are happy that the house is gone.

The Tourism Board met on Friday morning. They heard a proposal from the SJC alumni group asking for assistance with the September golf outing and homecoming event. It is scheduled for September 27-28. The Board cut their request in half and approved it. The Board also agreed to be a sponsor of this year's Memories Alive Weston Cemetery Tour on September 21. (Other sponsors include Beaver and Beaver Attorneys at Law, eMbers Venue and Station, Steinke Funeral Home, Rensselaer Monument, Inc., and also Jackson's Funeral Chapel, The Law Office of Clifford M Robinson, and Brown's Garden and Floral Shoppe. In addition, the Jasper-Newton Foundation has given funds to support golf carts at this year's event for people who feel they cannot walk the route. By the way, tickets are now available at Willow Switch, Jordan's Floral, and Brown's Garden and Floral Shoppe.) (I am one of the people who are planning this year's walk.)

Other items: DeMotte will host a softball tournament next year that will bring in a dozen teams for a weekend. The tourism director is exploring the possibility of a Jasper County bicycle ride for next fall. There was a discussion of establishing a committee to explore agri-tourism possibilities. Because of Fair Oaks Farms, we already have a lot of agri-tourism but is there more that Jasper County and its neighbors could do? A candidate was suggested for a vacancy on the Board and the September Commissioner's meeting may have that on its agenda.

The RENARTWLK mural project is finished for this year, but I noticed a number of small additions have been added in the past week or two. I hope that the people who have added them have had permission from building owners. I am not sure I like them. A few of these small, amateurish paintings are OK but too many will detract from the overall project.

 This looks like it was done with a stencil but I do not know what it is supposed to be.

 The purple face is the best of these small additions.

 At least it is colorful.

Early August meetings

The first Monday of the month has meetings of the County Commissioners, the Drainage Board, and the Rensselaer Park Board. All were interesting in August.

Mark Sinclair, head of animal control, had a number of changes he wanted in procedures or ordinances. A new state law requires that animals adopted from animal shelters after July 2020 be spayed or neutered and he was trying to get the adoption fees set to deal with that change. After some discussion and suggestions, the Commissioners instructed their lawyer to work on an ordinance. The Commissioners also approved two appointees to the Animal Control Board.

Jacob Taulman, the prosecuting attorney, received permission to fill a full-time case-worker position left vacant by a recent resignation. He also said that there was the possibility of having some State reimbursement for remodeling done to the former PNC bank building if it is for child support work. He will start working on meeting the requirements needed to obtain the funding.

The Sheriff received permission to fill a position at the jail caused when an officer took a job with the Rensselaer Police Department. He said that because of the outcome of a court case elsewhere in the State, his department will be releasing more information to news media than it previously did. There was a discussion of traffic speeding through McCoysburg and it was noted that for some reason McCoysburg has a 20 mph speed limit.

There was mention that this year's County auction may be bigger than usual because of office moves. No date was set for it.

Trane, which is seeking approval to do more work at the jail, gave a long presentation. The jail was poorly insulated and leaks air. They propose sealing the building and installing insulation in some areas. They want to move to LED lighting, which, in addition to using less electricity, will cut the costs of light replacement. (When lights are in inaccessible locations, they require renting lifts to change.) Trane is currently installing an 18-acre solar farm for the Kankakee School Corporation and proposes installing a smaller, 3-acre solar farm for the County Jail. They seemed to suggest that they can get financing so that the cost of paying for the project will be met by the energy saving that results. They will make a presentation at the County Council meeting on August 20. (The August Council meeting begins the budget process and is always a long one.)

The Drainage Board had two interesting items. One was a plan for a 100 acre industrial subdivision in Newton County near Fair Oaks Farms. The reason the Jasper County  Drainage Board heard the case is that the water from the site will drain into Jasper County and into Curtis Creek. The Board approved the drainage plan with several modifications. At this point I do not know anything more about this project.

The other case involved NICHES Land Trust. They cut what they thought were private tiles at Fisher Oaks but in fact they were mutual tiles, draining not only NICHES land but other land as well. The neighbors complained. NICHES was told to repair the tiles.

The Rensselaer Park Board and Park Corporation met Monday evening. Bids that came back for the construction of ball fields at Brookside Park were deemed too high by the Parks for People campaign because although the campaign has raised $1.3 million, much of that is still in the form of pledges, not cash that can be spent. So the ball park project has been scaled back and is being rebid.

Though no vote was taken that I remember, the group was favorable to a suggestion to name the shelter nearest the pool as the McFall Shelter. It currently has no name. (The drowning death of young Jimmy McFall in the 1940s convinced the community to build the pool.)

There will be a lot of work done in the Monnett/Staddon Park in the next few weeks. A trailhead should go up this week. There will be three entryways, the most impressive of which will be along College Avenue. Benches, planters, and some exercise equipment have been ordered.

About 30 people have registered their dogs for the dog park. There was discussion of keeping it free beyond this year and using some sort of fundraiser to raise money to cover the park's costs. There are still complaints about the brightness of the lights at the dog park. The obstacles at the dog park are being painted.

The park department has an internet domain name that currently links to the park Facebook page.  The Board approved paying a hosting fee so that the url  <rensselaerparks.com> will link to a website under construction.

A fourth early August meeting was that of the finance committee of the Jasper County Library Board held on Friday morning at the Rensselaer Library. Their budget recommendation will go to the full Library Board meeting on August 19. Because the recommended budget does not exceed the 3.5% growth quotient set by the State, the budget will not need County Council approval, though the Council will review it in a non-binding review.

The Library has installed LED lighting in exterior fixtures and this has cut the cost of replacing bulbs. The Library would like to replace interior lights with LEDs and one reason is that the architects designed the buildings with a multitude of different kinds of lights, which makes ordering new bulbs more work than it should be. The Library pays close attention to their cash and tax payments are not always predictable, so expenditures such as those for lighting only happen when the cash situation is favorable.

People rely heavily on the wifi in the libraries and not so much on the wired computers, so the Library plans to reduce the number of computers available to the public. This will cut the cost of  their service contract with the company that maintains and services the computers. I had not realized that the Library added color copiers last year. The Library plans to cuts some magazine subscriptions that have only one person using the magazine.

Anticipated expenses for the future include a new roof for the Wheatfield Library, new carpeting for DeMotte, and a redesign of office space in Rensselaer.

On Tuesday I was in Lafayette and found myself on Wabash Avenue where Lafayette is having murals done. A number are on houses. I did not have time to take more than one picture, but I did recognize the work of some of the people who contributed Rensselaer murals.

 This was not a mural.

There have been some changes in Rensselaer's medical providers. Dr. Garry Brady has joined the Sheets Family Practice.

Sharon Johnson, a family nurse practitioner, has joined the Clinic of Family Medicine.

Dr James Wakefield has been deployed to the Middle East and his patients are being seen by several doctors who are filling in for him as time allows.

Valley Oaks, formerly Wabash Valley, is having an open house on Thursday, August 15, from 4:00 to 6:00 pm.