A busy week

I did not attend the Airport Authority meeting on Tuesday night because it conflicted with a Soil and Water Conservation meeting held at Embers and that meeting had food. I sat near six members of the Rensselaer FFA who will be going to Oklahoma in May for the National Soil Judging contest. The Rensselaer group finished fourth at the State competition and the top five teams advance. During the program each of them gave a short speech about their FFA experiences and they did remarkably well, especially considering at least half of them were underclassmen. 

Also at the meeting Lana Zimmer and Mark Jordan were re-elected to the Soil and Water Conservation Board. The featured speaker was Scott Pelath, Head of the Kankakee and Yellow River Basin Development Commission. Two years ago he addressed the Soil and Water Conservation meeting and talked about the things the Commission, new at the time, was planning. Then Covid hit and he stopped giving addresses. This was his first speaking engagement post Covid.

He began by congratulating Jasper County and its surveyor for pursuing a $3.8 million FEMA grant to stabilize banks for the Kankakee River. The work funded by this grant is finished or almost finished. The Commission has been busy in a number of areas: bank stabilization, channel reconstruction, acquisition of land for flood control, construction of levees, sediment removal, and tree removal. There are eight counties that are affected by the Commission. Pelath showed some slides of land that the Commission had purchased in Newton County for flood control. When the river rises to flood stage, the water has to go somewhere and the Commission would like to control where it goes. He said that they were in discussion with NIPSCO to see if the land of the Schahfer plant might be used as flood control. It will never be farmed or used for residential purposes because of the fly ash buried there.

At the meeting Rein Bontreger mentioned to me that he had attended a ribbon cutting in Remington for a new tiling company that was producing from what had been the Omni Forge plant. I had not realized that Omni Forge was no longer in business. The new owner of the facility is C&L Tiling Inc. They purchased the property in July of 2021. I could find little about them on the Internet other than they seem to be part of a company called Timewell Drainage Products.

On Wednesday the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce hosted a meeting at Saint Joe's that featured talks by Chad Pulver, the new Chancellor, and Haley Chapman, the Academic Program Director. The message I got was that Saint Joe's does not see an early return of accreditation so while they will continue trying to find other institutions that will offer college courses on campus, their main focus is trying to find certificate programs and other training programs that will serve area communities. Those programs need not be sponsored by SJC; they are willing to provide facilities for outsiders with programs useful to the area. SJC currently offers a number of certificate programs in the health area and at the end of the session Carlos Vasquez, head of Franciscan Rensselaer, said that there is a huge demand for the sorts of certificates that are being offered. Since these certificate programs began in 2019, there have been 75 graduates and there are currently 23 students enrolled. The certificate programs need approval by the State or a professional organization and getting that approval takes time and effort, which is a reason that more are not being offered at present. Some SJC alumni would like to see SJC restored as it once was but the people in charge seem to realize that can never happen. They are trying to take education to where it is needed.

After the meeting I congratulated Coach Pulver on the RCHS basketball sectional championship.

I took a couple of pictures as I left the Core Building. This room is used for health certificate courses.

Below is a computer classroom used for some college credit courses.

On Wednesday evening the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met and in five minutes held a public hearing on the enlargement of the Lintner TIF area and adopted the declaratory resolution to enlarge the TIF (Tax Increment Financing) area. After adjournment there was a 50-minute long discussion of TIF areas, how they work and what are their benefits. Answering the question was an advisor to redevelopment commissions on TIFs. In a TIF area the increase in property tax revenue from development is captured by the redevelopment commission and used to provide infrastructure such as roads and utilities that the new businesses need. They generally do this by issuing bonds and the new tax revenues pay the interest and redemption of the bonds. TIF areas and tax abatements are the two main tools local governments have in attracting new businesses. (The Rensselaer fire station was financed by TIF revenues and the extension of water and sewer from DeMotte to the Interstate was made possible by TIF financing.)

On Thursday afternoon the Rensselaer Urban Forest Council met for their monthly meeting. They spent an hour tossing around ideas. Ideas for grants included a new pump to help water the new trees they plant and for an intern or two. This year they will plant 51 trees, ten of which are replants. New trees need a lot water and care or else many will die. On April 29 at 4:00 there will be a tree planting at Brookside Park to celebrate Arbor Day. At one time Earth Day was celebrated locally, but weather often did not cooperate and the event died. Suggestions were made to revive it as a Tree City Day and hold it in the Fall. On June 25 there will be a tree planted in honor of Mike Riley, formerly the City's attorney. It will be in Potawatomi Park at 1:00. The Council would like to find ways to encourage people to more plant trees on their properties. The next meeting will be on April 14 at 5:00 at the First Christian Church and the public is welcome to attend.