Christmas is less than three weeks away. The weather is typical December weather, which means it is cold. Christmas decorations are popping up. There is a lighted "Seasons Greetings" sign in Milroy Park.
Brown's Garden Shop always has something interesting and decorative.
Saint Augustine's has its nativity scene ready.
Fendig Summer Theater announced last week that it now owns the former Episcopal Church on the corner of Grace and Melville. The property was transferred at the end of July.
The Summer Theater also owns a property on Rachel Street south of Columbia Park that it purchased in November of 2019. The lot had been zoned residential and the Theater asked the Rensselaer BZA for a variance so it could be used for other purposes. The plan was to use the existing building for storage and perhaps later build something for offices and practice space. I wonder if the Theater will now sell this lot or if they still have a use for it.
This past week the City has been patching streets where utility and other work has cut into the streets. One of the big patches was on Vine Street over the culvert.
At the west end of Vine the Fire Department is building a training facility. One of their training structures looks mostly completed. Since the last time I was there a fence and a new sidewalk along Monroe Street have been added.
Another of the props on the site is a replica of a car.
I noticed that the retention pond behind the fire station has a coating of ice.
The City is no longer using the lot north of the railroad on Mattheson for its brush pile. The brush is now going south to somewhere near the sewage plant.
On Monday Rensselaer Central High School will be going to on-line learning for the rest of the semester. They have many students quarantined because they have been in close contact with someone who tested positive.
On Friday morning the Jasper County Tourism Commission met via Zoom. Revenues from the inn keepers tax continue to track below the revenues from 2019. One member said that the monthly numbers are not accurate because some payers have been paying late. As a result the numbers do not tell how COVID is affecting revenues month to month. Mr Patel said to expect a brutal December, January, and February with regards to the tax. He did say that he has had inquiries from sports teams about reserving blocks of rooms for the tournaments that the Blacker Fields will be hosting.
There was mention of an ongoing website update. A few months ago the Tourism Commission approved a study examining possibilities for more sports tourism. The group doing the study said that the SJC campus offered the greatest possibilities but that they had not been able to do a site visit, in part because travel from Illinois to Indiana is banned. Phase One of the study will soon be completed and then the Tourism Commission will have to decide if it wants to continue on with a Phase Two.
Cameron Moberg will be doing the DeMotte mural in May or June. There was mention of a sculpture but I did not catch what that was about. The Jasper-Pulaski Reserve is undergoing leadership changes and the Tourism Commission would like to work with the leadership to find ways to promote more tourism. The 2021 budget for the Commission will be lower by $12,000 due to reduced revenues from the inn keepers tax. Finally, the Commission heard a report on the Memories Alive Cemetery Walk. Their main interest was in how the event can get more people from out of town to attend the event.
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