Pictures and a very short meeting

 Park pictures

Rensselaer Parks had its annual Fall Fest last week at Brookside Park. Participants could carve pumpkins, listen to a Riley Read, or get their faces painted.

There were also hay wagon rides available and a bounce house, which you can see in the background of the picture below.

The Rotary Porkmobile was there for those who wanted food.

Potawotomie Park now has a chess table.  You have to bring your own chess pieces. Or checker pieces. Or lunch.

Below is a view of the table from the pedestrian bridge.

More trees

The view of Weston Cemetery from the Talbert Bridge shows that some of the maples are past their fall prime and are losing their leaves. (The same view with the tree in the center in full color is here.)

Most oaks turn brown or golden brown in the fall. An oak in Weston Cemetery, shown on the left below, has a pretty reddish brown color.

Tulip trees are turning yellow. 

I noticed this beautiful hickory with its golden brown leaves on the corner of College and Lincoln.

Halloween

I was not planning to post pictures of Halloween decorations this year because they are at their best when it is dark and my camera does not do a good job in the dark. But then I stumbled on this display in the south part of town. The tall figure caught my attention and when I got closer I saw it was part of a display of skeletons. One was raking, a mother skeleton was sprinkling her child with water, and there was a dog skeleton barking up a tree at a cat skeleton

There was also a skeleton mowing and apparently mowing another skeleton and a skeleton hanging from the eaves like a bat.

However, the funniest part of the display was a lineman skeleton climbing a utility pole.

Odds and ends

Last week there was a directional drilling machine at the north end of Mattheson Street. That indicates that work extending sewer lines has begun.

Below is the lift station over the weekend.

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council had a short agenda on Monday evening. They approved a salary ordinance for 2023 that reflects the raises passed earlier and approved a public relations request of $750 to fund a City Christmas tree in Potawatomi Park, a City float in the Christmas parade on Saturday, December 3, and some lobby and window decoration for City Hall. The Mayor appointed a committee of seven (Cover, Watson, J. Lockridge, C Lockridge, B Black, Larson, and Keyes) to update policies and procedures. 

City Offices will be closed on November 11 (Memorial Veterans Day). The City has filed a complaint against a property in Kelly Green that was brought to the attention of the Council in July. The Electric Department will start its tree cutting season in November. 

The meeting lasted a mere 15 minutes.

Other things

Last week we had a frost that killed most of the frost-sensitive plants in my garden.

The cross-country semistate was held on Saturday and the Rensselaer boys team came in tenth in a field of 20. However, much more impressive was the winner of the girls sectional held at Rensselaer a couple weeks ago. Morgan Township, which is quite a small school, placed second and will compete at the state meet. It is very rare for a small school to make it to the state meet because cross country does not have a class system; all schools, big and small, compete together. (In 2009 the Tri-County girls made it to state. Some info here and here.)

Francesville is getting another mural. It will be on the wall of the Circle S Farm Solutions building that was constructed in 1908 as the Myers Opera House Block. (The picture at the link shows what the finished product will look like. It is not a picture of the actual mural.) The muralist previously did the sandhill crane mural on Main Street Bakery in Medaryville. 

I found this listing of the Jasper County Chamber of Commerce while looking for something else on microfilm in the Library. I recognize most of the businesses though a few were no longer in existence when I came to Rensselaer in 1974, but only a few are still active. 

Fall colors 2022

Fall colors

Fall colors seem to peak around mid October. There are some beautiful trees in Rensselaer, though their beauty is short-lived and some of these trees shown below are already losing many leaves.

These trees are on the east side of the highway by Saint Joe's. There may be some hickories here.

I had a picture of this tree two weeks ago. It had a lot less color then.

The maples in Weston Cemetery are very colorful.

Cottonwoods are among a number of species that have yellow leaves in the fall.

I noticed the tree below a few days ago. It looks like a Bradford pear with unusually large fruit. It probably is the result of a cross between a Bradford pear and another ornamental pear. (I tasted it and it has a pear flavor but with an awful aftertaste.)

Leaves are turning faster this year then last year. Last year at this time I published a post showing that trees were still green. It was not until the start of November that I posted pictures like those above.

Continued Commissioners' meeting

The County Commissioners continued their monthly meeting on Monday morning at 7:00 in the Court House. They heard options for 2023 health insurance for County employees and accepted a renewal of the existing policy with minor changes. The rates went down from this year, so both the County and employees will be paying slightly less.

