Pictures from the end of July

County Fair

This past week has been Fair Week. I did not get out to the fair as much this year as I have in the past, but did get some pictures. The carnival this year had three rides that lifted you up.

A ride not on the midway was the barrel ride. It cost $2.00.

Among the 4-H exhibits, the dioramas had more entrants than I remember the Fair ever having.

On Friday the 4-H auction was held. It was not a place to find bargains. I hope when my grandkids have their fair in a far-away state, the prices are as high.

One of the attractions this year was a chain-saw artist.

The artist carving these sculptures was still at work on Friday afternoon.

I went through the Commercial Building and was surprised at how empty it was compared to previous years.

Homecoming 2022 Art Show at Fendig Gallery

The Fendig Gallery has a new show that features five young artists who come from the Rensselaer area.

Two of them are showing fairly traditional art that one can hang on a wall.

Colin Lawrence is showing unusual woodworking and furniture.

More unusual is the work of Austin Polin who decorates helmets.

Even though her bio and artist statement is shown in this picture, I did not get a picture of it. Preston Buck is a clothing designer.

I will try to get the bio and either add it to this post or include it in a future post.

The Fendig Gallery is open on Tuesdays from noon till four and on Thursdays from two till six. The show runs until August 26.

Update: Here is the missing bio.

Other things

The new tennis courts at Brookside Park have fencing. They need to be painted and nets added.

Judging from how often I hear a biplane overhead, the biplane rides at the Jasper County Airport are a big success.

Fenwick Farms officially announced their distillery operation. They have gotten their final permit and can begin operating. The distillery is located in the former gas station on the corner of Weston and Washington.

Healthy Haven has new owners and a new name, S-Blended Nutrition. It will reopen Monday.

Summer is coming to an end for kids. In less than two weeks Rensselaer students will be back in school. I have grandkids who will be back in school in the first week of August.

This is an unusual post: no meetings to report. 

The big storm

Storm damage 

Saturday morning began with a strong storm that moved through Rensselaer, followed by rain most of the day. The damage done by the storm was impressive, with trees and branches down thoughout the City. One of the places hardest hit was Weston Cemetery. In the pictures below you can see two hickory trees that were snapped off at ground level and another tree with its top snapped.

On the west end of the Cemetery the road was blocked with a large branch.

One of the pine trees along Lincoln also was broken apart.

Along College a large branch fell on a couple of cars. The black car, barely visible, had a big dent in the roof and a window broken.

A tree at Saint Augustine's was split and dropped over lines.

On the south side of Rensselaer a large tree fell in front of a house.

Some of the trees that the storm broke were rotten inside.

A big pine tree on the Court House lawn was toppled. It was mostly cleaned up by mid-day, leaving only the trunk.

Some roofing from across Washington Street blew into the Court House lawn and was lodged against one of the trees.

The only other damage that I saw downtown was to the awning of the fitness center.

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met for an hour on Monday night. In the Citizens' Comments section of the meeting, the Council heard from Ryan Preston who read a letter from Cameron Moberg. The letter reviewed the benefits that Rensselaer has received from its murals and asked the Council to consider financial support for additional murals and possibly other public art in the future. No action was taken but there will be follow-up discussion. 

The Council approved closing a block of Van Rensselaer Street for Oktoberfest (Sept 24). It was mentioned that the City received a grant to redo the brick streets, but actual construction is probably a year away, so that will not be an issue this year. (The City had applied for this grant a year or two ago but had been turned down. However, it was encouraged to resubmit and this time it was funded.)

The Council amended the Salary Ordinance to reflect the increased pay for the Police Department that was approved at the previous meeting. It also agreed to add some categories to the Salary Ordinance for 2023 that will include the apprenticeship program for the water and waste water utilities. It then heard about how these apprenticeship programs work from the organization that is helping with these programs. 

Next it heard a presentation from someone selling insurance for water loss. As I understood what he was proposing, the City would add the insurance fee to customer's water bills but customers could opt out. Because the Utility Office Manager was not at the meeting, no action was taken.

The Council approved a certificate of burial right. I do not recall the Council ever doing this in the past, though it frequently approves deeds in Weston Cemetery. My guess is that this allows a person to be buried in a lot that was deeded to a long-dead relative. (Update: My speculation was wrong. This is a new name for the cemetery deed request. Some State guideline or regulation caused the change in name.)

