A post before Thanksgiving

The City Council met Monday evening with a short agenda. At the last meeting the Council expressed interest in examining the rates for trash pickup. At this meeting they gave the Mayor approval to sign a contract with Bakertilly, which recently merged with Umbaugh, the company that has advised the City in the past. The Council also approved accepting the supply bids for gas and diesel that were opened at the last meeting. (There was only one bidder, Ceres Solutions.)

The Mayor and other City officials had met with residents of Owen Street earlier in the day to discuss options for the sewer project the City is planning for the area. There were three options. The low priced option was for low pressure with grinder pumps. I believe the pumps would be the responsibility of homeowners, so this was not popular. A second option was the most expensive, one that used only gravity. This option would require lines to be up to 20 or 24 feet deep. The third relied somewhat on gravity but also used a lift station. This was the option that the Council approved.

The Council approved establishment of a fire department donation fund that would be used for expenses and purchase of equipment. The City received notification from the State that it needs to cut its budget for next year and the Council gave the Clerk-Treasurer authority to make the cuts. Parts are in for repair of the fire department's aerial truck and the repairs should be made in about a week and then there will be testing to see if the problem is solved. It was a short meeting.

Work continues on the concession stand/restrooms for the new ball fields in Brookside Park. Below is a photo of what the structure looked like on Tuesday.

The City has put up Christmas lights.

I stopped by the alley behind eMbers late last week and noticed that the wall that had the last bit of the angry birds mural was no longer.

 Below is another picture taken from the same place but with the camera held above the fence.

I rode over to Monticello on Tuesday afternoon and only saw one unharvested field along the road. I might have missed some. The bridge on 114 opened about a week ago.

My post on the aftermath of the fire now has the most page views according the the statistics that blogger provides. I think the fact that I updated it and then gave it a second push on Facebook helped. (Most posts have between 200 and 300 page views but there is a lot of variation from post to post. It is very rare for a post to exceed 1000 page views.)

Have a nice Thanksgiving and drive safely if you are on the road.

Northern Region Artists Exhibit

The Prairie Arts Council has a new show at the Fendig Gallery, the Northern Region Artists Exhibit.

The show runs through January 2, 2020 and features work from 27 artists who live in northern Indiana. Entry into the show was by invitation.

Some of the paintings are behind glass and getting a good photo of them presents the challenge of trying to minimize reflections. 

The photo below was taken from the side to reduce reflections.

The same is true of the next two photos.

 This painting may have been done by the same artist as the picture above. There was one artist in the show who did a lot of horse pictures.

There were several pieces of fabric art in the show by at least two different artists.

The pictures here are only samples of the many interesting and attractive pieces in the show. Exhibit hours are from noon until 4:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from noon until 2:00 on Saturdays, and by appointment.

Odds and ends and a long meeting

On Tuesday I noticed that work was being done inside the former Farm Credit office that was in the same building as 5/3 Bank so I stopped by the bank to see what was happening. As I left, I noticed that the mural on the north side of the eMbers building now was visible from the entrance of the bank.

 If I had waited a day, I would have learned what was happening without asking. The new tenant will be ASG Staffing, an employment agency. Their Facebook page is here.

 I keep reading that 20 or 23 or 24 businesses were affected by the fire. I can not account for that many. I found eight that have links to Facebook pages: Cutting Room, Sune Salon, Nail Bumpers, Serenity Health & Wellness, Work One, Express Employment, Jasper County Economic Development, (also Jasper County Tourism), and B & D Pools and Spa. Some of these have found temporary quarters. The ladies of the Cutting Room are at the Renew Salon. Sune Salon is at A New Beginning. Nail Bumpers is at 219 W Harrison Street #2. Work One refers people to their Morocco office. Express Employment is temporarily at eMbers Venue. Other businesses that were affected are Hearing Care Professionals, Honey Comb, Filson Rentals, Dr Kim Moyer, Attorney Clifford Robinson, Amerimac Corporation, & Rich's Barbershop. I have not found an Internet site for any of them. My total is 16. Who am I missing?

