Meetings and greetings

The Park Board met Monday evening. Much of the meeting was devoted to examining plans for the Blacker Fields concession building. In addition to having a concession area, it will have three restrooms: for men, for women, and for families. Part of the building will have a second floor that will contain an announcer's booth. The building will have eaves with an eight-foot overhang, creating a wrap-around porch. All the lighting will be LED and it will be air conditioned.

In the picture below you can see the outline of the building and that the electrical and plumbing leads have already been installed.

The parks now have a new website. Also new in the parks is the start of a shelter house at the Jasper Foundation Park (aka Staddon/Monnett). The work on this is only being done on weekends.

The local Rotary wants to donate a granite park bench honoring the late John Egan. The suggested location is Milroy Park. There was some question of how it would blend in with the black metal benches already there and where the best location would be, but the Board was happy to accept it.

The Scarecrow Trail is ready for people to enjoy and will probably get a separate post in the near future. Fall Fest will be October 24.

There seems to be activity in the former Sears location in the College Mall. The windows are covered but I thought I could glimpse some partitions being constructed inside. Anyone know more?

One of the members of the SJC Board has resigned. The Rensselaer Republican has the story. From it and what else I have gleaned, it seems that there has been a disagreement about the way forward but I have no special insight into what is happening there. I have noticed that the sign at the entrance has gone dark.

The Indiana Department of Transportation has plans to remodel the rest parks near Roselawn, though that may not happen for two or three years. A source with some connections has heard that the one in the southbound lanes may be turned into a welcome center. Supporting this rumor, the State of Indiana has recently (July and August) purchased three properties just to the south of the existing rest park with a total of about 19 acres. Did you know that CDC Resources has the contract to service both this and the Wolcott rest areas?

The Jasper County Tourism Commission met on Friday. They noted the completion of the Remington murals, which the Commission had helped fund and the opening of the new motel, which the president of the Commission owns. Someone also reported that Diva Bash Rish, who was president of the DeMotte Chamber of Commerce and who had done a great deal in expanding the Touch of Dutch Festival, had resigned. Also noted was a series of community engagement workshops. The first will be at the Rensselaer Library on October 17 at 6 pm.

There was an update on a planned bike ride for 2020. It will probably be held in August and will have an agri-tourism focus. Two rides will be offered, a shorter one of about 35 miles and a longer one of about 60 miles. One person mentioned that the routes should be checked for roads that have recently been chip and sealed. Apparently they are not bike ride friendly until they wear down a bit.

South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority gave a report on what it has been doing to promote Jasper County. They are promoting a winery trail that includes Carpenter Creek. They did several things to publicize the Rensselaer Art Walk, and some of them got many responses. South Shore has tried to find ways to get traction in the Chicago market, where advertising is very expensive. They opted to use social-media influencers and were pleased with the result. (I keep hearing about social influencers but I do not understand how it all works.)

On Tuesday Senator Mike Braun visited Fenwick Farms Brewing Company in Rensselaer. I had not seen him before so I went to the event. His comment on Washington was, "Up close the place is worse than I thought it was." He argued that we should depend more on local and state government levels to solve problems and less on the federal. He noted that his office gets a tremendous number of calls for constituent services—help to overcome problems with various government entities—and said that this volume of problems means that something is fundamentally wrong. He has agreed to be term limited and thinks Congress needs more people who are not career politicians. Sometimes he was a little hard to hear; I had not realized how many loud trucks go through downtown Rensselaer. Overall I was favorably impressed.

Finally, I keep seeing newly paved roads in Rensselaer but until late last week I had not seen the paving crews in action. Below is a picture of the milling of Lincoln Street.

And here is the paving.

It is a busy week.