There was some discussion of the City's response to the damage caused by the storm. The Police Department said it was overwhelmed with calls, many asking when power would be restored and some of those came on the 911 line, which is not what that line is for. The head of the line department said that six poles were down behind Rensselaer Pet Care and they carried a main feed. This was the cause of some of the more lengthy outages. Power to the water plant was off for seven hours but fortunately the towers were full so there was no disruption in water service. The priority of City workers on Saturday was getting trees and branches off streets. 

Art

The Saturday storm canceled Art in the Alley. The only bit of it that survived was a car painting in front of Markit Arts. For $3 a person could spray paint a car and some people really enjoyed that.

The three Rensselaer murals for Mural Week 2023 are finished and signed. The final part of the mural on the front of Ayda's to be finished was the man.

I will now have to update my Rensselaer Art guide.

Other stuff

Some of the SJC alums were excited last week with the induction of Gil Hodges into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The baseball field at SJC was named after him, but when he was a student, the ball field was to the east of the Science Hall. An old post found traces of it.

I have not posted a picture of the quarry for some time. It continues to slowly fill. Compare to the picture taken in April.

The new tennis courts at the high school look almost complete. They do not yet have nets.

Murals and a ribboncutting

 Murals

The muralists have been busy in the past couple days.  Below Mr Toledo was working on the mural in front of Ayda's on Wednesday afternoon.

On Friday morning she looked finished. I asked the painter if this was the largest mural he has done and he said it was one of the largest if not the largest that he has done by himself.

On Wednesday evening the artist was working on the buffalo on the back wall of Ayda's.

The mural looked finished on Thursday evening but there was no signature so it may need a few finishing touches.

The abstract mural in the alley has the letters R E N. There was still a lot of work to do on Wednesday.

I think it may have been finished when I stopped by on Friday afternoon. The view below is from the south end of the alley. The view above is from the north end.

On Saturday the Prairie Arts Council will host the Art in the Alley event from 11:00 to 8:00. It will be in the new Filson Park on Kellner Street.

In the evening the muralist will have an event at Markit Arts.  See here.

Ribboncutting for Frida's

On Thursday afternoon the Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon cutting for Frida's, a Mexican restaurant next to the Ritz Theater. Frida's Facebook page is here.

I took a picture of the building earlier in the day when the sun had a better angle.

Park stuff and more

The new tennis courts now have fence posts for the fencing.

There is a new flag pole in Hal Gray Park.

The floor for the restroom expansion next to Staddon Field has been poured

Franciscan Health is hosting a car seat clinic on August 27. Registration is here.

Update: Strong storms bleew through the area this morning. The rain was welcome, but the winds were not. The City crews will be busy next week picking up tree branches. My house lost power for two or three hours.

Murals and meetings

Murals

Mural week officially started on Monday.  Work continues on the large mural on the front of Ayda's.

The picture below shows the mural on Wednesday morning.

One of the murals will be on the alley next to Frida's. The artist is Nick Abstract. On Monday he was prepping the alley.

Progress as of early Wednesday.

The back of Ayda's will get a mural. On Monday the wall was being repaired.

Then it was painted.

The artist sketched his subject late on Monday and this is how it appeared Tuesday morning. 

Later in the day some of the detail had been added. Because this wall is in the sun in the afternoon, the artist here gets started early and quits early. The other wall is in the sun in the morning, so the artist there starts late and quits late.

For more pictures of these murals and also for a couple of the Remington murals, see the Facebook pages of the Prairie Arts Council and RenArtWlk.

On Saturday Markit Arts will have an event (Open House?) that will have available work by the muralists working this week on RenArtWlk. It will be open from 6:00 to 9:00 (I think). (Markit Arts is the tiny space on Washington that formerly was occupied by Clean As A Whistle. It is owned by Cameron Moberg.)

Plan Commission and BZA meetings

The Jasper County Plan Commission met on Monday evening to consider a rezone from A1 to A2 for a property in Kankakee Township. The owners want to sell and the A2 zoning would give more flexibility to buyers. The Commission approved the rezone which now goes to the County Commissioners for their approval.

The Jasper County BZA had three items on its agenda. The first was a variance for frontage. The owners have 200 acres and would like to split off part of the property with a house. To get the required frontage would cut into farmland that they want to keep. The variance was passed. The second item was a renewal of a special exception. Two years ago the BZA gave an exception that allowed a mechanics business on a residential property but limited the exception to two years because they were concerned the business might become an eyesore. There have been now complaints about the business and BZA approved extending the exemption for an additional three years.

