Snow is melting

 We survived a couple weeks of the temperature never getting above freezing and now the snow is slowly melting. I checked the river gauge to see how much the river was rising as a result, and it is very minor. The high-water records for late February were set in 2018. Do you remember the flooding that year?

I mentioned recently that the Main Street Bakery of Medaryville was planning to open a store in Morocco. It apparently will not do baking there but only sell what is baked in Medaryville. However, downtown Morocco has more good news. Bieser's Gourmet Kettle Corn has purchased a building in the downtown and will use it as their factory. The company is fairly new and its product is not sold yet in Rensselaer. 

The Weston Cemetery Walk committee has met a couple times to begin planning for the 2021 walk, which will be on third Saturday of September. This year will again feature the eastern part of the cemetery. There are lots of interesting stories there, in part because the world that these people inhabited was so different from our world.

The beginning of the snow melt resulted in some large icicles in the alley behind Fenwick Farms Brewing.

The Rensselaer City Council met on Monday for their second February meeting. It was another Zoomed meeting, hopefully the last. The next meeting on March 8 will, if all goes well, be an in-person meeting at City Hall.

The first item on the agenda was a proposal from the electric department to begin charging for meter bases and transformers when they are needed by a new industrial customer. The proposal was tabled until more information about how other communities are handling the expense of installing these items.

Next were two items that were mostly procedural. An additional motion needed to be passed to finish the contract extension with IMPA that the Council approved at the last meeting, and an ordinance to return outstanding warrants is bookkeeping that is passed every year.

The Council amended the salary ordinance to allow a full-time fire chief. Also in the ordinance was a change for the Park Department. All the youth league games will be at the Blacker Fields so there is a need for a field director for Blacker Field and no need for field directors for Columbia and Staddon Fields.

Bids for the Fire Department's aerial truck were opened. There was only one bid, from the Brook-Iroquois Volunteer Fire Department for $175,000. The City will transfer ownership 90 days after a signed purchase agreement, which will leave the City without an aerial truck for several months. (Delivery of a new truck is expected in October or November.)

Bids were also opened for 2021 street maintenance. There were two bids received, one from Walsh & Kelly for $815,525,74 and the other from Town & County for $868,484.30. These are for the Community Crossings Grant in which the State pays 75% and the City 25% and the bids were below budget. The bids were taken under advisement and a recommendation and an award letter will be presented at the next meeting.

There were a couple of public relations requests, one for a retirement party for an employee with 41 years of service.

The Mayor suggested that the meeting time be kept at 4:00 when they resume as in-person meetings. The Council had recently passed a resolution setting 6:00 as the meeting time and decided not to change the time because they felt 6:00 allowed for more public comment.

Gas usage was high during the cold snap and may affect our gas prices in the future. Mr Haun said that some business expansions are coming. He also said that the Fire Department will celebrate its 125th anniversary in May with an open house.

On Wednesday morning the sun was shining the temperature was about 40 degrees.  On my way to the Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals (PTABOA) meeting at the Sparling Annex, I noticed that the Iroquois River still had ice on it. 

Below is a photo of the same part of the River taken on Friday.

The meeting of PTABOA began with the swearing in of the Board members and the election of officers.

The purpose of the meeting was to accept an agreement with NIPSCO. NIPSCO will drop previous appeals and agree to a change in their 2020 value. NIPSCO plans to shut down two generators this year and the last two by the end of 2023.

Housing values have risen in the past year as has the cost of new construction and building materials. These increases may be reflected in the new valuations that will be mailed to County residents on April 30. 

Walmart has begun setting out lawn and garden supplies, a sign that spring is coming.

Brown's Garden Shop is reminding people that it is time to start garden plants indoors for transplanting later. I notice from where the sunlight hits in my south-facing porch that the sun is getting higher in the sky. Today (Wednesday) we have 11 hours and 6 minutes of daylight. In a week we will have 11 hours and 25 minutes.