February 2023 ends

Art Show

The third of the annual school shows is now on exhibit at the Fendig Gallery. This one is for high-school students.

These word portraits are done in Photoshop.

Not all the art was two-dimensional.

Who do you think drew this picture, a male or female?

I admire the craftsmanship needed to do realistic faces.

An even better face.

The exhibit closes on March 12 with an awards ceremony 

City Council meeting

Highlights from Monday's City Council meeting:

A new police officer was sworn in. I expect the Republican to have an article explaining who he is.

The Little Cousin Jasper Festival will hold its festival in Potawatomi Park this September. They requested the Front Street parking lot be reserved for food trucks and that a block of Front Street be closed from Thursday through Sunday for game trucks. Their request was approved. The Festival folks said that they could use more volunteers.

The Mayor announced that the City has borrowed $6 million at a zero interest rate for the water project and will get a grant (a forgivable loan) of $2 million to remove lead service lines.

The Fire Department will sponsor a 5K event on May 20. The race will start in Jasper-Newton Foundation Park, go out Sparling to College Woods, go through the Woods and return to Foundation Park.

Councilman Cover expressed concern about the condition of rail crossings on Cullen and McKinley Streets.

Bids for street work funded by Community Crossings grant are due on March 13.

JCBZA & Plan Commission meetings

The Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeals also met Monday evening. It approved minutes from its last meeting, October 2022, and elected officers: President S Walstra and VP K Korniak. It had only one other item on the agenda, a request for a special exception to use a basement bedroom and bath for an Airbnb. The house sits on about 20 acres of wooded land in Walker Township and the owners thought that people who enjoy birds and other wildlife might find spending time there relaxing and attractive. A neighbor who farms adjacent land opposed the exception because he said commercial uses interfered with farming so he did not want any commercial uses. After pondering the issue for a while, the Board granted the exception with three conditions, that it was attached to the applicants and would disappear when the land changed ownership, that it be limited to no more than two guests, and no firearms be allowed to registered guests. The next meeting will be March 20.

The BZA meeting was followed by a Plan Commission meeting. They approved their November minutes and elected K Korniak president, V Urbano as VP, and J Rodibaugh as Secretary. They also appointed two members to the BZA, K Korniak and V Urbano. Their first cause was a rezone request from I-1 to A1 (Light Industrial to Agricultural). The land is in Hanging Grove Township near McCoysburg. It had been zoned I-1 when zoning first started, apparently in the hope that business would develop in McCoysburg. The applicant said that with the I-1 zoning he would be prevented from rebuilding if his house was destroyed and mortgage companies will not lend for residential purposes. The members agreed that this was a zoning that should have long ago been changed so recommended to the Commissioners that it be changed.

The second cause was an amendment to the solar ordinance. Towns and cities can control zoning in an area up to two miles from their borders, but none of Jasper County communities does that. They have buffer zones that follow County Roads and are in places less than two miles from the town limits. As it reads now, the solar ordinance mentions the two-mile limit, but communities are only regulating their declared buffer zones, so there is a gray area that is not covered by the ordinance. The amendment, which the Commission recommended to the commissioners, replaces the two mile limit with the buffer zone. The director of planning and development was asked to find other places in ordinances where the buffer zone could replace the two-mile limit.

Weather

We got about three inches of rain on Ash Wednesday. The rain recreated Weston Pond and raised the river to just under 11 feet. 

I have a maple tree that is leaking sap and I heard redwing blackbirds last week, more signs that Spring is one the way. My son who lives in Kentucky has lots of daffodils blooming, but my son in Arizona has several feet of snow with a couple more feet in the forecast. He cannot shovel it anymore because there is no place to put it.

Other things

The law office of Hodges Davis has relocated to the back of the Horton/Yallaly Building. The Shelter Insurance office that was there is gone.

The first batch of digitized Rensselaer newspapers is now availabe on the Hoosier State Chronicles. This will make it far easier to research early Rensselaer history.

Work on the sewer line along Owen Street continues. 

