Council meetings

The Iroquois River is freezing over again. The level of the water has dropped several inches from the last time it began freezing, and much of that old ice is still hanging above the water. We are having a cold January, but until the past few days, one with very little snow. The picture below is from the Talbert Bridge looking upstream. It was taken Monday morning.

The Jasper County Council met last Tuesday (01-18-2022) evening. After the Council elected Rein Bontreger as president and Gary Fritts as Vice President for 2022, they heard a suggestion from Andy Boersma about pay for deputy coroners and what should be paid for vehicle use. No action was taken but his suggestions will probably be presented when budget time comes this year.

The Council approved a name change for the EMS service that will serve the center of the County. The Commissioners had approved this change at their meeting but it also needed Council approval. They passed an amendment to the salary ordinance that adjusted salaries for several offices and they approved the 2022 contract for the Council's attorney. The only change from last year's contract was a new date.

The Sheriff spoke at the meeting during discussion of the Salary Ordinance. He mentioned that the County should think about installing license plate readers at the exits to the Interstate. These readers are useful in dealing with stolen vehicles and crime coming into the County from the Interstate. He said that White and Porter Counties are investing in this technology. In response to a question, he said that the new food service at the jail was working out well.

In other business, Councilman Brett Risner raised concerns about PERF (Public Employees Retirement Fund). I did not understand the issue. A committee was appointed to examine the issue and report back to the Council. 

Sometime in the last month Jordan Floral closed. They had been a Rensselaer business for 44 years. 

The old Monnett School has a new owner, Scholar River City TIC LLC. I could find little about it. On Wednesday workers were doing concrete work on the future Walgreens building.

On Thursday they had erected an enclosure to keep the concrete warm enough to set. The tent remained into the weekend.

I noticed benches had been installed in the new trail to the shelter in Iroquois Park.

In addition to the crushed stone base for new tennis courts, Brookside Park has a layer of new crushed stone on the track.

The Rensselaer City Council met Monday evening and approved a letter opposing pending State legislation to reduce or eliminate the business personal property tax. Local governments rely on revenue from this tax and the bills before the State Legislature do not have provisions to replace the lost revenue for local governments.

The Gas Department needs a new roof. The roof is original and has been developing leaks. The head of the department has obtained three quotes, two for a rubber roof and one for a steel roof. The building is 23,000 square feet and she would like the whole building done. There is funding available for the project. The Mayor appointed a committee to examine the quotes.

The Mayor made appointments to several boards and commissions, including the Alcohol Beverage Board, the Tourism Commission, the Rensselaer Redevelopment Authority, the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission, and the Unsafe Building Board. The Council approved spending for a blade for the Cemetery mule. Water well #6 is back in service. The new trash bins still have not been delivered to the City. The Gas Department has a new employee who will join the department soon.

The White County United Way has been administering Lilly funds to support non-profits who are providing basic needs for people, such as food, shelter, medical care including mental health care. The pot of money that is designated for Jasper County still has many thousands of dollars in it and the money must be given away and spent in the next month or the money will go back to Lilly. If you know of any non-profit who might qualify, have them contact the White County United Way as soon as possible for information

Update: Appleseed Childhood Education has found a home.

More meetings

Despite a week of very cold temperatures, the Iroquois River did not freeze over. 

Water is slowly rising in the Babcock Quarry. You can compare the picture below to a picture from early November to see the rise. (The platform near the end of the road once held the pump that kept the water level from rising.)

You can see some of the hundreds of geese that are hanging out in the quarry in the picture above. 

The cold weather froze the water seeping in from the western edge of the quarry.

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met Tuesday to adopt a declaratory resolution to enlarge the Lintner Park TIF area. This is the first step of several before the TIF is enlarged. The property the Commission is adding is about 28 acres, presently zoned for agriculture, east of the present TIF area. It is inside City limits and there has been interest shown in the past about the area. It is next to the railroad so a spur line is possible. 

The Airport Authority Board met Tuesday evening. They discussed a five-year Capital Improvement Plan that needs to be submitted to the FAA by February. Their engineering consultant pointed out that the recently passed federal infrastructure act had money dedicated to airports and that the Jasper County Airport was eligible for $159,000 a year for five years. He said that one of the uses they might make of this money is to build a new hangar. The airport has an old hangar that was built in the 1940s and replacement of that building, which is considered a safety hazard because it is too close to the taxiway, has been a priority for several years. Members of the Board suggested other options and the plan was made more vague to include those options. Final guidance on how these infrastructure funds may be spent is not yet available. A major goal of the Airport is to add an east-west runway that would be long enough to serve larger private jets. Some of the land needed has not yet been acquired and there was discussion as to when in the plan it should be acquired. 

