First tournament

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met for its second April meeting on Monday. It approved an amendment to the salary and wage ordinance that set the wage of seasonal help to $13. This issue had been discussed at previous meetings. It also approved the write-off of non-collectable utility bills due to bankruptcy and death. My jotting down of amounts says that the total was about $37,000 with the majority for electricity.

This meeting had the annual review of tax abatements. Companies that receive tax abatements have to meet certain conditions to keep them and this is the chance for the Council to see if those conditions are being met. Most abatements run for ten years, with a decreasing amount of taxes abated as the company gets to year ten.

Abatements reviewed were those from ConAgra, IMPA, National Gypsum, Indiana Facemasks, Filtration Parts Inc, Geyer's American Melt Blown Filtration, and Genova. (Some of these go by other names in the tax documents.)  

The Council approved two expenditures from the Public Relations Fund, $500 for Little Cousin Jasper scholarships and $1500 for a City employee picnic. On May 6 the Fire Department is hosting its annual chicken and fish dinner. It will be drive-thru only. Clean-up week is May 2-6 and items will be picked up on the regular trash-pickup day. The Gas Department has an open house on Friday, April 29 from 11 to 1. 

Odds and ends

The Blacker Fields hosted its first baseball tournament last weekend. On Saturday the players had warm weather but a lot of wind.

After each game the players on the two teams shook hands with each other.

The tournament was rain shortened on Sunday.

There is still some activity at the power plant but nothing worthy of pictures. There are two storage containers that are scheduled to leave this week.

The weather remains chilly but there are more plants blooming and people are starting to mow.  Below are some very red tulips.

I am not sure what these tiny flowers are. They may be spring beauties.  I have a lot of them and also a lot of violets in my yard. The violets are pretty but they keep invading my garden.

There is now a roof over the outdoor seating area at Fenwick Farms, but when I took this picture there was still quite a bit of work left to do.

The new Walgreens needs to have paving done for parking and the drive-through lane. 

Since the picture above was taken, the site has added a sign.

The speaker at the Walk with a Doc event on Tuesday was Dr. Randy Lehman, a native of Rensselaer who is now a surgeon at Winamac. He recently purchased the Clinic of Family Medicine building and is planning to extend services to Rensselaer. 

Primary election day is next Tuesday. I have been surprised at how much campaign mail I have gotten this year.