I started work on taxes for last year. Pulaski County, which at one time had a higher income tax rate than Jasper County, no longer does because they cut their rate a couple years ago. However, there are three counties that do have higher rates: Putnam at .03, Cass at .0295, and Wabash at .029. (Jasper is at .02864.)

Ash Wednesday

 Redevelopment Commission

Last week I saw a meeting notice on the door of City Hall for the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission. The main item on the agenda was "Amendment to Permit Local Art Work." That sounded cryptic, so I decided I should go and find out what they were doing.The Redevelopment Commission controls the proceeds from property taxes in TIF districts, so they have money to spend, but they can only spend it on things that will improve the district, such as roads and utilities. The amendment would allow them to also pay for art work, such as murals, that could increase economic activity for those in the TIF district. No money was requested at this meeting. The amendment passed, with the Board adding the provision that they will want to know exactly what will be done with the money when a request is made.

There is art work planned for this July in Rensselaer and it will be paid from City funds. I suspect the City decided to seek other sources for funding, and the Redevelopment Commission has a lot of money, though when they do spend it, it is often on very expensive projects.

There will be a March meeting and Appleseed will be on the agenda. 

There was a discussion of facade grants as a way other communities have improved the look of their downtowns, and then a discussion of two buildings that some consider eyesores. The old R&M building may be beyond repair. The site was once a Ford-Mercury dealership. It was noted that the cost of demolishing Grandma's Kitchen by the Interstate was about $40,000.

Continued Commissioners meeting

The Commissioners met on Tuesday morning, February 21 to tidy up a few loose ends. They had previously approved a memorandum of understanding to submit to NextEra about the Dunns Bridge project, but a date on the document was incorrect so they re-approved it with a new date. They accepted a bid of $84,320 to pave the south entrance of the Fairgrounds. Expanded parking for the Sparling Annex is in process, with quotes being obtained. They approved a replacement hire for Animal Control; the position is part-time. They approved a quote of $4123 for plumbing at the Fase Center. It will be for high-rise toilets and new kitchen faucets. They approved a newly amended holiday schedule, perhaps the fourth version. This change moves the Christmas holiday for County employees from the two days of Friday and Monday to the two days of Monday and Tuesday. (Christmas is on a Monday.)

The health insurance policy for County employees has a new set of regulatory changes. The agent for the County explained that these changes were forced on the County by State and Federal regulations and employees should not see much change. The Commissioners approved the new documents. The Commissioners approved moving forward with new sidewalks on the north and east of the Courthouse that will coordinate with the City of Rensselaer's Brick Street project. The Prosecutor's building has a roof leak and the Commissioners approved a bid from Century Roofing of slightly more than $2000 to repair it. BP still wants to move forward with their project of sequestering carbon dioxide deep underground in Jasper, Newton, Benton, and White Counties. Mr Walstra suggested that Jasper County find out what the other counties are doing and thinking. The Commissioner's attorney said that individual commissioners could reach out to individual commissioners in other counties without violating the open-meetings regulations, and the Commissioners decided to do that. The meeting was adjourned thirty five or forty minutes after it began.

Odds and ends

Stephen Eastridge has announced that he is leaving the Jasper County Economic Development Organization as of March 17. The press release can be found here.

I saw six turkey vultures circling overhead on Monday. Many people look for robins to announce the coming of spring. I wait for the turkey vultures.

Lent has started. I have searched for the schedule of Lenten luncheons for this year and have found that St. Augustine's will host on March 8. There is apparently one other church that will host, but I do not know who or when. (See the comments for the schedule.)

On Monday new bollards were installed by the Post Office. 

As of the weekend, the work on the sewer line in north Rensselaer was still moving up Owen Street.

The Jasper County Historical Society met on Tuesday evening. The program was about an early Rensselaer photographer, Jessie Bartoo. The Museum recently was give a large collection of her photographs. You can watch the meeting here. (Skip ahead to 36 minutes for the program.)

Sacred Heart Church Remington

Repairs on Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Remington are almost finished, though the pictures of the interior do not clearly show that. The interior is full of scaffolding, but the scaffolding is being used for painting. 

Looking up, one cannot see the ceiling because of the scaffolding.

Painting includes using stencil for decoration.

