Council meetings

Apparently repairs to the LaRue Pool did not go as planned because the pool is currently empty.

 Even though the softball tournament this past weekend had about 30 teams, only the three new fields were used. There were a lot of spectators.

The Rensselaer Board of Public Works met Monday evening and approved paying five sets of invoices related to the Main Lift Station & Unsewered Areas Project. The strangest was a $10 fee for an easement to provide a service line to the Jasper County Garage. It has a duration of 40 years and after 40 years the easement reverts back to Jasper County. The reason for the payment is some government regulation that seems to come from the Federal grant that will help fund the project. The only other payment that the Board approved was an invoice for a study of back-up generators and a possible water tower near I-65. It accepted a new Standard Operating Procedure for dash cameras for the Police Department. The revised SOP is prompted by the huge changes in technology since the previous SOP adopted in 1993.

The Rensselaer Council meeting followed. It affirmed that the Prairie Arts Council can have the Art-in-the-Alley festival in July. Next up was a group of residents who live on Mt Calvary Road east of US 231 who were interested in getting City water. They currently use well water and some of them have very bad water. The City had obtained an engineering estimate of the cost of running a 12-inch main from US 231 to about a mile east. The construction cost would be about $636,000 but the non-construction costs (engineering, permitting, financing) would increase the total cost to a bit over $900,000. That cost would have to be borne by the residents of the area who got water. There was a mention of the possibility of annexation but apparently that would be opposed by some of the people along the road. The City offered to meet with the residents to explore options.

At its previous meeting the Council considered three ordinances that redistributed money that the City receives from two tower leases, one from Sprint that leases an antenna on the Rachel Street Water Tower and the other from Verizon that has its own tower next to the Drexel Water Tower. Two were passed and one was tabled to be rewritten. At this meeting one of the passed ordinances was revised and the tabled ordinance was passed in a re-written form. The money from the leases goes to the Sidewalk Maintenance Fund and the Future Development Fund.

The Council approved that June gas tracker of ½¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet and a gas tracker for the third quarter of a 51¢ decrease per thousand KWHs. The Council approved a supplemental agreement with First Engineering Group for additional work it has done on the CCMG grant. Last year the Council approved fireworks at the end of the County Fair but there were no fireworks because there was no fair. This year it again approved fireworks at the end of the fair and hopefully the fair will have a spectacular ending. Also fair related, the Council approved parking a City garbage truck at the Fairground for the Fair to collect garbage. The Little Cousin Jasper Committee wants to close US 231 for part of the Festival and has to get that from the State. The Council said it had no objections. 

Yard-waste collection has been slowed by a resignation of one employee and sickness of a second. The Gas Department has taken delivery of its new truck. The supplies that it uses are increasing in price and some are in short supply and not immediately available.

The Rensselaer City Council meets on the second Monday of the month and the Jasper County Council meets on the third Tuesday. This month those two days were in the same week. The County Council meeting had a short agenda but that did not result in a short meeting. First up was a couple of small additional appropriations for the Sheriff's Department. They were approved, but the Sheriff had other concerns for the Council. He strongly believes that the addiction recovery program at the jail is valuable for getting some of the prisoners on the right path and reducing recidivism. The program has been partially funded by a grant but may in the future not have that funding and he was encouraging the Council not to let the program lapse. For some reason the funding of the program is in the Commissioners' budget, not the Sheriff's budget and someone suggested that this could be an issue to discuss at July's joint Commissioner/Council meeting.

The State has eliminated firearm application fees beginning in July and these fees provided revenue to the Sheriff's Department. The State will for next year provide some funds to offset the loss but the Sheriff worries that in the future that funding will disappear.

The Sheriff's biggest concern, however, is the turnover in staff. He is currently down four deputies and the latest hire will be at the police academy for the rest of the year. He probably will be able to fill two of the positions from jail staff. There are several other deputies who may be leaving. They are leaving for new jobs that pay more and have more stable hours. The loss of deputies increases overtime and he said that he may be back in a future meeting for additional appropriations for the overtime fund. He suggested that the Council add a part-time fund so his department can hire some local law-enforcement officers part-time. (Many police officers work a second job.) He was asked if higher wages would help keep officers and he said that it would. He was asked about the jail population and said it was 55. 

The second item on the agenda was a proposal to establish a second line of credit for the Surveyor's office for work on the Kankakee River project. This project has FEMA funding that pays for 75% of the costs, but that funding comes as a reimbursement, which means the County has to do the work and pay the bills, and then submit the bill to FEMA to get the Federal dollars. FEMA is also holding back some of the reimbursement until the entire project is finished. The County needs to borrow the money initially to do the work and has done that in the past with a line of credit from First Merchants Bank. This second line of credit, which the Council approved, was with DeMotte State Bank.

In August the Council will begin approving the County budget for 2022. The process will begin at the regular meeting on August 17. There will be an all-day meeting on August 18 and on August 25 the Council will meet for cuts. 

The Auditor, Donya Jordan, reported that the County had received half of its allotment under that American Rescue plan, or $3,259,512.50. There was a discussion of various sources of tax revenues that I did not understand. The County has a fund with about $8 million in it and may not be able to spend from it.

There was a Rensselaer School Board meeting on Tuesday that may have been interesting. I have not seen any reports from it. Update: A letter posted on Facebook says that the Board made masks optional as of July 1, though they are still required on busses because of a federal requirement. Vaccination is encouraged but not required.