More Zooming

Monday's Board of Public Works and City Council meetings were the first of who-knows-how-many Zoom meetings as City government tries to keep social distance. The BPW meeting had only one item on the agenda and lasted only five minutes. The Board approved a pay request to Commonwealth Engineers for preliminary and some of the final design work for the replacement of the lift station and providing City sewer to the unsewered areas. There was mention that Commonwealth needs information from the Army Corp of Engineers about flood plains to site the lift station.

The City Council meeting lasted 28 minutes and every vote was done by roll call. Although Zoom allows for video conferencing, there was no video as people who had video capability kept their cameras off and the host of the meeting did not provide any thing to see. Below is a picture showing what the meeting looked like on my computer. Fortunately the sound was of high quality.

After roll, the Council passed an ordinance to defer the sewage assessment fees for April, May, and June. This is a fee that is paid by those who were hooked up to the City sewer when the sewer line was extended to I-65 and was scheduled to expire in December, 2021. The deferral may be extended three additions months if needed. The idea is that businesses that pay it are suffering from the shutdowns caused by the pandemic. As a result of the ordinance, the expiration of the fee will be moved back three or six months, so the ordinance delays payment and does not eliminate it.

The Council transferred funds to allow the tree removal that was approved at the last Council meeting and it approved a gas tracker increase for April of 2.25¢ per hundred cubic feet. It also ratified a telephone poll of March 20 that extended the pay ordinance approved at the last Council meeting and approved having the Mayor conduct another telephone poll on further extending if it is necessary.

The Council canceled cleanup week for May 4-10. It will be rescheduled for some time in the Fall. In June the Council will make an appointment to the Rensselaer Central School Board and those interested in the position should apply by May 11. The final vote of substance was to approve the claims and they included a payment of over a million dollars to Trunkline Gas for two taps into their pipeline. The funds to pay this were raised in a bond offering and construction should begin in May and be completed in July.

On Tuesday evening the Jasper County Council joined the ranks of public bodies conducting meetings using Zoom. The agenda was very short, with only one item, a transfer for the Sheriff's Department of $2000 from medical testing to insurance. The insurance is to cover the vet bills of the dogs that the Department uses. The Sheriff is in the process of adding a third canine unit and has raised about $18,000 of a goal of $20,000 to make this happen.

With the one agenda item out of the way, the Council discussed a variety of topics. There is concern that the shutdown will delay and possibly reduce revenues. Councilmen wanted to know how much is in the rainy-day fund and were told it has more than $5 million, but that in 2017 it had a bit more than $7 million. Commissioner Culp, who hosted the meeting, said that the County's Departments have been told there will be no new hiring except for public safety. There was a discussion about the availability of various supplies such as masks and gowns. Property tax bills have been mailed in two batches and if you have not received yours yet, it should be arriving this week. The Extension office will not do any in-person events though June. Some counties are canceling their county fairs but ours is still on. The County Clerk encourages people to vote by mail for the upcoming primary election. You can request a ballet by calling 219-866-4929. The May Council meeting will probably also be on Zoom.

The meeting started with a Pledge of Allegiance and I noticed that when several people spoke at the same time, Zoom jumps around from person to person. There were 19 people who attended the meeting, as this screen shot below shows. Usually the person speaking was shown. I took the picture below when the person who was speaking did not have a video feed.

Other things.

The decorated ironwork for the entrances to the Jasper Foundation Park (aka Monnett-Staddon Park) has been installed. The three entrances all have identical arches. The one shown below is at the north end of the park.

 On Tuesday workers were preparing the foundation for a railroad crossing gate on Cullen Street.

Below is the foundation for the gate that will be on the south side of the tracks.

 Rich's Barber Shop has relocated further down Kellner. It is one of several service business that have suffered a one-two punch in the last six months, first the fire that destroyed their building and then the pandemic shut down that keeps customers away.

The weather this week has turned cold with temperatures dipping below freezing at night. This morning (Wednesday) it is snowing.

A week or so ago there was an announcement that both Jasper County and DeMotte received a million dollars in Community Crossing grants. Without the in-person City Council meeting, I did not get a chance to find out whether Rensselaer had submitted an application to this grant round.