The subfloor has been installed. After the painting is finished and the scaffolding is removed, the floor will be finished and the pews returned.

County Council meeting

The County Council meeting on Tuesday evening had an agenda that stretched to the fourth page, but given that length, the meeting was quite short. Almost all of the items were about the budget. There were things that should have been included in the budget but were not for some reason, changes in wages and salaries that had been approved but were not correct in the budget, and items that had moved from one place in the budget to another. Most of the items were for Community Corrections or the Sheriff's Department. By far the largest items were for EMS. There was an additional appropriation of $250,000 for the Jasper County EMS. This had been in the budget but had been dropped because of delays in getting the JCEMS certified. There was an additional appropriation of $1.5 million for the new ambulance building. Both of these were from ARPA funds. There was a transfer of $70,000 from Southern Ambulance to JCEMS because JCEMS has absorbed Southern. And there was a budget reduction of $350,000 for Phoenix Ambulance because they no longer are in business in Jasper County.

February pictures and meetings 2023

Construction and demolition

The installation of drainage tiles around the courthouse was finishing up on Tuesday. Below is a picture from Friday. 

A picure from Satuday shows the remains of sidewalks ready to be hauled away.

On Saturday I took this picture of a pile of dirt on the southwest side of the Courthouse. What interested me were all the bricks in the pile. I suspect they were from the Courthouse that was on the site before the current Courthouse was built in the 1890s.

On Monday the last stretch of trench had been dug. Notice that the downspouts of the Courthouse are tied into the pipe. Too much water from the roof was causing the water leakage into the basement of the Courthouse and this project, by taking that water away from the Courthouse, is meant to solve the problem.

On Tuesday all the trenches had been filled and the last pile of dirt was being put into a dump truck 

   

It will take a while for the grass to grow back to what it was before this project.

Across SR 114 from the Fairgrounds the site for the new EMS building is being prepared. You can see Airport buildings and community Corrections in the background.

Last week workers were working along Owen Street installing a new sewer line.

Do you recognize where this is? Until recently there was a house and trees on this lot. It looked completely different in June.

For no special reason, another picture taken Sunday of lift station construction.

The demolishers working at the power plant filled this dumpster with scrap metal and hauled it away. There is now an empty one in its place. 

BPW 2-13-23

The Rensselaer Board of Public Works met on Monday with an unusually long agenda. It approved an update of the pursuit policy for the Police Department. It was a policy that the State introduced to bring uniformity among police departments and will not result in changes in the way the Rensselaer Department conducts pursuits. The Board also approved a promotion in the Police Department.

The Board then approved two task orders for Commonwealth Engineering. The first was for chemical phosphorus removal. This was required by IDEM and will cost $72,000. The second was for wastewater asset management and is a study needed to get funds from the Indiana State Revolving Fund (SRF). It was for $59,800.

The Board then approved the bid recommendations for the water project. (The bids were opened at a special January meeting.) The bid for the water-tower part of the project of $4,341.000 that includes the base bid and several of the alternates was approved, as was the bid of $2,202,865 for the water mains base bid and one of the alternates. The approval was contingent on SRF approval. It was noted that the bids were higher than the estimates, but pretty much everything is coming in on the high side.

The Board approved pay request #9 of $566,723.95 from Thieneman for the lift station construction and also $25,669.90 to Commonwealth for monitoring the construction. Commonwealth also had an invoice of $34,995.12 for the final design of the elevated storage project and for $5,315.24 for bid assistance for that project.

City Council meeting 

The City Council meeting lasted more than an hour, which is unusually long for these meetings. First up was a citizen who was upset with the sewer extension. She maintained that the new sewer hookup would cost her rather than save her money. She will now have to pay a sewer bill and it will cost about $3500 to connect her house to the sewer line. Her septic system was cheaper.

Next up was an ordinance authorizing the City to issue revenue bonds for the waterworks improvement project. The funding will be from the SRF and $2 million will be a forgivable loan (so a grant) and another $5.9 million will have an interest rate of zero percent. Because the closing is scheduled for the 24th, the Council passed the second reading and then passed the third reading of the ordinance. (The first reading had been passed at the previous meeting and this type of ordinance requires three separate votes.)