The Board approved a request from Work One to allow a client to shadow the Airport Manager. There was a long discussion of the vacation and comp time policy for the Manager. The meeting was interrupted with a Finance Committee meeting, which noted that with the very low interest rates there was not much that could be done to improve the return on cash assets. The meeting concluded with the Board retaining its 2021 officers for 2022.

Several people involved with the invasive species initiative held a Zoom meeting on Monday. They set a date for a call out meeting to get more people involved. The tentative time and place is March 15 at 5:30 at the Carnegie Building. 

On its website but not in this week's edition the Rensselaer Republican reports that SJC has named Chad Pulver as chancellor. Late on Thursday SJC put the release on its website. I do not recall that SJC ever had the office of chancellor. I wish Dr Pulver success in his new position.

On January 22 at 10:00 am Bieser's Gourmet Kettle Corn Factory will have a ribbon cutting ceremony in Morocco.  It is nice to see a new business opening there.

On Thursday evening both the Rensselaer Plan Commission and the Rensselaer BZA met. The Rensselaer Plan Commission approved an amendment to the Schuster Road Platt. The City is planning to develop this road after getting a property donation from NITCO. The BZA approved a conditional use variance for a dog-grooming business on West Lincoln Street. The owners plan to move to a storefront in a few months.  The Rensselaer Plan Commission has another meeting scheduled for February 10. Both groups retained their officers from 2021 for 2022.

The Fendig Gallery is now hosting the Annual Regional Primary Art Show. The exhibit ends January 30. Masks are required for all visitors.

The foundation for new tennis courts is being prepared in Brookside Park.

Foundations are also being prepared for a new, smaller Walgreens where Arby's once stood.

Titan Construction is doing the work. On Thursday they had dug a trench for a footer.

Construction is supposed to be finished in March.

Council meetings now and then

 In my last post I made a mistake reporting the new hours for the Fendig Gallery. They are 3:00 to 4:00 on Tuesdays and 2:00 to 6:00 on Thursdays. The  later closing on Thursdays will allow people to come after work.

On Monday evening the Rensselaer Board of Public Works met and the two new hires for the Police Department were introduced. They will be attending the Police Academy in late summer of early fall, the earliest that there are openings for that training. The Board passed Standard Operating Procedures for use of drones by the Police Department. The document was based on what other police departments have in the SOPs and the Board needed to pass it for the Department to begin using drones. The drone they use is shared with the Fire Department. The Police Department has one officer currently certified and the Fire Department has two members certified. Currently there are no Sheriffs Deputies certified so the Sheriff uses the Fire Department people if he has a need for a drone.

The Board approved two invoices for Commonwealth Engineering, one for water main replacement and elevated storage tower and the other for main lift station and unsewered areas. The second of those has been bid but the City is still waiting to see what part of USDA Rural Development funding will be in the form of a grant and what part will be debt. 

The City Council met after the BPW meeting and began the year by continuing George Cover as President of the Council. The gas tracker for January will be a 13.5¢ increase per hundred cubic feet. The Council accepted the donation from NITCO of a right-of-way and easements for Shuster Drive, a platted but undeveloped road that leads from Drexel Drive to the water tower area. The property is 785 feet by 90 feet and the City will begin developing the road with a gravel base. Background work (getting easements and surveying) on this project has been underway for about a year. 

The Mayor made appointments to a variety of boards and commissions. In the  Superintendents' Reports Heather Smart reported on the activities of the Urban Forestry Council. Since it began, the Council has planted 837 trees but during that time the City lost 973 trees, most due to the emerald ash borer. A goal of the Council is to diversify the trees in the City so a single disease or pest will not have the same impact as the ash borer has had. The Council has received $61,000 in grants.

The Building Commissioner received permission to look for a replacement for his truck, which recently had a wheel fall off. The Fire Chief reported that the department had responded to 264 calls in 2021 and the average time on scene was 3.2 hours. The City is hoping to get water well #6 back online; it has been shut down for cleaning for several months. The new trash cans may be arriving in Rensselaer on the 14th. A heater in a backroom of the gas utility needs to be replaced.

