What happened at Monday's meetings?

 I swung by Genova late last week to see if I could see the construction that the Company had been planning. I found the skeleton of a large building.

When I walk into my backyard, I am swarmed by mosquitos.  The joys of summer.

The next dollar day at the LaRue Pool is July 9. The pool has evening hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Rensselaer Farmers market has begun their Tuesday afternoon sessions.

The Jasper County Commissioners met with a long agenda of rather routine items. There were five buried cable requests that sought permission to use County right-of-ways. Three were approved and the other two simply updated information for previously approved projects. A citizen had a complaint about excessive dust on CR 400 E and another wanted a cul-du-sac on CR 980N because a neighbor had made it very difficult for delivery trucks to turn around at the end of the dead-end road. Back in 1991 the Commissioners had voted to vacate some alleys in Gifford but did not follow up with a required ordinance. On Monday they passed the ordinance so the alleys are now officially vacated.

Two bids for paving were received, one from Milestone and the other from Town & Country. Both were accepted and so the County Highway Department can use whichever works best on a project. The Commissioners had asked KIRPC whether a specific source of grants might be used to fund sidewalk reconstruction around the  Court House and were told that the source was not appropriate. KIRPC will be doing traffic counts on various County roads and asked the Commissioners if they had any specific roads they wanted included. Ken Wright, the new director of Community Corrections who was officially appointed later in the meeting, received approval for a grant application. (The Commissioners require all grant applications made by County departments to be brought before them so the grants are on record for the State Board of Accounts.)

The Commissioners signed papers for a Community Crossings grant. Since 2016 when the program began, the County has spent $9.96 million for road improvements funded by these grants. About $6 million was State funding and the other 40% was County matching funds. At a previous meeting the Commissioners had approved opening a line-of-credit with Demotte State Bank to fund work on the Kankakee River. At this meeting they approved and signed the final loan agreement. They also approved allowing the Surveyors office to give contour data to a landowner. 

The Health Department was given permission to replace their Director of Vital Records. The position will become part-time because at the June meeting the Department was allowed to make the food inspector position full-time in exchange for making the Director of Vital Records part time when the current Director retired.

40.8% of the County has been vaccinated for Covid. Vaccinations will continue at the Health Department but people seeking the vaccine will need to register either on-line or by calling 211.

Mark Sinclair provided estimates for repairs to the Animal Control building. Some of the repairs were needed before a recent accident in which a car ran into the building, and the Commissioners wanted to know what the insurance settlement would be before they approved anything, so the item will reappear on next month's agenda.

Sharon Collee gave an update on what Community Services is doing. They will be receiving two new vans this fall and two more next year. She will be requesting an extra $5000 in the budget for next year; the budget for Community Services is included in the Commissioners budget (as a many other things). Two bids were received to seal coat and paint the parking lots of the Sparling Annex and the Court House. The bids differed by only $200 and the low bid was accepted.  The Commissioners signed a road-use agreement with NextEra, the company that will build the Dunn's Bridge solar project in Kankakee Township.  The County Fair will be able to use a County Fork lift to set up and tear down for the fair. The Commissioners approved four rezone requests that had been recommended by the Plan Commission.

The Sheriff's Department has had more than usual turnover. The Commissioners approved replacing four deputies who left. One joined the DeMotte Police Department and the other three found jobs outside of law enforcement. The Commissioners also approved replacing a corrections officer. There was a short discussion about the cost of new deputies. Some have to go to the police academy and others need to pair with experienced officers, and both reduce the number of units on patrol. Uniform and equipment costs for a new hire are about $15,000. The Commissioners also approved a grant that the Sheriff was seeking.

The Commissioners passed an ordinance that will allow broadband improvements to get favorable tax treatment. They also passed an ordinance setting new fees for using or crossing County right-of-way and signed paperwork for two bridge projects that they had approved at a recent meeting. 

There was a discussion of where early voting could take place. State regulations say it must be near the County Clerk's office, which is on the second floor of the Court House. In the past it has been in the hallway. The plan for the future is to have two voting booths and they require eight electrical outlets. However, there are only six in the hallway. Placing them in the Commissioner's Room was suggested, but there were concerns of whether the room would meet ADA requirements.

A meeting of the group planning events for the 125th anniversary of the Court House decided that October 15 would be the day for formal ceremonies. On November 13 there will be tours of the offices in the Court House. After a long discussion of whether to approve paying for an expensive coffee pot that has been the source of bad blood in the Court House, the Commissioners denied payment.

There was a Zoom option for this meeting, but as has been the case for most hybrid Zoom/in-person meetings, the audio was poor both ways. After three hours the meeting was continued to 8:30 on July 19th if necessary. Before next Tuesday's Council meeting there will be a joint Commissioners/Council meeting that will start at 5:00 pm. 

In the afternoon the Drainage Board met. NITCO is trying to provide high-speed internet to part of DeMotte and needs to install two miles of fiber that will cross four ditches. The application was approved. There is a small drainage of 420 acres that straddles the White-Jasper County line with most of the drainage in White County. White County requested that Jasper County waive its rights so that it could establish a maintenance fund to fix the ditch and the Drainage Board approved. 

The last item was from NextEra for the Dunn's Bridge solar project. They needed approval from the Drainage Board to get building permits from Planning and Development. They provided the Commissioners with a map showing all the crossings of drains. The Commissioners wanted more detail, and that detail may have been provided to the Highway Department and the Surveyor's office. NextEra says it will submit papers on each of the individual crossings at a future date. The Commissioners wanted to see a study of how the panels will affect runoff—will there be effects on neighbors. The Commissioners gave preliminary approval so the building permits can be issued. 

There was a reminder that there was a joint Jasper-Newton Drainage Board meeting on Tuesday. The Newton County surveyor died very recently and has not yet been replaced.

Appleseed Childhood Education, which is working on creating a childhood education center in Rensselaer, recently announced that its partner, Right Steps Child Development Centers, had received a grant of $100,000 to help get a Rensselaer center established. More here.