Almost May

 I went into the Court House today for the first time in a year. The security officer stops you as you enter and asks you to pose in front of a screen that takes your temperature.

This past weekend the Blacker Fields hosted a girls fastpitch softball tournament. I could not find out much about the teams or the organizations, which has both a website and Facebook page. I do not know if there were games on Saturday, but on Sunday only two of the three fields were being used.

There are five more weekends of boys baseball tournaments scheduled:

May 7-9  31 teams
May 14-16  20 teams
May 21-23
June 4-6
June 25-27

On Thursday I found workers connecting the new gas pipeline to the existing line. When I got there and saw what they had done, I initially thought they might have done most of the work. I was wrong. They had gotten the new line under an existing water main, but still had a section of bypass to install.

On Friday the bypass had been installed and over the weekend the assembly was pressure tested. This week the final connection will be done and when all is finished, the old section of pipe will be removed and the line will have the little detour left.

SJC has been cutting down dead ash trees.

The bowling alley has a Facebook page, Pottsy's. On Saturday it posted a picture of cars lined up for donuts. 

The City Council met on Monday evening. It began with a public hearing on additional appropriations, and there were no public comments. The Council then approved an additional appropriation of $3225 for the Police Department (fund from fines, I believe) and $204,000 from the Rainy Day Fund that will be the City's match for the Community Crossings Grant that funds street paving.

The Council approved spending $40,454 to replace a baffle curtain at the waste-water treatment plant. The repair will have to be done without shutting down the plant, which requires divers.

The Council then moved to approving tax abatements. It approved the recommendations of the Tax Abatement Committee for abatements for Conagra (3 abatements), IMPA (2 abatements), and National Gypsum (2 abatements). It had approved abatements for Genova at a special meeting. (The special meeting also established the area as a Economic Revitalization Area, needed before the abatements were granted.) There was a long discussion of the three new abatements that were filed for Indiana Face Masks and American Melt Blown. Indiana Face Masks is building a new building that will cost $375,000 and will add equipment worth $1,713,000, but even though they are part of the same project, the abatements were filed by two different business entities, both with the same owners. The City has a threshold of $500,000 for a project to qualify for an abatement, so there was a question of whether the building should qualify. Spokesmen for the company successfully argued that  it should because it was part of a larger project, and the Council voted 3-0-1 in favor of the abatement. The project is supposed to add 80 jobs.

(The new building is under construction. The roof seems to be finished, but it is near the ground. I am not familiar with the construction technique of building the roof first, then raising it later.)

The Council approved the Mayor's Holiday for City employees for July 2. The Clerk-Treasurer swore in the new building inspector, cemetery superintendent, and fire chief. The seat on the Rensselaer School Board that the Council fills had only one applicant, who will be interviewed before the next meeting. The Council approved removing three more dead ash trees for $1400.

The Police Department is now using the two new cars that were ordered in late 2020. The Department is tagging abandoned or derelict vehicles as part of Clean-up Week, which will be May 3-7. Town and County has begun work on the parking lot at the recycling center. Walsh and Kelly will being demolishing sidewalks on May 3, the first part of the street repaving project. The Gas Department is reviewing their gas rates with the City's financial advisors, Baker-Tilly, and something may come to the Council from that review.