Change is coming to County meetings

 County election results are here.

Commissioners meeting

The November Commissioners meeting was the last for Kendall Culp. He won election as a state representative on Tuesday and will have to resign his office of commissioner. There will be a Republican meeting in mid-month to choose his replacement, much as it recently did for the Rensselaer clerk-treasurer. I was told after the meeting that there are at least five people who put their names into contention.  Commissioner Maxwell was not running for re-election and will be replaced by Rein Bontreger. However, that transition will not happen until January. 

Mr Culp served for 5 terms and 18 years, taking office in 2005, the same year as James Walstra. Culp never missed a commissioners meeting in all those years. Richard Maxwell has served since 1991. With two of the three commissioners new next year, the commissioners meetings and drainage board meetings will be different and perhaps quite interesting.

The November meeting began with an adjustment to the agenda, putting approval of two rezones recommended by the Plan Commission first. They were both approved. (See here for what they were about.)

There were three buried cable permits that were quickly approved. One was an extension of a gas line in Wheatfield Township. The Commissioners opened a public hearing regarding the sale of the former prosecutor's annex. This public hearing is required by law for disposing of property above a certain value. There were no comments and there was no mention of whether an offer to buy had been received. The sale was approved with Commissioner Maxwell abstaining. The sale also needs Council approval.

A person from the Tri-County School Corporation outlined how the corporation spent funds from the 7-year 2017 referendum. The report was informational and no action was requested. Andrew Boersma reported that the coroner has had 82 cases so far this year. He still does not know how the office will deal with the retirement of the forensic pathologist that the office uses; it may have to transport bodies to other counties. He reiterated the need for a full-time deputy coroner and the matter may be discussed at the upcoming joint commissioner/council meeting on November 15.

The Commissioners heard a report on the double doors at the prosecutor's annex. The doors are 30 inches wide and do not meet ADA requirements. One solution is to have both of them remotely activated and another is to convert them to a single wider door with a side panel covering the rest of the gap. No decision was made and this matter may be resolved on November 15.

Arcem, the company providing computer services for the County, asked to have its 3-year contract renewed. It requested a 5% increase in fees and adjustments to licensing. The Commissioners approved the extension.

Titan has been working on a design for a new EMS building and gave a presentation of the plans. They will be submitting for bids two designs, one a three-bay building able to hold six vehicles and the other a two-bay building able to hold four vehicles. About half of the building will be ambulance bays and the other half will have an office for emergency management (currently in the former PNC building), an office for EMS, bedrooms for personnel, a training room, and storage. The estimated cost is about $1.5 million and it would be funded with ARPA money. The Commissioners approved submitting the project for bidding and the bids will be reviewed in the December meeting.

The addition of a temporary full-time employee that was approved for the Health Department in October needed to be changed and it was. I did not understand the details of this action. Dr Nelson has retired as medical director of the Health Department and Dr Louck has moved up from the deputy position. A new deputy is needed and the Commissioners approved the appointment of a doctor who apparently is at Franciscan Health but I cannot find who on Franciscan's website. The Health Department said it needed a credit card for some purchases. The Auditor recently canceled the County credit card because of misuse. The Commissioners granted the Department permission to obtain a card with the provision that only one person could use it. The Highway Department then chipped in and said that they also could use a credit card and they were allowed one with the same limitation. There was some discussion of what the appropriate security measures were for the Sparling annex, with the recommendation that an alarm system be installed.

Bids were opened for the construction of a 32' by 42' outbuilding for the Health Department to use to store a new vehicle. There were two bids and the low bid of $65,992 from Tried and True Construction was accepted. Construction will start soon.

The County will advertise for County farm leases, with bids opened in December. The Commissioners approved the Sheriff's recommendation to switch providers of dental services at the jail. They also approved a request to replace a part-time employee at the North annex who works about 50% for the Sheriff and 50% for the Coroner. The Sheriff reported that the Willowby system recently installed has cut water consumption in the cell block by 70%. He said that the KV School system wants to add an SRO officer, bringing their total to 3. It will be funded 75% by the School.

The Commissioners then considered road-use and decommissioning agreements for the proposed Meadow Lake wind farm expansion into Jasper County. The project will use an estimated 30 miles of County roads (all in Carpenter Township) and the agreement has the developer paying for repaving 40 miles when the project is completed. The County opted to take parts of the White County agreements that have the roads upgraded for heavier traffic. The decommissioning agreement states that if the facility fails to generate for 18 months, it must be decommissioned. The company will have a surety bond, the amount adjusted every three to five years, that will allow the County to demolish the towers if the Company cannot. The developer has promised that it will be fully in compliance with the County's wind ordinance and will not seek variances. The agreements were approved.

