The Winter Solstice

Today (Dec 21) is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Now the days will begin to get longer and the sun will rise and set a bit further to the north each day.

The forecast is for a white and very cold Christmas. If you are driving in the next few days, be very careful.

Special City Council meeting

On the 19th the Rensselaer City Council met in a special session to consider ordinances that change utility rates. The meeting began with a public hearing at which one person, a nonresident of Rensselaer who gets natural gas from the City, complained that his calculations showed rates were going up almost 24%. The response from the representative from Baker Tilley, the City's financial advisor, was that the new rates included the accumulated gas trackers, so what might appear as a rate increase actually was not. Some of the rate changes result from a more accurate estimate of costs of improvements to the utilities than those made the last time rates were adjusted.  Offsetting some of the potential increase was the State's elimination of utility receipts tax, which had been added to our utility bills.

The Council passed all four ordinances. A reason for passing them now even though most or all of the rate change will take effect in 2024 is that in January the Council will have a bond ordinance on the agenda and having the rates set is needed to sell the bond. The electric rate was only increased by 1.5% but there was a warning that an unusually high electric tracker adjustment is coming for the first quarter. (The trackers reflect the cost that the utilities have to pay for gas and electricity.) Even though the base rate (neglecting the tracker) for gas will be a small decrease, some people may have a noticeable increase in bills because customers have not been charged correctly for the monthly customer charge. This was supposed to be a charge added onto the charge for gas usage but the computer was treating it as a minimum charge. The software has been changed to treat it correctly.

County Council meeting

The County Council meeting on Tuesday evening had two public hearings for establishing economic revitalization areas. The Council had given them a preliminary passage, but a public hearing and a confirmatory passage was necessary for them to take effect.

The first was for a warehouse near DeMotte that is connected to Belstra Milling. Belstra is growing its feed brands offering feed sold at retail locations nationally and needs more space. Hence, their proposed 80' by 200' warehouse that may be expanded in the future if demand warrants it. The ordinance sets up a tax abatement that declines over six years. The second ERA was for FBI Builders in Remington, which is planning a facility to make trusses to be used by FBI and also sold to others. It will employ an additional 17 workers. The tax abatement for this project is also for 6 years. 

Rensselaer's Mayor Wood made a presentation for information purposes to the Council explaining that the City was preparing for the annexation of the SJC campus. It would also like to annex the bit of land that houses the County Health Department, CASA, and the County meeting room. He stressed this was a voluntary annexation, that the College had requested it. The Commissioners will have to decide if they want the County property included, which is probably to the County's benefit because it would give them lower utility rates for their building.

The Sheriff reported he had an applicant for the SRO position at KV schools, a position that Commissioners approved at their December meeting. He wanted to know where the Council was willing to start him in the pay matrix by determining how many years of experience it was willing to give him credit for. The Council approved an upper limit on the salary. He also gave a report on what he does with Commissary funds and the Council approved two additional uses.

The Council approved the salary ordinance for 2023 and an amendment to the 2022 salary ordinance that affects three members of the election board. The State Board of Accounts recommended that money in dormant funds, funds that had not had any activity for three or more years, be returned to the general account. There was a long list of such accounts, most with little money in them. The Council approved the measure with the exception of an Ebola grant that the Health Department thought it might be able to use in some way. 

The Council passed a list of additional appropriations. Many were precautionary to make sure that there would be enough money to pay bills before the end of the year. They also approved several transfer appropriations. The Health Department has four that were designed to pay employees extra for working on Covid-19 matters. However, they were told that they would not be able to use the money without an amendment to the salary ordinance and that could not be done this year. So the matter was tabled until January when, after advertising the amendment to the salary ordinance, the matter may finally be put to rest.

The Council approved its schedule for 2023 after reading off the dates. I think all the dates were the third Tuesdays of the month. After the schedule was passed, someone noticed that the July meeting was scheduled during County Fair week. It will either be changed or perhaps the meeting could be held at the Fairgrounds. Wouldn't that be interesting?

This was Rein Bontreger's last Council meeting and Erick Kidwell's first. Rein has served on the Council since July 2009 and has been president of the Council for most of those years. He was given a plaque by the other Council members honoring his service. In January he will become a County Commissioner.

Some Pictures

The Jasper County Historical Society helds its annual Christmas Party on Tuesday.

Its current exhibit is about Jessie Bartoo, who ran a photography studio in Rensselaer in the late 19th century. She died very young but left behind many pictures. The Historical Society recently was given many of her pictures and has about 200 of them.

Photographers of the age mostly took pictures of people.

But sometimes they took pictures of houses. This one is identified as the Eger House on South Van Rensselaer Street. I do not recognize it.  Has it been demolished?

Jessie was the aunt of Edison Marshall, who is now forgotten but was a best selling author early in the 20th century.

In a few weeks the optician office that is next to Ayda's will move into the former Jordan Floral building.

Next to it the former GRG Auto Repair is being remodeled. It sold earlier this month and will become the home of Rural Bling.

After two weeks of work, the garage for the Health Department has a shell.

There is little to see of the new lift station now that about ten feet of fill has been put around the building. 

Parts of the Iroquois River have frozen over. We will see if the parts with fast flowing water will freeze by Christmas. The forecast for later this week is that we will have a day with the highs barely above zero.

Have a Merry Christmas.