I recently was looking at old microfilm at the Library and stumbled on what was happening at the City Council a century ago, in 1922. Rensselaer had just elected a new mayor, Jay Stockton, a grandson of John Makeever. As the article below reports, he did not like the City Attorney, Moses Leopold. Moses became the Circuit Court Judge in 1932 and served until 1969. (He was one of the people featured in the 2021 Cemetery Walk). I do not think any descendants of the Leopolds are still in Rensselaer, but I am pretty sure there are still descendants of Stockton. The article below is from the January 6, 1922 issue of The Rensselaer Republican.

The problem was resolved at the next meeting when Emmet LaRue was appointed City Attorney. I believe the Brookside Pool is named after him and his wife.

This paragraph is from the January 13, 1922 issue of The Rensselaer Republican.

Odds and ends, including a map of the Jackson Highway

 The Greyhound bus schedule for bus service to Rensselaer can be found on the greyhound site. Going to Chicago the bus leaves at 6:10 AM with stops at Valparaiso and Gary. It arrives in Chicago at 8:25. Going to Indianapolis the bus departs at 11:50 with stops at Lafayette and Lebanon before arriving at Indianapolis at  3:00 pm. The bus stop is listed as 122 N Van Rensselaer, which is alongside Filson Park. I am not sure when the service starts.

The old Emmett Kannal house, aka the White House Bed and Breakfast, was sold in December. Emmett Kannal was a druggist who died about a year after finishing his house.

(Correction) The  Fendig Gallery has new hours: Tuesday noon to 4 pm and Thursday 2 pm to 4  6 pm.  The Thursday hours are shorter by two hours start later but end later.

The very cold water has produced some ice in the river. The picture here shows the ice on Wednesday. There was not appreciably more on Friday. The River is high enough to have swift current through Rensselaer so it has to be very cold for quite a while for it to freeze over.

Site preparation has begun for new tennis courts at Brookside Park. They will be on the north end of the soccer field.

On Tuesday morning the Jasper County Board of Finance met at the Court House. The Board consists of the three Commissioners and the County Treasurer. They approved minutes of last year's meeting, and adopted the same set of officers (Commissioner Maxwell is the president of the Board). They reviewed the 2021 investment report and because I did not have a copy, I could only follow bits and pieces of the discussion. Counties are very limited by the State in how they can invest funds. Much of the funds that the County had in 2021 were put in savings accounts or interest-earning checking accounts because those interest rates were higher than the rates on CDs. There were years in the past when the County earned $10 million on its funds. If I heard correctly, the County earned about 1% of that in 2021. If you have money in bank CDs, you understand why. The Board approved the same investment policy that they had approved last year.

On Friday morning the Tourism Commission met. They reviewed the inn-keepers tax, which was up considerably from 2020. The Tourism office is working on a farm trail for the County and has signed up six farms that want to take part in it. Tourism is a bit unsure what its role will be in the next Jasper Jaunt, which Rotary will be sponsoring. They heard a pitch to advertise with Travel Indiana but did not make a decision.

In 2019 I had a post on the Jackson Highway. Before highways got numbers in the mid 1920s, various travel routes were developed with names. Some of those names still remain; the Lincoln Highway went through northern Indiana. I recently found a map of the route that the Jackson Highway took between Chicago and Indianapolis. Much of it through Jasper County followed what is now US 231, but not all. Below is a map with a description of the route that I found in the May 8, 1919 issue of the Twice A Week Jasper County Democrat.

Winter arrives

After a mild December, Rensselaer is starting January with some cold winter weather.

I missed three meetings in late December because I was visiting family. The Rensselaer Republican has a report on the City Council meeting. Both the County Council and late-December Commissioners meetings had light agendas, but that does not mean that there were not interesting things discussed. I will have to wait until the minutes are published to find out.

I was back in Rensselaer in time to attend the working meeting to discuss EMS on December 30. At present the County has four EMS providers: Southern, Wheatfield, Keener, and Phoenix. The first three are township based and the last is a private company. They all receive County subsidies. A problem with this arrangement is that the County sets a budget for EMS subsidies, then opens bids for the central region, which determines how much that region gets, currently served by Phoenix. The three township services then divide up what is left. So they can have big swings from year to year in their budgets.

