Meetings, meetings, and meetings

The Rensselaer City Council met on Monday evening with a short agenda. At the beginning of each meeting the Mayor asks if there are any citizen's comments and on Monday Mr. Eastridge of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization (JCEDO) had a request. JCEDO has recently purchased the building at 104 West Washington (next to the Horton Building) and plans to renovate it, putting its offices on the second floor and renting the ground floor. The work will require a building permit that will cost abut $1700. Mr Eastridge requested that the fee be waived. JECED is a non profit organization that tries to recruit businesses to the County. It received financial support from the County and the cities and towns of the County. Rensselaer contributes about $10,000 to its budget. Councilman Watson was concerned about ADA access. There is no plan to install an elevator to reach the second floor because the expense would make the project economically unfeasible. The request was granted, with Mr. Watson voting against.

The Council approved a request from the Water Department to replace a 2005 pickup truck with a 2018 truck that will cost $24,975 with trade in. The truck is used daily by the department. The Mayor appointed a committee of Hollerman and Watson to look at the possibility of increasing the minimum natural gas charge, which is $3.63 for City residents. The Committee will review information that the Gas Superintendent has collected about minimum fees that other gas utilities charge.

The Mayor reported that the first planning meeting for the Colts Fan Fest went well. The Colts would like it on the Court House lawn and the City plans to ask for permission for that use at the Commissioners meeting on March 2. The City grant application to INDOT for downtown revitalization was denied for 2024 but INDOT encouraged the City to reapply. Work on a second application is proceeding. The Council meeting lasted about 30 minutes.

After this meeting I wandered over to the Court House for the County BZA and Plan Commission meetings. I was surprised to see a big crowd. I wondered which of the items on the agendas had attracted them: another variance for a CAFO, a renewal of a use variance for the drug rehabilitation house, a natural gas peaking plant, or the rezoning for a wedding-event venue.

The BZA met first. Its first cause was a frontage variance. The petitioners want to split off a house from farm land and give the house a 37.5 foot access via the current driveway in order to keep the farm acreage as large as possible. It was granted. Next was a variance for lot coverage from Northwind Pork, which had applied for a zoning change and a couple of variances in September.

The zoning ordinance says that CAFO facilities cannot cover more than 15 percent of the acreage of the lot and the plans here will cover about 24%. The current operation uses about 50%. There was one objection from the audience and the variance passed with one opposed.

The final item on the BZA agenda was a use variance renewal for Jasper County Recovery House. The original use variance two years ago had attracted considerable opposition. This year there was none. There have been no complaints received in the two years that the House has been operating and some of those opposed two years ago have become donors. The House has a capacity for eight but comfortably holds five. After a month or six weeks at the Jasper County facility, residents move to the much larger Elkhart facility to complete the course. Those coming from Jasper County have had great success at Elkhart, perhaps because they get intensive individual attention. The Board approved a permanent use variance that is limited to the current operators of the facility. If another organization were to take over the operation, it would need to reapply for the use variance.

The next meeting will be March 16 if there is an agenda, and nothing had been submitted as of Monday.

The large, standing-room-only audience was still in the room as the Planning Commission began its meeting. This was the first meeting of the year, so they needed to elect officers. They opted to continue with the same officers from last year.

The first item on the agenda was the one I thought was the most interesting. A company called Primary Energy wanted a rezone from A1 to I2 for a 30-acre parcel near the current NIPSCO plant to build a natural-gas peaking plant.  (I think this is their website.) They had submitted a proposal to NIPSCO but it is still pending. The purpose of getting a zoning change is to be able to show NIPSCO that if selected, the project has met the necessary regulatory requirements.

A peaking plant produces power only when the grid needs extra electricity. This is what the City of Rensselaer's electric plant does. It is most likely to operate on extremely hot days when everyone is using their air conditioners. The reason for locating the plant near the current NIPSCO plant is that it can be tied into the existing distribution structure. The plant would not become operational until after NIPSCO shuts down its coal generation. The plant would employ only six to eight people. The Plan Commission recommended that the rezone be granted and sent that recommendation on to the Commissioners.

Next up was a one-lot replat from a subdivision that would allow the resident to put install a driveway. The original plat does not allow a driveway directly to the street. The request was approved.

Finally, I discovered why this meeting has the big crowd. It was for the next item, a rezone from A1 to A4 in Wheatfield Township for a wedding-event venue. There were about a dozen people who spoke against it, mostly citing problems of traffic and noise. One woman gave the Commission a petition with two pages of signatures of people who opposed the rezone. The Commission passed an unfavorable recommendation for the zoning change to the Commissioners. The room then emptied.

Next up was a 3-lot subdivision in Union Township. The person who owns the land, about ten acres, wants to split it into three parcels, which could then be sold for building houses. I believe one of the parcels currently has a house. It passed.

The final item was a discussion of some changes to fees and requirements. Nothing was done at this meeting, but I suspect that fees for filing variances and rezone requests will soon be raised. Also possible is a requirement that a site survey be obtained before construction. Often people build and do not get the site survey until they apply for a mortgage and the banks require a site survey. The home owners can then find that they have setbacks problems and to get the mortgage they need to get a variance.

On Saturday morning there was a forum featuring the three state legislators who represent Jasper County in the State Legislature. Jasper County is split for the State Senate, with Brian Buchanan representing the southern third of the County and Ed Charbonneau representing the northern two thirds. Douglas Gutwein, who represents all of Jasper County in the State House of Representatives, was scheduled to attend but missed because of illness. The meeting was held in the classrooms in the basement of the hospital and almost all the chairs were filled.

The State legislature is in session, but this year is their short session, which means they do not consider the budget. The legislature passes a two-year budget, so long sessions that consider the budget alternate with short sessions that do not. Legislation supported by the two senators included raising the smoking and vaping age to 21 and making texting while driving illegal. The legislature would like to address health care cost and availability but finding an effective way to do that, one that does not create more problems than it solves, remains a challenge. They pointed out that 50% of the state budget goes to K-12 education.
Senator Charbonneau said that the comments he received on the Red for Ed day indicated that mental health was a top priority for teachers. Kids are different today.

After their opening comments, the floor was open to the public. Many of the questions were about education—there were many teachers in the audience. There were complaints about testing and a suggestion that the State stop spending so much on testing and spend it on the schools. Someone noted that teacher raises were completely eaten up by higher health insurance costs. The senators were surprised to hear that Rensselaer has an appointed school board—there are only seven or eight in the state, with Valparaiso also having one.
Several people did not like any money going to charter schools, saying they lacked accountability. They were reminded that charter schools are public schools and cannot be selective in who they serve. (My past reincarnation as an economist whispered to me that charter schools would not attract students if there was no dissatisfaction with conventional public schools.) There were questions about medical marijuana and a concern for the continuing population loss of rural counties.

And on a completely different topic, dirt replacement at the town mall site in nearing completion. What seems to be a final layer of new dirt is being added and it smells of manure. I am ashamed to admit that I cannot tell if the smells is of cow manure or pig manure. As a resident of Jasper County, I should be able to distinguish the two.