Winter

Meterological winter starts December 1 and lasts through February. Astronomical winter does not start until December 21, the winter solstice. I prefer to start winter now because then spring starts earlier.

I hate the short days of winter. On December 3 the day will be 9 hours, 27 minutes and 53 seconds long. (That number is from https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/rensselaer-in). The shortest day will be December 21, with 9 hours and 17 minutes. It could be worse. I have a niece in Winnipeg Canada and on December 3 her day will be 8 hours, 25 minutes, and 16 seconds long.

 Odds and ends

The Rensselaer Library celebrated 30 years in its current building on November 30. Visitors on that day could enjoy cake and cookies. 

As part of the celebration, the Library had invited patrons to submit artwork inspired by adventures that the library had inspired them to take.

In the former Library building the Prairie Arts Council now has its Celebrating Photography exhibit. It will run until January 5. The PAC has announced their 2023 schedule. The first four exhibits that last until mid April are the regional school shows. The Annual PAC Member Show fills May. June and part of July will feature local artist Abbie Parmele and August and September will feature Lilian Fendig. In October there will be a Jasper County Art League member show with the theme of "Fendig Inspired." And finally in December the Fendig Gallery will host the annual Celebrating Photography exhibit.

On Facebook Pottsy's announced he had paid off the bowling alley. In the comments, someone asked about reopening and he replied, " I’d love to give you a date but my installer sawed his finger off. Literally. He is one of the few in the country. He only has 2 weeks left to finish. But when will he get back."

Christmas decorations have been painted on some of the windows downtown.

Sage Bridal is no longer in this building but S-blended Nutrition has not finished moving in. The opening at the new location will be Saturday.

More windows were being painted on Friday.

I missed the ribbon cutting at the high school pool last week, but I expected that the Republican would give it excellent coverage. I was not disappointed. See here or on the front page of this week's edition.

The Republican has begun to cover Commissioner and County Council meetings. The reporter is Cheri Shelhart, who does an excellent job—I used to check her stories to see if I had made mistakes in what I posted. She writes for the Kankakee Valley Posts News, Demotte's paper.

There will be several businesses moving and one closing in the next few weeks. Steffens Jewelry will close before Christmas. The optometrist next to Aydas is moving soon to what was Jordans Floral and their current office building is for sale.

Work has begun on a storage building/garage for the Health Department, though it is only site preparation for a concrete slab. The location is to the west of the parking lot at what I call the Sparling Annex.

City Council meeting

The City Council met on Monday evening (November 28) and had four items on the agenda for utility rate changes: for water, sewage, electricity, and gas. A person from Baker Tilly, a consultant firm that prepared the rate-change recommendations, gave a long explanation of the state of the utilities, their debt, new and construction underway, changes in federal and state rules, and anything else that might affect the rates that they should be charging. He said that the recommended changes should cause about a 2% rise in the average utility bill. To pass these changes, a public hearing is required and that must be advertised. I see that a special Council meeting is scheduled for December 19 and I suspect that is when they will be approved. The vote at the meeting was to move forward with the process.

Twice a year the City must file a financial report with the USDA Rural Development department (which has given the City grant money) and the Council approved filing the report. The Council approved the three supply bids that it received at the last meeting (for gasoline, diesel, and tire services). The Council approved $2000 for an employee Christmas party/lunch. Next week the purchaser of the Wärtsilä generator will begin removing some of the components of the system.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for Friday morning did not have a quorum so no business could be done. The few attending discussed changing the meeting time. Friday was seen as undesirable and I think they eventually settled on the second Tuesday of the month. That would make January 10th the next meeting. They very briefly discussed the new tourism logo, which you can find on the Discover Jasper County Facebook page. There will be carriage rides in Rensselaer on December 10 and 17 from 5:00 until 8:00. More here. Someone mentioned that a Dunkin Donuts has opened at the DeMotte on SR 10 West of I-65.