The Courthouse annex (former PNC Bank building) needs changes to five doors to meet ADA requirements. The Commissioners heard ways to do this and will have the item back on the November agenda. They approved extending the for-sale listing for the former annex with Jenkins Realty for six months. The new EMS service is still waiting for state certification and that is needed before it can replace Phoenix. The contract with Phoenix expires at the end of the year and if it appears that the new service will be able to take over at the start of the year, the Commissioners approved giving Phoenix notice. If it looks like the new service will not be able to start at the beginning of the new year, the County may have to advertise for bids.

The Commissioners approved an appointment for the BZA for 2023. Lance Strange will resign because he will be elected as Hanging Grove Township trustee. (He is unopposed in the election.) Matt Sheafer will replace him. 

One of the part-time custodians wants a pay raise of $1.00 otherwise she said it is not worth driving to the job for the few hours she works. The pay raise that the Council approved would give her about an 80¢ raise. The Commissioners decided to raise the wage of all part-time custodians by $1.00. 

Something called Operation Green Light intended to honor veterans is being supported by some local veterans group. It encourages counties and others to display green lights during the week of November 7-13 to highlight issues veterans have. The Commissioners approved a resolution to display a green light during that week at the Courthouse. There was a question from the audience of whether the announced windmill project would follow the wind ordinance for setbacks or if variances will be requested. Mr Culp replied that the company had agreed to follow the ordinance and that the proposed farm may need approval from Remington because some of the site will be within Remington's two-mile exclusion zone. (I heard from a reliable source that the proposed wind farm is a second part of an expansion of the existing Meadow Lake farm. The first part of the expansion will be in White County. If you travel east on US 24 from Remington to Monon, you will notice there are no windmills on the north side of the highway. That apparently is where new windmills will go first.) Finally, the County Highway Department has filled one of the two positions approved on October 3 and would like permission to fill a third vacant position because private contractors have not not shown interest in plowing subdivisions. The request was approved.

County BZA and Plan Commission meetings

On Monday evening both the County BZA and Plan Commission met. The BZA had one item, a special exception for a retreat and vacation rental in Wheatfield Township. The house on the property has four bedrooms and there is a detached building that can be used for workshops. Although primarily intended for artists, it will be rented for other purposes. The Board approved the special exception for three years and it is limited to the current owner.

The Plan Commission had two requests for changes in zoning. The first was for a change from I2 to A2 in Kankakee Township, from industrial to agricultural. The property has a house that was built before it was zoned industrial. The owner has a prospective buyer, but the buyer's mortgage company will not give him a mortgage unless the zoning is changed. With I2 zoning he would not be able to rebuild if something happened to the house. The other case request was from a person who owns an 80 acre parcel in Union Township zoned A1 who would like to give two acres to his brother-in-law for a house. The brother-in-law is escaping Illinois. To build a house on land zoned A1 requires a lot of at least ten acres while only two acres are required for land zoned A2. Both changes were recommended to the Commissioners and should be on their agenda for their November 7th meeting.

After the meeting I voted. The meetings were in the Courthouse and absentee voting was open until 8:00 pm at the Clerk's office. I may have been the only person to vote in their last hour or two.

County Council meeting




The County Council meeting on Tuesday evening was long, about an hour and a half, but not especially interesting. It began with a series of additional appropriations. Rensselaer Central Schools borrowed about $6 million for new tennis courts, swimming pool renovation, and new air handlers and the estimates of what the bond financing would cost came in less in the future but more this year. Since the Council approves the RCSC budget, it needed to approve the change in spending even though none of it comes from County funding. 

The election board needed some additional funds to maintain equipment and the jail needed an additional appropriation because the cost of feeding inmates has risen. The Health Department shifted some positions and needed funding to pay for a new position. EMS is planning a new building and to pay for the planning, an additional appropriation was needed. There were also approvals of several transfers within department budgets.

The Council received a presentation about a proposed wind farm in the far south of Jasper County that was similar to what the Commissioners heard at their meeting earlier in the month. The company planning the project has signed up landowners of about 17,000 acres. Some of those will have towers and others are within the setbacks. The company will make what are called economic development payments for five years totaling $6.5 million that the County will be able to spend in any way it wants. Over the life of the project an estimated $32 million will flow to the County as taxes. There were two votes taken and both were preliminary resolutions. One was, I believe, to accept the economic development agreement and the other was a motion that sets the stage to declare the area an Economic Redevelopment area (ERA), needed before a tax abatement can be granted. Both passed with one negative vote, that by Brian Moore. 