Update: The November 23, 2019 issue of the Rensselaer Republican listed several additional businesses that were found by the Fire Chief from utility office records. Included were Filson Rentals (twice), MS Maxwell LLC, Corn Genetics, Miracle Ears (which is the same as Hearing Care Professionals), and LASUMIKI Enterprises LLC. Filson Rentals owned the former Sears building so would be paying utilities for any vacant space and MS Maxwell LLC owned the other building and would be responsible for any utilities there.

Sheets Family Practice, in a building east of the fire, has moved to its old location at 123 S McKinley because of smoke damage.

The follow-up post on the fire went viral and is currently the second most popular post that this blog has had. It is closing in on the most popular post ever and knocked the post about Jay Dwiggins out of the top five.

On Tuesday evening there was a joint Commissioners/Council meeting. The purpose of joint meetings is to share information about issues that concern both bodies. The meeting began with a short discussion of the pension for the Sheriff's Department. The Council would like to move away from a defined-benefit system to a defined-contribution system, but there are questions of how that can be done. The Sheriff noted that the current fund was in much better shape than when the issue was originally brought up because of the rising stock market.

The discussion of the County's participation in Rensselaer's downtown revitalization project was also short. It included a discussion of what the County should do with the Johnny Rusk property. The idea of giving it to the City was unpopular and I suspect that the lot will soon be sold.

In response to the NIPSCO task force, the Planning and Development Office has begun a review of the County's comprehensive plan. An ordinance on tax abatement is being prepared and may be taken up by the Council in December or January.

The new and unnamed county building (formerly the PNC Bank) is nearing completion. Hooking up telephones and internet is not yet scheduled. Century Link has been slow to respond and the elevator in the building will not operate without a phone connection. The annex from which offices will be moving has about 10,700 feet of space and the County will sell it as is.

A discussion of EMS services largely repeated what was said in the last Commissioners meeting. Expenses are rising and health care billing is getting more difficult. The service that serves Remington finds that one third of their calls are to the Interstate, a third to the truck stop, and a third to everything else. Jasper County has 38 miles of Interstate, which brings commerce but also requires services that sometimes are not reimbursed.

Mr Culp reported that he signed a document on Monday that will allow financing for the solar farm at the jail. There was a discussion of something about fire protection and the Commissioners approved the contract.

There was a surprisingly large crowd at the meeting and most were there for the last item on the agenda, a presentation from Spillman software. This is a software system that the Sheriff wants. It will tie together fire, police, and ambulance. It is used in 30 Indiana counties. In contrast, the software the Jasper County Sheriff is currently using is used in one, Jasper County.

 The Spillman representative explained the benefits and then went on to cost. The cost of purchasing it is expensive. After some discounts, he came to a total of almost $534,000.  Maintenance, which includes quarterly updates, will be about $77,000 per year. Payment can be made over two years with no interest charged during that period or else the software can be leased. The Sheriff has been trying to find other County users who can contribute the the cost. The Rensselaer Police Department is all in because the software they are using is nearing end of life and will not have continued support. Several townships were willing to participate while others were undecided. The town of DeMotte thought the funding expected from them was too high.

The implementation of the new software will take 12 to 15 months. There is a learning curve and training is necessary. The Spillman representative offered a discount if the County would adopt before the end of the year. Mr Culp did not like that move because he does not want to make a hasty decision.

The joint meeting lasted an hour and fifty minutes. The County Council meeting began an hour later than scheduled. It approved several additional appropriations and several transfers of funds. The Sheriff reported that serious incidents at the jail had declined and attributed some of the decline to work of Dr. Chad Pulver. The Council reappointed Jacob Ahler as its attorney. Mr Ahler asked if the Council wanted him to work on an ordinance establishing economic recovery areas (ERAs) that are a first step in setting up TIF districts. The Council approved. The last item discussed was a possible upgrading of the meeting room. The Council agreed that Mr Andree should continue looking into options. With that the meeting adjourned.