The process of annexing SJC began at this meeting. There are multiple steps, including a public hearing (scheduled for March 27) and the preparation of a fiscal plan. If all goes as planned, the annexation will be finished in June.

The Council approved an amendment to the salary ordinance affecting the assistant street superintendent. The gas tracker for February will reflect a 5.25¢ increase per hundred cubic feet. There was a presentation of the status of the comprehensive plan that used the same power-point slides as those used at the Plan Commission meeting on the 9th. The presenter noted that the organization of the plan might seem a bit confusing but this organization was used to make it easy for OCRA to review it. 

Two employees were recognized for ten years of service. Two requests for public relations funds, one for flowers for the funeral of an employee's wife, were approved. April 22 will be electronics recycling day, from 8:00 until noon.

Tourism Board meeting

The Tourism Board met on Valentine's Day at the Sparling Annex. Art week will be July 24-28 and the focus for murals will be Wheatfield. The walls that can be painted are more clustered than in DeMotte and that will give the event a more festival feel for the artists.

There was a funding request for a new horse barn at the Fairgrounds. In addition to use for the County Fair, the horse grounds are used for 18 booked events, most of which bring in outsiders to the Fairgrounds. The planned barn will be 62' by 80'. The Board was receptive but wanted to know what other sources of funds will be used because they do not want to approve funding and not have the building completed. It will probably be on the agenda for the March 14 meeting.

A citizen who would like to see one of the miniature trains manufactured in Rensselaer many years ago installed in a park wanted to know if that sort of project could receive Tourism funding. He was told it could. Time will tell if anything develops from this.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The most interesting item from the Airport Authority Board meeting was a discussion with a company called American Crop Care that would like to base its operations at the Jasper County Airport. The company is incorporated in Florida but its main pilot who also seems to be one of the owners lives in Winamac. The company is new and is in the crop dusting business. That business is seasonal and they plan to rent a plane for the crop dusting season and would like to rent a hangar or two for that season. This is new territory for the airport and the Board members had questions about insurance, storage of chemicals, and fuel sales. The company and the airport manager will try to work out a mutually beneficial agreement that can be approved at or before the next meeting.

The Airport has invested their funds in several allowable instruments, all of which are getting about 4% interest. They declared their courtesy car as surplus and will put it in the next County auction. They also discussed a variety of things that needed repairs or replacement and other airport issues that are important to the airport but are not of much public interest.

A few more pictures

Last week I wrote about the Plan Commission and a variance for D-1 Towing. Below is the lot on Walnut Street that they have been using for towed vehicles.

Below you can see the lots that they recently purchased. There were several trucks already on them. In the distance and on the right you can perhaps see the lot shown above.

Backroad Blooms is now open in the former GRG Auto Repair building at 312 South College.  (That is the same address as Rural Bling but Backyard Blooms has the north door.)

For more information, see the website is here and the Facebook page is here.

A second February post

First, some pictures

The second of the regional school arts shows is now on exhibit at the Fendig Gallery. This one is for students in grades 3 to 5. It runs until the 19th, which is the date of the closing reception. The Gallery is open Tuesdays noon till 4 and Thursdays 2 to 6.

One of the fun things of these exhibits is seeing how ability increases as we go up the grades.

Below is a view of the power plant showing where the Nordberg engine used to be. Notice that there are still metal bits in the pit.

The metal bits are slowly being taken out. I suspect the work is money-losing; the scrap cannot be worth the time and effort needed to get it.

North on Owen Street work has begun on a new sewer line. The picture below was taken Sunday, so work is probably much further along now.

Workers were pouring more concrete at the lift-station construction site this week. Access to the site is restricted, so it is hard to get good pictures or see what is going on.

Commissioners meeting

The February Commissioners meeting had a long agenda of routine matters. There was  one buried cable request, from NIPSCO doing repairs on a substation on a gravel road. It was approved. A person in the Surveyor's office was approved to get his applicator's recertification, which is needed every five years. The Health Department was authorized  to purchase flu vaccines for County employees early to get a discount. The Department also asked for $1880 for a concrete approach to their new shed, which seems to be completed.