The Commissioners reviewed and approved several handbook changes that dealt with vacation days, sick bank, and policies about smoking, whistleblowers, absenteeism, and harassment. 

The clerk/assistant superintendent of the Highway Department recently retired. Jack H was the engineer and superintendent and he will continue as the engineer but not as the superintendent. Ed Cain was appointed the new superintendent effective on November 7.

The Tourism Commission had a vacancy because a person from Fair Oaks Farms resigned. No one else from Fair Oaks seemed to be available, so a person who has worked with Fair Oaks was recommended and approved. She is M Tomich who runs a design studio called Mixdesign in Hebron.

Jim Martin will be resigning from the Plan Commission. His replacement must be a Democrat and so far no replacement has been selected.

The meeting was continued at 11:00.

Drainage Board

The Drainage Board meeting had a lengthy agenda but only lasted an hour. It approved a number of surveyor reports on cleaning various ditches. It also opened some bids and approved them, including one for the odd bid of $11,000.03. INDOT had two items on the agenda, both bridges that they are resurfacing. The reason that they need Board approval is that they are altering the riprap, the stone used to curtail erosion. One bridge is just south of Rensselaer on US 231 and the comment was that they should bury the stone because kids keep using it to build dams in the ditch.

One item on the agenda was from a proposed apartment building in Remington. The developer wanted to infringe on a drainage easement with his retention pond. He was told that his plans as they were presented were OK and that he would not gain enough with the infringement of the easement to allow him to build more. 

At the end of the meeting there was a discussion of box culverts replacing bridges. They are cheaper to maintain than bridges so are often being used to replace bridges.

Rensselaer Park Board

The most interesting bit from the Park Board meeting was a discussion of girls softball. This program is the only organized ball using Columbia Park and the program would like to get dugouts similar to those in Brookside. The dugouts would protect the players from the summer sun and also foul balls. They found that the cost of materials would be about $4700 and wanted to have Board approval to construct them. They also asked if as a result of constructing these dugouts, which would benefit the Park Department, they could have their $700 rent waived for five years. They use Columbia Park only from April to early July. The Board approved their building the dugouts but did not decide on any adjustment to the rent.

Girls softball fields about five teams each year that play teams from Winamac, North Judson, Knox, and Monon. Their biggest expense is umpires, at about $5k each year.

Park employees were at the meeting and they gave their insights into how things were going. There was a couple of lengthy discussions about parking, especially parking on the grass, and there were lengthy discussions about the Blacker Field tournaments. The concession people for the tournaments are unhappy with the way that the Lions Club leaves the concession area after they finish doing concessions for local games. I left a bit after 9:00 (the meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:00) while talk was continuing.

The meeting was held at the Highland Barn west of I-65. They recently added an outdoor pavilion.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Airport Authority Board met Tuesday evening. One of the consultants attending via Zoom reported on a few changes to the Airport's 2023 Capital Improvement Plan that must be submitted to the FAA and INDOT by December 1. The plan is a five-year look ahead, telling what the Airport would like to do. 

The Board approved a contract for mowing. In the manager's report, there was a discussion of problems with the website. The Board approved spending $500 to fix it. There was also suggestions that if the fix does not work, perhaps a new website could be constructed using wix.com. The Airport had received a grant for flight simulators. The Board approved the manager's suggestion to purchase two with the funds available. The transmission in the Airport's courtesy car has failed and will cost $2700 to replace, probably more than the value of the 2009 vehicle. The manager will explore possibilities. Seventeen planes took part in the Halloween Scareport event, with about 200 kids attending. The Board reaffirmed a memorandum of understanding with the Rensselaer School Corporation. The meeting adjourned at 7:20 pm.

Other things

The Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for last Friday was postponed because not enough members could attend. In the minutes from the June meeting was this: "[Innkeeper receipts for] August and September are lower because Baymont is turning into a Holiday Inn. Numbers should go up when that opens back up."

Last week machines were on West Washington working on extending sewer lines.

There are new lights in the Strack and Walmart shopping center.

They replace lights that looked like this.

At the end of September I had some pictures of art in the park. It was not finished and I promised to update. Here is an update. (The work is by Addy Cain.)