The Council then passed the 2023 budget and approved budgets of the Rensselaer Central School Corporation, the Airport Authority, the Northwest Indiana Solid Waste District and the Iroquois Conservancy.

Other things

The Fire Department open house on October 13 drew a large crowd with many children.

Before the open house, I went to the free dinner that Lirio (formerly CDC Resources) offered and saw a lot of familiar faces. The closing of Help-at-Home's day services, which happened several months ago, has given Lirio eight to twelve new clients for their day services, which is open Monday through Thursday. Their day services no longer has a sheltered workshop that does contract work. Contract work in Monticello stopped a few years ago when I was on the CDC Resources Board because the people there no longer wanted to do it. I am not sure why the work stopped at Rensselaer, though the Covid lockdowns may have contributed to the decision. All of the sheltered workshops were aware that contract work would not continue in the future if the sub-minimum wage provision for sheltered workshops was eliminated and that provision was under attack. (The true minimum wage is always zero.) (Help at Home continues to help at home, that is, to provide services at residences.)

A few late scarecrows have been added at Milroy Park.

Rotary had a presentation from a SJC administrator about what is happening at SJC that was interesting and informative. The offices that they are renting for their Core 3 spaces are the faculty offices on the second floor of the Core Building. Perhaps my old office will be someone's business office.

The Jasper County Historical Society had an interesting presentaton at its meeting on Tuesday evening about historical photography. The lecture focused on George Eastman who founded the Eastman Kodak company and Jessie Bartoo, a Rensselaer photographer at the end of the 19th century.  (The presentation starts at about 20 minutes into this video.) The Society recently received a collection of photographs by Bartoo and she will be the subject of an upcoming exhibit at the Society's museum.

Various meetings, October 2022

 BPW

On Monday the Rensselaer Board of Public Works approved three invoices. Pay request #5 from Thieneman Construction was for $822,893.58 and Commonwealth Engineering was for $33,398,78, both for work on the Lift Station and sewer project. Commonwealth Engineering also had an invoice for $25,017.78 for planning for the elevated storage and water main replacement project. A representative from Commonwealth told the Board that there was an opportunity for the City to obtain grant funding of approximately $2 million for lead service pipe replacement. He asked the Board to approve a contract for $$238,000 to prepare the work needed for removal of the lead pipes, which the Board approved.
The Board approved the promotion of a City Police patrolman from second-class to first-class patrolman, and it also approved accepting an applicant to the Fire Department as a probationary firefighter.

Below is a picture of the lift station as it appeared over the weekend.

If you go to the north end of Matheson Street, you will see a patch of corn removed from the corn field. The small area is owned by the City and will be used in the sewer expansion that is part of the lift station project.

City Council

The roll call at the City Council meeting was read by Shelby Keyes, who has replaced Frieda Bretzinger, who retired after the last City Council meeting. She was appointed by the Republican caucus to fill the position.

The gas tracker for October will reflect a 25¢ increase per hundred cubic feet.
Stephen Eastridge, the director of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization, addressed the Council about public art. The innkeepers tax, which is collected by hotels and other businesses that rent rooms to visitors, is expected to reach $275,000 this year and the RenArtWlk is one reason for the increase. The Tourism Commission will be appointing a five-person working group to advise them on ways to continue developing art, and this will include more than murals. The Commission wants to fund more murals, but thinks it needs to spend its funds in the next year or two in the other Jasper County communities where people feel they should be treated as well as Rensselaer has been treated. Because the Commission will not be spending money for Rensselaer murals, he would like the City to spend $40 to $45 thousand next year to fund those murals. He noted that the Sun Times may be doing an article on the Rensselaer Art Walk, and that enthusiasm for murals has spread north to some of the communities in the Region. No action was taken at the meeting but something will probably be done before the end of the year.

Three linemen from the Rensselaer Electric Utility recently competed at a lineman rodeo and won several awards, both as individual and as teams. The plaques and trophy were awarded at the meeting. The plaques are for Apprentice Charger Changeout, 1st Place; Apprentice Pole Top Rescue, 3rd  Place; Team First Place Hurtman Rescue; Team Second Place Crossarm Changeout; and Team Third Place Transformer Mystery Event.