A new hire at Animal Control was approved pending Animal Control Board approval. The Sheriff, down 3 of ten dispatchers, was allowed to use a former Rensselaer dispatcher for part-time work. She is full-time in the Clerk's office. He was also given permission to fill a jailer position to replace a jailer who has given two-weeks notice. The Commissioners opted to stay with the news media of record, the Rensselaer Republican and the KV Post. They publish legal notices. 

The Commissioners continued the contract with the company that prepares the CCMG (Community Crossings Matching Grant) applications. (For the past few years the County has received $1 million for road improvements. The grant requires a 25% County match.) At the last meeting the Commissioners approved a conflict of interest disclosure for the Courthouse drainage project. (The project is being done by Jeff DeYoung's company and he is now one of the Commissioners.) Apparently there was a question if it had been properly seconded, so at this meeting it was. The Council cleaned up some board appointments and approved a bunch of requests for people to attend conferences.

The renewal of a pest control contract attracted some negative complaints about how well the company had been performing, so the item was tabled and alternative companies will be sought. The city of Rensselaer gave a presentation on the Brick Street Project. It has been funded with a $2 million grant and will involve the reconstruction of the brick-street portions of VanRensselaer and Harrison Streets. Utility relocation will begin in May and the two streets will be shut down from June to December. The City needs to reuse 50% of the bricks. The Little Cousin Jasper Festival will be relocated to Potawatomi Park. The City would like the County to also redo the sidewalks that border the Courthouse Square on Cullen and Washington Streets. The Commissioners granted an easement for water.

The Commissioners then passed a revised holiday schedule, approved recommendations from the sick bank board, and raised the meals per diem from $30 to $40. They then heard from a resident of the Deer Park subdivision who said she had a neighbor from hell and wanted to know what the Commissioners could do to curb the offensive behaviors. They did not have any definitive answers for her.

They approved the purchase of a $18K recycling trailer for Wheatfield. The Coroner wants a 3 mile stretch of gravel road paved. Site preparation has begun for a new EMS building (between the County Highway garage and Community Corrections, in front of the Animal Shelter). 

Drainage Board

The Zoom link for the Drainage Board never was established. There were too many failed logins and Zoom locked the Board out.

NIPSCO had two items on the agenda. The first was a question. They had received approval for a project that was now going to be delayed. They wanted to know if there was an expiration for that approval and were told there was not. They then received approval for another project that had a couple of ditch crossings.

The drainage plan for the new EMS building was approved. Loves Travel Center has made a minor change in its plans for the RV park (which will have a capacity of 62). They want a sidewalk from the park to their store that will cross the County right-of-way. Their plans were approved.

Finally, Project Ribeye (a proposed  meat processing plant south of DeMotte) had been granted permission to put a gravel drive on the easement of a County ditch. Now they have decided that they want to move their building so it will partially sit on the easement. I was surprised that the Board agreed to this. I do not think the Board prior to December would have allowed it. However, the company has agreed to maintain the ditch and has already cleaned it, so perhaps that was a deciding factor.

Rensselaer BZA and Plan Commission meetings

The Rensselaer Board of Zoning Appeals met on Thursday evening to consider a conditional use application from D-1 Towing for a lot on Walnut Street next to the railroad. It is the lot that a few years ago had the wrecked train. The owner of D1 bought most of the half block, all except a lot on the east the CSX owns. The owner could not make the meeting; he was dealing with a wreck on the Interstate, so his wife presented the case. What they propose is to wall the property in with a six-foot-high concrete-block wall and use the lot for holding vehicles that they tow, whether from accidents or for police impoundments. They are currently using property to the east owned by Heritage FS for this. (I missed the change from Vision FS to Heritage FS. I am not sure when that happened.) This is very temporary storage. They also plan to construct a garage on the site and move their rotator, a very large tow truck with a crane-like arm, to this location because it is closer to the Interstate than their Francesville location. I am not sure why this conditional use variance of an I-1 (light industrial) zoned property was needed, but it was. It was approved.

