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.)