I missed the Jasper County Historical Society meeting that took place at same time as the meetings above but watched the video of the meeting on Facebook. The video is really well done—notice how it switches between different cameras. Before the program on Native American foods, Linda B mentioned that the former Longs building was originally a Nash dealership that her family owned. Across the street where R&M is now was the Ford dealership.

The concession building for the Blacker Fields is getting a second floor that will be the announcer's booth/press box.

The effort by the Parks for People Campaign to raise $50,000 by the December 29 has ten donors and $23,938 raised as of Thursday morning. There are no small donations listed on the projects page.

A lot of pictures

Below is a picture of all that remains of the angry birds mural that was painted this past summer.

 The heat from the fire that destroyed the Town Mall warped the side of the sign that faced the fire.

 On Tuesday the Remington fire department sent their aerial truck to extinguish a flare up of the fire. The excavator was busy digging in the debris at the same time. Rensselaer's aerial truck is out of service because the ladder does not function properly.

Fencing has been erected around the entire half block to keep people away from the demolition that is starting to take place.

Several former tenants of the Town Mall have found temporary places from which to conduct business. The Cutting Room will work out of the Renew Salon, Express Employment said that they would be at Healthy Haven (updated to Embers Venue). Work One refers people to their Morocco office. If you know of other arrangements, write something in the comments to the blog.

It is sad to see the sign below. The new bakery seemed to be off to a strong start.

 County Bumpkin has a very attractive sign in its window.

 I visited the bridge on Saturday and the approach still had not been paved. On Tuesday there was new asphalt and a machine was cutting grooves into the surface.

 It is good to have groovy bridges.

I am not sure what else needs to be done. It looks about ready to open.

On Tuesday I got a chance to see what was happening inside the old PNC building. The open lobby has been closed in with walls. The main part of the prosecutor's office will be behind the wall on the right.

Below is a peek through the door. Along the far wall are the offices that were in the bank. They remain.

Where once bank tellers waited on customers are several small offices behind a new wall. The far office will be for emergency management and the others will be for people working on child support issues.

 Here is a look into two of the small offices.

 Do you remember what the balusters of the old stairs looked like? The new ones are much closer together. The door is for the elevator and if you look carefully you might see some of the elevator mechanism.

 The basement has lots of small rooms. It will house the probation department. The view below is not showing the staircase of the previous photo but the one on the other side of the building.

 I noticed that there was what looked like an old patch to the concrete that had been signed by some of the bank workers. I suspect it has hidden under carpet for years and that it will soon be hiding under carpet again.

 The finishing date is uncertain. The building still needs to have computer networking installed and no date has been set for that. (Not the County's fault.)

Both the Jasper County BZA and Plan Commission met on Monday night. The BZA meeting lasted five minutes and approved continuing a variance for a person who had his mother-in-law living in a trailer on his property. The variance has to be renewed every two years. The Plan Commission was scheduled to meet at 7:10 and had to wait for five minutes to begin its meeting. Its meeting approved a three-lot subdivision in Kankakee Township. A variance for this property had been granted at last month's BZA meeting. The Plan Commission meeting last ten minutes. If there is an agenda for either group, the meeting will be December 16. The third Monday in January is the M.L. King holiday, so the January meeting, if there is one, will be the 27th.

Strack and VanTil has their Christmas trees on display.

The morning after the big fire (updated)

Early on Monday morning smoke was still rising from parts of the buildings that burned on Sunday afternoon and there were still firefighters on the scene. Below is what remains of the former Longs Gift store.

 Here is a look through a Kellner Street window of the Long building

 A bit further down the block was the former office of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization. The director was able to retrieve some files from a file cabinet on Monday. This office did not seem to be as completely burned as most of the rest of the building.

 Here is a peek though what was the window of Dr. Moyer's office.

 Same window, different angle. Not only is the roof completely gone, but most of the interior walls are too.

 Below is a picture of the Kellner Street entrance to the building. Dr. Moyer's office was on the right and the law office of Clifford Robinson was on the left. Down the hallway was B&D Pools and Spa. Before TV Cable sold to NITCO, its office was at the end of the hallway.