The Rensselaer Advisory Plan Committee met after the BZA meeting and heard a presentation of the comprehensive plan. The plan is almost complete and will be presented to the Council in the next few months for approval. The most common concern heard in the public comments was a concern about the future of SJC.

Other bits

February 4 marked the 50th anniversary of the fire that destroyed the administration building at SJC. Some alums remembered.

The County Clerk has published the list of candidates for May's municipal primary election. Bill Hollerman is retiring and not running for re-election, but all other incumbents are running. There are two contested Council races: Kevin Armold and Frieda Bretzinger are running to succeed Hollerman, and Zion Miller is challenging George Cover. There are two Republicans seeking to challenge Mayor Wood, Scott Barton and Jeff Phillips.

Compass Travel Center had its grand opening and ribbon cutting on Feb 3.

Autumn Trace has begun construction on a new assisted living facility in Kentland.

The Farmhouse Kitchen  Restaurant at the Mercantile in Francesville will be closing in March.

The Alcohol Beverage Board of Jasper County will meet on Feb 14 in City Hall at 10:00. Usually these meetings are quick and uninteresting unless there is a new license on the  agenda. The new license at this meeting will be for Hop Quest Brewing Company in Wheatfield. 

A slow week

Goodbye Nordberg

It has been a slow week, with no public meetings that I was aware of. There was activity at the power plant where the last of the engines to be scrapped was removed from the building. I missed the actual removal, but did get some pictures of the body of the engine on a 30 wheel truck.

Below are a couple of close-ups.

The City tried to sell it at auction but it did not sell. Here is a link to the auction, which may not be available for very long.

The truck left early this week but another large piece of the engine remained. Work also continued inside the building but I could not see what they were doing.

On Thursday bits and pieces of leftover scrap were being loaded into a dumpster.

Courthouse drainage

Work has started at the Courthouse to install drainage to keep water from leaking into the basement. 

Earlier this week there was a deep hole near the gazebo.

A day later some concrete catch basins or manholes (I am not sure what the name of these are) had been installed.

On Thursday there was a trench leading to the big hole.

Winter

Rensselaer had another few days of real winter this week. It was cold enough so parts of the Iroquois River froze over. 

The winter has been mild overall. As of February 1, the ice cover on the Great Lakes was only 12%, which is lower than it was for that date in 2022 and 2019, but slightly above than in 2021 and 2020.

Days are getting longer. On Friday the length of day from sunrise to sunset is 10 hours, ten minutes, and 53 seconds. (It was 9:16:59 on December 21, the winter solstice.) Each day we get a bit more than two more minutes of daylight. 

Odds and ends

I got the following in my e-mail last week:

Hi, R.A.,

I am a new-ish Hoosier, volunteering for the City Nature Challenge Chicagoland Area. This is a four day contest or opportunity to observe nature. It is free. It requires using a free app called iNaturalist on a smart phone. Here are two links that explain it: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-chicagoland-region and https://www.chicagowilderness.org/page/citynaturechallenge. There are lots of ways to participate, from observing a spider in your laundry room, to strolling through a natural area looking for spring flowers, to snapping photos of your catch while fishing.

I am writing to you because I really know very little about Jasper County. While searching the internet, I found your informative blog. I hope you could steer me towards nature groups or clubs at the high school, or hikers, or birders, or other people with similar interests who might enjoy participating. For example, is there a "Friends of" group at a local park?

I am grateful for any help you can give me.

If you are interested and want contact information, e-mail me at my rensselaeradventures at yahoo address. 

What has happened to the Jasper County Chronicle? It got off to a great start in January and now has been silent for a couple of weeks.

Rural Bling announced a grand opening for March 8, 3:00-7:00 pm. The business is already in the former GRG Auto Repair building on South College, but does not yet have retail hours. The grand opening announcement said that another business, Backyard Blooms, would also be part of the grand opening.

Finally, I saw a picture on Facebook of a bank note issued by the Bank of Rensselaer, which apparently was only in business for a couple years, failing in 1855. Rensselaer has an interesting banking history, with a lot of banks, several of which failed.