The last item was a special exception for Premier Biosource, the hog farm that raises pigs for medical research. It wants to build within the current footprint but the addition was not on the plans that were originally approved. Hence, they need a special exception. The new space will be for people, not for more hogs. The person who was supposed to present the case could not attend because he has Covid so a last-minute replacement subbed for him. The proposed special exception was passed unanimously.

Joint Commissioners/Council session

The Joint Commissioners/Council was scheduled at 5:00 pm on Tuesday to allow a long discussion between Council and Commissioners. (The Council meeting was to begin two hours later.) Not all the Councilmen were there and only one Commissioner showed, so the meeting lasted only fifty five minutes, leaving a long wait for the next meeting.

There were two items on the agenda, insurance and EMS. The head of Horizons Research Insurance of DeMotte, which specializes in customized self-funded health insurance, talked about the benefits of using its approach. He said that a problem common to all health insurance was that a lot of people do not understand their insurance and employers need to do a better job communicating how to best use the plans they have. Health insurance is a Commissioner issue, so most of his intended audience did not hear his presentation.

The EMS discussion was quite short. The Marion Township trustee could not make the meeting because he had tested positive for Covid. The Central EMS service is still waiting for state licensing. The immediate goal is to get the Remington EMS service up and running. Looking ahead, the Council realizes that EMS will require substantially more County funding and members of the Council seem fine with the prospect of raising taxes to fund it.

County Council meeting

An hour and a few minutes after the joint session finished, the July County Council meeting was called to order. The common theme of this meeting seemed to be missed deadlines. Many of the things that the Council votes on have to be advertised. Some of what was on the agenda were items left from the previous meeting that could not be resolved in June because they had not been advertised (one of the things that fill up the legal section of the local newspapers) and much of the rest were items that were discussed at this meeting but could not be approved because they had not been advertised.

 
First on the agenda was a discussion of Circuit Court repairs. Both county courts are getting an electronics upgrade that will make it easier to have remote hearings. To get that installed will require that carpet be removed, and the Council must appropriate the money for the new carpet. Because that additional appropriation has not been advertised, the item will be back on the agenda in August. The Council then passed the six additional appropriations that were on its agenda.

The Council heard a report on a proposed methane pipeline that will run from the Oak Basin Dairy to the Hidden View Dairy. The reason for the report is that the project would like a tax abatement but the paperwork got held up at some point (not the company's fault, but the County's) so could not be approved at this meeting. (This project has been reported previously, such as here.)
The estimated cost of the project is $15 million. This project is among several in which Jasper County Economic Development has been trying to find ways to build on Jasper County's strong ag sector, finding ways to use it to develop new sources of revenue. Apparently there is money in manure.

Installation of solar panels in the Dunns Bridge project has been hampered by national trade policy. Almost all solar panels are produced in China.
Sheriff Williamson will be back next month seeking an additional appropriation for repairs. He noted that the solar panels produce more electricity than the jail needs, but the jail still has a substantial electrical bill. The excess electricity produced during the day is sold to the grid at a wholesale price that is less than one third the retail price the jail pays at night. He also said that the installation of license plate readers is waiting for INDOT to approve permits.
 
Other things

The Jasper County Fair Queen and her Court were at the Farmers Market on Tuesday evening.

The Rensselaer Republican covered the queen contest in detail.

There was a huge crowd of kids and parents at the event. One of the things being given out were bike helmets. 

I stopped by the Baked Bean this week. The bean in the name is a reference to the coffee bean. They also offer a variety of baked products, so that is the baked in the name. Not what I would have guessed. The space has been completely remodeled from what it was when it was a bakery. Stop by and see if what they offer is what you need.

The Main Street Bakery announced on Facebook that they will be closing for a while. They cited health and problems getting employees. I hope they are back soon.

I hear jack hammering from the construction site of the new lift station, which means they have hit bedrock. The project has made impressive piles of dirt.

On Wednesday morning some large cylinders were being delivered. Because the site has no-trespassing signs, I cannot get good pictures.

I heard crop dusters flying on Tuesday. It is that time of the year.

I saw a bus at the bus stop on Wednesday morning and expected to find a Greyhound. The bus there said BoltBus. I had never heard of it. Here is the wikipedia entry.

Finally, I took a picture of a deer in Weston Cemetery that seemed unconcerned with my presence.