 The block of Kellner Street along the building was closed to traffic early on Monday. I suspect that there will be some concern about the structural integrity of the walls and people will be discouraged from getting close to them. First Merchants Bank wanted to open its drive-up and was asking whether the street could allow the traffic from the exit.

I am not sure how up-to-date the sign was.

Express Employment had only recently moved into the corner office. It had been rented by Shelter Insurance until it moved to the Horton Building a couple months ago.

 Below is what is left of the Van Rensselaer entrance to the building. The Cutting Room was located to the right of the entrance and the hearing aid center to the left.

 The same part of the building but from a different angle.

The angry birds mural was on a wall that partially collapsed. I suspect the rest of the murals on this side of the alley will soon be gone as the wall is removed. The alley was still blocked off early Monday.

A Facebook post from Serenity Health and Wellness said that 24 businesses were affected. I would like to see the complete list. I had not walked through the building recently and there was a lot of change from year to year.

The former Longs building was owned by M S Maxwell LLC and had 5,800 square feet of space. The Town Mall was owned by Filson Rentals LLC and had 29,313 square feet of space. Almost certainly there is not that much vacant space in downtown Rensselaer. Finding new space to resume operations may be a serious problem for the businesses that were destroyed in the fire.

(I may update this post later today.)

Update:
By the time I stopped by what had been the Town Mall this afternoon, the walls along Kellner had been knocked down. Kellner was partially open to traffic so that people could use the bank drive up and shop at R&M.

 Below is a closer look at what had been Express Employment.

 The debris had been pushed off the sidewalk where the Van Rensselaer entrance to the Town Mall had been. City utility crews were busy turning off power to the burned buildings and turning it back on for the rest of the downtown. The gas mains to the Town Mall were being closed off.

The little section of the building that housed Rich's Barber Shop and the Amerimac Corporation seemed to be intact.  I was told that the furniture had been removed from the barber shop this morning. There was no furniture to remove from most of the businesses and offices.

 Below is what was the Kellner entrance. Compare it to what the entrance looked like in the morning. (See the sixth photo above.)

Here is another video from the Rensselaer Republican.

Papers in file cabinets did not always burn. I suspect that there was not enough oxygen to support fire and the fire did not get hot enough in the lower parts of the offices to carbonize the paper. I also suspect that nothing on computer drives survived. It is a reminder that it is a good idea to back up important computer data and store it in a different location than your computer. If you do not want to back up to the cloud, a lot of files can be placed on a flash drive and they are cheap.

A state fire marshall was on site this afternoon.

And to add to the bad news, the bakery is closing. See here. A ray of sunshine: Ivy Tech will offer several classes on the St. Joe campus this spring.

Major fire destroys half of a block of downtown Rensselaer

A fire on Sunday afternoon destroyed the half block of downtown along Kellner Street that contained the old Longs Gift Shop building and the Town Mall, once a Sears store. The Rensselaer Republican shared some footage on Facebook.

I did not arrive on the scene until the flames had been controlled but the firefighters from many departments will be working the site for hours into the night.

 Below is a closer look at firemen pouring water into Serenity Health and Wellness, one of two businesses in the old Longs building. The other was next door, a hair salon called the Honey Comb.

 There was a second aerial truck pouring water on the Town Mall. Among the businesses and offices there were two lawyers, another hair salon, a hearing aid place, Express One, Dr Moyer's optometrist office, a swimming pool supply business, and the offices of Jasper County Economic Development Organization. There was also rented storage in the building and a number of murals on its walls.

Another view of the aerial truck.

A view much like the one above but with a better view of the various water streams and a hint of how much damage had been done.

Below is another view of the first aerial truck. Every once in a while some flames would shoot up.

 The whole area was taped off and people were not allowed to get close. Below is a view from Potawatomie Park of two trucks that were pumping water from the river. There were large hoses that took it to the trucks putting water on the fire.

Maybe tomorrow we will be able to see just how much damage was done.

UPDATE: One more picture that I meant to put in but I overlooked it.

I feel especially bad for any of the tenants that had documents or data destroyed that was not backed up.