At the meeting each of the services were invited to explain their situation. Southern (Remington)  offers a basic ambulance service without a paramedic. It relies on volunteers, though they are paid for their time. They offer one ambulance and cooperate with the Wolcott service. They have problems staffing, noting that people start with them to get experience and then move on.

Wheatfield Township EMS pays $15 per hour for EMTs and $20 for medics. They had 838 calls in 2021, up 5% from 2020. They have two older ambulances with repair issues. They have purchased one new one and need to order a second. They got a lot of equipment from the County with covid funds.

Keener Township had 1360 calls this past year. The head compared the County funding for EMS with that in Newton County, which spends much more per capita. (Newton has a county system, with one ambulance in the north and another in the south. Employees are county employees.) 

Phoenix had 1791 calls this past year. They do a lot of mutual aid for Remington, which does not provide Advanced Life Support (ALS) service. The Phoenix spokesman noted that staffing is a problem because more people are leaving the field than entering it. Phoenix used to staff two ambulances but due to difficulty in hiring people, it only has one now. Training for EMTs is fairly short, but training for paramedics takes several months and costs several thousand dollars. At present rates of pay, it may not make financial sense for people to become paramedics.

The Sheriff and fire personal added comments because they are often called to assist the ambulances, especially with lifts. Sometimes they arrive before the ambulance and then must decide if they should intervene or not. The Sheriff said that SJC would be offering classes for EMTs and paramedics in the spring. The paramedic program needs certification and SJC cannot offer that but it will be offered using a partner college with accreditation. 

The discussion continued until the meeting had lasted two hours. There were questions of whether the four services could work together better, perhaps by standardizing pay. A suggestion was made that perhaps the County could subsidize training. There were multiple suggestions that the County needed to increase the amount it provides for EMS. The County officials would like to find a way to have a dedicated source of revenue, perhaps via a tax rate similar to what the libraries have, but apparently the State does not allow for that. The meeting established a task force composed of the four services to continue exploring how EMS can be improved. 

On a very cold and icy Monday morning the Commissioners met for their Monday meeting. The meeting began with a moment of silence for a consultant to the County Highway Department who died unexpectedly in the past few days and others who have died of Covid or are sick with it. First on the agenda was a request for a stop sign on CR 500W just south of Remington. The intersection has a two-way stop but the requestor would like it to be 4-way. She lives on the corner and is concerned for the safety of her small child. There will be a public hearing on the matter at the February meeting.

The Commissioners approved the rezone request for a RV park east of the Love's Truck Stop at the I-65/SR 10 intersection. Approval was recommended by the Plan Commission at its December meeting. The Commissioners also approved a name change for the proposed ambulance service that they are trying to get established for Rensselaer and surrounding area. It will be the Central EMS service rather than the Marion Township EMS service. 

The County Prosecutor was given permission to fill an upcoming vacancy in the child support office. He also had concerns for building security. His office had submitted a grant proposal for some changes, but the grant had been denied. He would like door security similar to that in schools. He also would like a laminate for the windows to make it more difficult to break the windows and gain access to the building. Finally, he would like some bollards between the parking lot and the building to prevent vehicles driving into the building. He had old quotes on the prices and will get new quotes and present them in February. 

At a public hearing for a speed limit on CR 1000N between CR 700W and US 231, no members of the public gave input. The Commissioners then approved a new speed limit.

Bids were opened for the Assessor's Office. There was only one bid to help with reassessment, for $522,000 for four years. It was approved. A bit later in the meeting bids were opened for the Highway Department, for bituminous materials and for various supplies. As is the practice, all bids were accepted and turned over to the County Attorney of inspection. Between bids for the Highway Department, the Commissioners heard an update on the water leakage issue at the Court House. They agreed to hire an industrial hygenist to do tests and make recommendations. His cost will not exceed $13,600. 

The Commissioners approved County holidays for Martin Luther King Day and Presidents' Day but delayed deciding on the rest of the holiday schedule until February. The issue that is undecided is what to do with election days. The County Nurse gave a Covid update. 44.3% of the County is vaccinated and that number seems to have plateaued. There have been 105 Covid deaths reported. The only mask mandate is for buses. The Health Department is fully staffed.

The meeting was continued, if needed, to January 20 at 8:30.

The Sparling Annex has new signage.