Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

The arrival of spring stopped on Monday as we had a wintery mix of rain, freezing rain, sleet, and some snow. Fortunately most of the precipitation was in the form of rain.

Most of the snow piles from February are gone. An exception are the snow piles the City made along Bunkum Road west of the dog park.

There have several meetings in the past few days, none of which were especially interesting. On Monday the Jasper County Plan Commission and BZA were scheduled to meet. The BZA could not find a quorum so its business was postponed until the April 19 meeting. According to the legal notice in the Rensselaer Republican, they were supposed to consider a variance and special exception for an expansion of a calf operation in Union Township. The Plan Commission did have a quorum and approved a rezone from A1 to A2 in Jordan Township. The owner wants to put a residence on the lot but it is not large enough to do this if it is zoned A1. A2 allows a house on a smaller lot. They had a a second agenda item, an amendment to the UDO for solar farms, but continued that item until the May meeting so they can see what the State legislature will pass on the issue.

The County Council met on Tuesday evening. The approved the NIPSCO settlement agreement that the PTABOA and Commissioners had previously approved and also a CASA funding agreement that had been discussed at the previous meeting. The Sheriff asked them to think about adding another full-time security officer for the Court House. There have been incidents recently that rarely if ever happened in the past. He stated and Judge Potter agreed that society has changed and we live in a different world than that of the previous generation. There was no formal proposal at this time. 

The Sheriff reviewed some statistics for 2020. The average jail census was 62 inmates, down considerably from 2019, with an average of 9 females and 53 males. The lowest jail census for 2020 was 41 and the highest was 79. The average length of stay is 26 days. Several inmates have been there over a year.

The Sheriff discussed the efforts of C Pulver to work with the inmates to address their addiction and other issues. This work has been funded by a grant that will run out and the Sheriff wants to continue the program. The goal is to reduce recidivism. He also raised the issue of staff turnover, especially in the jail. There is not a big pay increase for experience and many people who get jobs in the jail will leave when they find jobs that pay more and are less stressful.

The Council approved additional appropriations for the County highway department, health department, and the Coroner. It postponed a transfer for elevator maintenance to next month and did not take formal action on a bill in the State legislature that would allow the State to preempt local restrictions on wind and solar power, though several members agree with the actions that the Commissioners took on this issue. They tabled the item on Heritage Barn Ordinance for Property Tax Deduction so they could learn more about it and agreed to pay $140 dues from a Indiana County Council Association invoice.

Before they adjourned, they got a COVID update from the County Health Nurse. The shot clinic has given over 5000 vaccinations. The total number of people in the County who have been vaccinated is over 9000. The Shot Clinic will probably be in operation for another 2½ months and eligibility age for vaccinations has dropped to 45. Jasper County is still coded yellow. 

Last week the local invasive species group met via Zoom. Less the 10 people participated and none of them wanted to become an officer for the group. There was discussion of an upcoming weed wangle. To do an event of this sort requires jumping through a number of hoops and they tried to determine which location had the fewest hoops. There will be another meeting on the 24th.

The Fire Department has scheduled the Town-Wide Garage Sale for May 1.

The Historical Society met Tuesday evening at the same time the County Council was meeting. After their business meeting, Shannon Anderson talked about her adventures in publishing books for children. A video of the meeting is on Facebook.