There were several public relations requests. Up to $150 was approved for a retirement party for the administrative assistant in the Planning Office. There were two requests approved for the Fire Department, $150 for food for the Fire Prevention Week open house at the Fire Station on October 13 (from 6:00 to 8:00), and $250 to purchase donuts for a training on October 29. The October 29 training is for extinguishing fires on electric cars such as Teslas and has about 250 people registered, some coming from other states, a much bigger attendance than expected. The final public relations request was for $400 to reimburse the Mayor for a gift card for the retiring clerk-treasurer.

Lights have been installed at the new tennis courts at Brookside Park so people can now play tennis in the evening. The Street Department asked to have the Christmas holiday run from December 22 through December 25 and it was granted. The Department is also planning to make changes in the trash and recycling routes for 2023, which will mostly affect the Houston Subdivision. Finally, the Council approved the purchase of a new lawnmower by Weston Cemetery.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Airport Authority Board met Tuesday evening. A consultant reviewed data about funding prospective projects, asking if they were ready to begin constructing a new hangar. They were not. What impressed me in the data is how completely future construction depends on federal funding. After discussing hangar rental, the Board approved a $5.00 fee for daily rental in the old hangar. (There had not been a daily fee established and there is some demand for very short-term rentals.)

The previous airport manager, Ray Seif, worked hard to get approval for high school aviation classes and apparently the local high school had agreed to them. But then he left and the plans fell apart. Now there is a chance that these classes may come about if there is enough student interest.

There are problems with the Airport's website that affect updating and use on mobile devices. The website was created by KV Publishing but they no longer do website design. The Board wanted more information before deciding how to fix the problems.

The Airport has a grant for $30,000 for three flight simulators and there was a discussion of what options to include to get the best performance but still stay within the budget. A decision may be made at the next meeting.

Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce

The speaker at the October meeting of the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce was Stephen Eastridge, head of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization (JCEDO). He will celebrate his fifth anniversary on the job on November 1 and during those years has had his office destroyed in the fire of the Town Mall, moved to a new office on Washington Street across from the Court House, and had work disrupted with the Covid restrictions.

His emphasis is to create a community that people want to live in, believing a welcoming community will attract new business. Instead of hitting the road and trying to sell the County, he has put more emphasis in working with existing businesses, seeing what they need to thrive and expand. Workforce development is also important. He has worked with the local schools to show students what opportunities exist in the County. Tourism has not been traditionally thought of as something economic development offices should be promoting, but that is changing.

 
During his tenure, the County has had $750 million of new investment, creating 374 new jobs and retaining another 155. Dunns Bridge is making the biggest investment, and though it will create few new jobs, it will substantially add to local tax revenues and use few County services. JCEDO has partnered with five other counties to find ways to leverage our strong agriculture base to spur more development. Some agricultural products are further processed here (such as IBEC, ConAgra, and the methane pipeline several dairies are building), but perhaps more can be done.

 
A lot of the work of the office is not visible to the public. The discussions and negotiations with potential new or expanding businesses have to be done in private and those discussions can take several years to bear fruit. Mr Eastridge said he is currently working with four or five prospects.

Other things

The ash trees in front of the library are among the very few ash trees left in Rensselaer. They have survived because they were treated to protect them. Ash trees are among the first trees to lose their leaves  in the fall. 

Below are a few more scarecrows from Milroy Park. All are from the City or City programs.

I have been told that Help at Home moved out of the offices in the College Mall a month or two ago. Apparently their day services program did not attract enough people. Anyone displaced can find day services at Lirio (formerly CDC Resources).

The First Christian Church is hosting a painting event to benefit the Rensselaer Care Center. Below is the flier with information about the event.

Decorations

 Rensselaer had its first frost of the season on Saturday morning, October 8, when the temperature dipped below freezing before sunrise. It killed only a few leaves in my garden so it was a very light frost.

New Art Exhibit

The new exhibit at the Fendig Gallery of the Carnegie Center is called "Focus on Fibers" and features quilts, hooked rungs, and baskets. Two impressive quilts hang on opposite sides of the gallery and both are done by Dula Meiser.

The baskets are spread throughout the gallery.

I do not know much about hooked rugs. In most of the ones on display, the design is by one person and the hooking was done by someone else.

An exception is this piece, both designed and hooked by Judy Lanoe.

