A long City Council meeting

 The City Council meeting on Monday evening was unusually long, lasting an hour and twenty minutes. After the usual preliminaries (invocation, pledge, roll call, approval of minutes), the Council approved two street closings. One was for the Saint Augustine Fall Frolic on October 2 that will use a block of Susan Street, and the second was for a few feet of Harrison Street on September 25 for an Eagle's benefit.

Also in the Citizen's Comments part of the meeting, Stace Pickering presented a proposal for the development of Filson Park with a picture of how the finished park  could appear. (See picture) This concept had received approval from the Park Board earlier this month. The work needed would be funded by he Filsons and construction could begin in the Spring of 2022. After some discussion, a motion to approve the concept and move forward was approved. (At the end of the meeting Noelle Weishaar noted that she did not like the land being used as a park because it limits potential for economic development.)

Next was a public hearing on the 2022 budget. A lot of numbers were read that no one really understands. There were no public comments. The budget will be approved at the next meeting.

The Council passed amendment to its policy and procedures that had to do with the new Juneteenth Federal holiday. I suspect but am not sure that Juneteenth will become a City holiday. 

Head of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization (JCEDO) presented a proposed tax-abatement ordinance. It is similar or identical to ordinances passed by Jasper County, Remington, and DeMotte and uses a scorecard to determine the abatement. It also reduces the abatement to 97%, with the extra 3% going ultimately to JCEDO for their help in smoothing the regulatory path, and this was the item that seemed to most concern members of the Council. Ultimately it was tabled (which I believe was out of order. There was no motion on the floor so there was nothing to table.)

The gas tracker adjustment of September will be a 1.36¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet. At the last meeting a gas hedging agreement was passed, but it needed a roll-call vote, not just a voice vote, so at this meeting a roll-call vote was held, with all members voting for the measure.

There was a long discussion of a recommendation from an insurance committee that had met to discuss health insurance for City employees. At present the City covers all but a $1.00 of the cost of health insurance for employees, but very little of the cost of dependent insurance. (Why the $1.00? Because the State does not allow the City to cover 100%.) The recommendation was to pay about 50% (based on the previous year's cost) of dependent insurance. Eventually the Council accepted the recommendation.

Someone is interested in buying the light plant equipment. The Council authorized the Mayor and Mr Cover to negotiate to a letter of intent.

There will be no Trunk or Treat for Halloween this year. The Council did not decide on trick-or-treat hours because someone said that in a previous year they had set trick-or-treat hours for this year. (It was at the March 2020 meeting. It set the last Sunday in October for years 2020 to 2022.)

The salary ordinance was amended to increase the salaries of linemen in the electric utility. That utility has had problems keeping journeymen linemen after they complete their training.

The Fire Chief wants a committee to explore the future of the department. Councilmen Watson and Cover agreed to serve. He noted that the fire department has made about 200 calls this year and some of them are medical. There will be a dedication and ribbon cutting for the Fire Fighting Training facility on October 5 at 5 pm.

The Airport has hired a new manager to replace Ray Seif who resigned a few weeks ago to take a job in Kansas. She is a recent grad of Indiana State and is presently working at the Gary airport. She will start part-time and become full-time on October 3.

Here are a couple of pictures of floats from last week's homecoming parade.

I am tired of writing. More later.