A tie breaker

The Iroquois River crested on Monday a few inches below flood stage. Fortunately we had less rain that northern Illinois and Michigan received. Weston Lake is back and has had lots of frogs and toads making noise. I believe that Weston Lake was part of a loop of the Iroquois River before the River was dredged and straightened.

The County Council meeting on Tuesday featured an issue that sharply divided the members of the Council. The Airport Authority wants to acquire land to the west that will eventually allow the construction of an east-west runway. (This was mentioned in a post here.)

 The Airport Authority has the opportunity to purchase an 80-acre tract to the west of the land it purchased in the last year or two. It would like to acquire this land because it would eventually allow the construction of an east-west runway. Only 47.3 of those acres are needed for its plans, but the owner of the lot does not want to split it. The Authority has the right to purchase that land with its own funds, but it would like the FAA to finance it, and to get that help from the FAA, it needed to have the County Council approve the appropriation of funds, in this case, $690,000 for the 47.3 acres. The FAA will reimburse about $660,000 over three years in four payments. Councilmen questioned this purchase, asking whether a second, longer runway was really needed and wondering if, given the financial stringency that will soon face state and local governments, this was the right time to be spending money. The Airport's argument was that they had a willing seller now and might not have that in the future, that they were bringing in federal dollars that would otherwise go elsewhere, and that when there were strong cross winds, many planes could not use the existing north-south runway. The discussion went on for some time, and when the vote was finally taken, there were three against (Risner, Norwine, and Fritts) and three for (Andree, Jordan, and DeVries). That meant it was up to the president of the Council, Mr Bontreger, to cast the tie-breaking vote. He voted in favor, so the land acquisition has passed this hurdle.

The Council approved an agreement with First Merchants that sets up a line of credit. It will be used to finance work on the Kankakee River. FEMA will reimburse the County for work that is done, but only after the County pays for it, so the line of credit makes sure that the County has the funds needed to pay bills when they are presented.

There was only one tax abatement continuance that had to be approved, that of Wilson Industrial. It is nearing its end of life because it was granted in 2011 and they usually run ten years. The abatement for Remington Seeds no longer needs County approval because their property was annexed by Remington and the abatement for Advance Auto was only for personal property and for some reason this did not need approval.

Someone noted that tax revenue collections to date are $13 million, down from last year's $16 million, but the decline is mostly because the largest taxpayer in the County has taken advantage of the Governor's permission to delay payment until July.

The Council reappointed a member of the Library Board and set the dates for budget hearings. The Jordan Township Trustee made a presentation about what the Township was doing with its balances, which have grown to the point where the Township needs to report a plan to the Council. The Sheriff said he would like to be able to offer his staff some kind of reward for working though the shutdown but the Council decided to delay discussion of that idea to a future meeting. The meeting adjourned about an hour and a half after it started.

On Monday evening the Jasper County Plan Commission met with a request to rezone a parcel from R1 (residential) to A2 (agricultural). The parcel is located in Keener Township, along the east side of I-65, a bit to the south of the rest area. It is a narrow triangle of land that is about 14 acres and to its north is a residential subdivision.

The reason for the rezone request was that the owners want to be able to have a horse or horses on the property and the R1 zoning does not allow that. After discussion, the Commission sent a recommendation to the Commissioners to allow the rezone with the condition that no more than five horses be allowed and no other farm animals.

A garden crop that is in its prime but which I have not seen at the Farmers Market is rhubarb. Someone asked me about an old recipe and I did quick search on the Internet. I was surprised to find that it did not become used as food in Europe until the 18th century when sugar became abundant.

Finally, here are the times for absentee voting, which in Rensselaer is at the annex building that once was the REMC building (corner of Clark Cullen and Kellner).