The show runs until November 3. The gallery's hours are Tuesdays noon until 4:00 and Thursdays 3:00 until 6:00.

More scarecrows

Below are more of the scarecrows in Milroy Park. First up is a Franciscan entry.

I know little about Gavilon. I think they run but do not own the grain elevator at Pleasant Ridge. 

4-H has a funny looking scarecrow.

The ghostly girls is from the Jasper-Newton Foundation. When I first saw it I was not sure that it was finished, but it apparently is.

The Fire Department has a scarecrow that is hard to photograph because it is in partial shade.

I will post a few more in the future.

Other things

Farmers have had some excellent weather for the harvest. I finally got a picture of a combine in a soybean field. This is the field west of Sparling Avenue.

I saw a Facebook page that listed four places that are for rent in the College Mall. One of them is the former offices and rooms of Help at Home. I am not sure how long ago they left this location.

Strack & Van Til and the stores to the north have had their facades painted recently.

A ribbon cutting and much, much more

 A ribbon cutting (and a closing)

The All Aligned Chiropractic Clinic had a ribbon cutting on Monday afternoon.

The building is on North Cullen and has been a chiropractic clinic for many years. Now it has a new doctor, Madeline Barber. I asked about animal chiropractic and was told the busy season is fair time. Animals indicate they need help by the way they walk or by hot spots caused by irritation.

I liked the welcome mat.

The owners of Steffen's Jewelry are retiring before Christmas and are selling their inventory. Steffen's is one of Rensselaer's oldest businesses, opening its doors in 1956. If you need jewelry for yourself or a gift, stop by and see what they have.

Park Board meeting

The Park Board met indoors on Monday evening. (During the summer they had been meeting in the Iroquois Park shelter.) They discussed a fence for the HYPER area in Brookside Park and decided to buy materials to fence the front (by the parking lot) and a bit of the sides. The reason for the fence is safety, to keep small children attending events from wandering into the road. They also approved accepting a swing for Foundation Park. It will have three bays, one for adults, one for little kids, and a third for ADA use. 

There are six dates that the youth baseball organization wants to use for tournaments and the Board  accepted those dates. There may be some additional dates that will be added. The tennis courts are finished and now lighting is being installed. Someone mentioned that Dave Day, in whose name the tennis courts were sponsored, was at one time the pool director, and later taught tennis and organized basketball camps at Brookside Park. 

There are 16 groups or businesses that have signed up to put scarecrows in Milroy Park. The money raised from them is used to pay for the Fall Fest, scheduled for October 20. This year Rotary will have its food truck there. 

The Christmas parade is scheduled for December 3 and planning for the day's events is ongoing. An after-school club will begin meeting at Brookside Park this week. Several people noted that disc golf is heavily used and may represent the best investment of dollars from the Parks for People campaign.

(I will have more pictures of scarecrows in a future post or posts.)

Commissioners meeting

The October Commissioners meeting had a lot of items on the agenda but most of them looked routine. There were several buried cable permits and all were approved. One was for the Rensselaer Gas Utility for a gas line on Marion School Road. Part of this project had already received approval and I am unsure if this approval was needed because plans changed or the full route of the line was not approved earlier. A second was a simple bore for Remington Farms in Carpenter Township, and NITCO had two in Wheatfield township to provide broadband to two subdivisions.

The County's health insurance agent suggested a change in how the Medicare Part D Mailing for prescription drugs is mailed, and the Commissioners approved. He also said that he would have new options for employee medical insurance and the Commissioners decided that they would hear them at the continuation of this meeting to be held on October 17 at 7:00 in the morning.

The Commissioners approved a plan to establish an Internet portal for a variety of items now on paper, including pay stubs. The Health Department wants to build an outbuilding for storage and as a garage for its two vehicles. It will be 32 feet by 40 feet. The Council will need to appropriate the funds. The Health Department wants to make a temporary part-time employee a temporary full-time employee and after a discussion of whether it meets current employee law, the request was approved. The position is funded by a grant and will cease when the grant funding runs out.

A citizen who leased land to NextEra's phase I solar project was upset with the construction of the project because the contractors mixed sandy soil with fertile crop soil and he doubts that the mixing can be undone when the lease runs out. He thought there might be something in the decommissioning agreement that should have stopped the mixing but was told that the agreement was only about decommissioning. The Commissioners said that they had learned things from Phase I that they do not want to have repeated in Phase II.

Then the surprise of the meeting came from an item with the simple title of "Economic Development Agreement EDPR". It was a two page resolution between the County and a wind farm developer to extend a White County wind farm into Jasper County. If I heard it right, the project would cost $165 $365 million and would erect 45 wind turbines with a capacity of 200 megawatts in the far south of Jasper County. The proposed project would start in 2025. In the agreement are payments to the County beginning in 2026. Also in the agreement is a provision that if the assessed value of the turbines falls below a minimum, not yet determined but between $102 and $113 million, the company will pay extra (called a pilot payment) to compensate the County. There are complications of how the pilot payments work and I did not understand some of the discussion. Road use and decommissioning agreements are not yet finalized. The company says that they will abide by all the conditions set out in the Jasper County Wind Farm Ordinance, which are summarized here. 

This resolution is only a first step. There are a variety of permits and permissions it will need. I was surprised by this proposed wind farm because the ordinance makes it very difficult to establish a wind farm. I wonder if the developer has signed up landowners and their neighbors because with the required setbacks the developer will need permission from people who do not have the turbines on their land. There should be some interesting public meetings in 2023.

The Commissioners suggested a couple of changes to the golf cart ordinance that is being amended to include ATVs. They decided that the operators must have a driver's license and that the maximum number of passengers will be what the manufacturers say it is. (It will not cover farm vehicles because State law exempts them.) They passed the ordinance with these changes.

Mr Sinclair, the Animal Control officer, said that the transmission is failing in a 2010 vehicle. The Commissioners gave him permission to fix it or replace it with a used vehicle, but not to spend more than $20,000. The Commissioners approved two rezoning requests that had been recommended by the Plan Commission. The County Coroner said that the pathologist that the County uses is scaling back his work and that the cost of whoever is found to replace him may be higher. The Sheriff reported that the Jail's food vendor will be increasing the cost of meals by 27¢ per meal. The County Highway Department has had only one company showing interest in snow removal in subdivisions. Since 2020 the Department has lost ten employees and hired six new ones. The Commissioners approved filling two of those positions. The County's Emergency Director had quotes for security items at the County annex that used to be the PNC bank and the Commissioners approved them. The Commissioners were given specs for a new EMS building that could be built in front of Animal Control. It would have 3 bays, a conference room, and sleeping quarters.

The meeting was continued until October 17 at 7:00 am.

Drainage Board

Almost immediately after the Commissioners meeting, the Drainage Board met. The Surveyor gave the members a report on the Davis Ditch system. 15.86 miles need to be cleaned and a public hearing must be held, which will probably be on January 3. The cost will be about $1 million and the County will need to take out a loan to pay for it. Some of the cost will be borne by NextEra because the watershed includes some of Phase I of the Dunns Bridge project. 

NIPSCO is planning a substation with NextEra. It will be on a 19.6 acre plot and will have a 6.5 acre pad. That pad will have to be raised two feet because the Indiana Department of Natural Resources considers the area a flood plain. The NIPSCO spokesperson was asked why they had moved the site from one that did not need to be raised and the answer was that the original landowner backed out. The only thing approved at this meeting was permission to outlet into the Hinshaw Ditch.

Other things

The speaker at the Walk with A Doc event on Tuesday was Carlos Vasquez who gave an update on what is happening at the hospital. He talked a bit about Appleseed and what he said was not much different from what was said in the Confetti post. He also talked about the $28 million dollar renovation planned for the hospital. Phase 1 will cost about $13 million and install new boilers and chillers. The hospital was constructed in 1963 and there were two additions later. Each of these three sections has its own heating and cooling system. The renovation will give the hospital one system. The second phase will add an extension behind the emergency room and then remodel the emergency room area. This will cost about $9 million. The final phase will be the demolition of the second and third floors and this phase may be delayed. The upper floors do not meet the current required standards for hospitals and it may not be possible to bring them up to code.

A new exhibit is being installed in the Fendig Gallery. I will have some pictures in a future post.

Below is the state of construction of the new lift station over the weekend. On Monday evening at six o'clock concrete was being poured. The construction crew works very long hours.

The leaves have started to turn. The picture below was taken from the Talbert Bridge and shows maples in Weston Cemetery. Ash trees are starting to turn yellow, but good luck finding any. The emerald ash borers killed almost all of them.

The harvest is underway. Below is corn north of Rensselaer on Sunday.