The end of March

 City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met for its final March meeting on Monday evening. In Citizen's comments Stan Haines, who serves on the Rensselaer BZA and Plan Commissions, rose to praise Kevin Cochran, who is leaving the position of Building Inspector. He will be replaced by Josh Davis.

The first item on the agenda was a public hearing for the super voluntary annexation of Saint Joseph's College. Chris Janak from Bose McKenney & Evens began by explaining that no vote on the annexation could be taken at this meeting. At least 14 days must elapse between the public hearing and the vote. However, the Council could adopt the fiscal plan, which must be adopted before the vote on the annexation. Two citizens spoke next. They asked about the benefits and costs of the annexation and one of them noted that SJC has not been a good partner to the community. The cost will be a loss of $3700 in utility revenue (I do not know if that is a month or for the year). The City will assume control of Schuster Road on the south edge of the campus (the City has been maintaining it) and will also get responsibility for Daugherty Road (the road that leads to the sewage plant) and Sparling Road, both of which currently are maintained by the County. All the roads and utility infrastructure in the interior of the campus will remain the responsibility of the College. The benefits lie in the future. When development takes place (the assumption is that because SJC will never again be a four year college, the land will eventually be used for another purpose) the City will have  more control over what happens. This annexation will be easy because it is sought; a future annexation of a developer's project might be impossible. There were questions about whether the City might get stuck with the cost of removing decayed buildings and the response was that the annexation will not change that. Because the College is within the City's exclusion zone, it could be responsible just as it was for the removal of Grandma's restaurant west of I-65. There was a discussion about the need for housing. Most people who work in the City commute in and a lot of residents commute out. During the discussion, the Mayor mentioned that White Castle was considering expanding its plant and so was another company that was not ready yet to go public.

The amount of land in this annexation is 268 acres. In addition to the SJC land, it includes the County land where the Health Department is and a strip of private land along Daugherty Road that connects the main SJC parcel with the lot that has the old farm buildings.

The Council then adopted a resolution that allows the Redevelopment Commission to use TIF money for art works before it adopted the annexation fiscal plan that sets out the fiscal impact of the annexation. At the last meeting the Council opened two bids for work on roads funded by a Community Crossings grant. At this meeting it accepted a bid from Town and Country. The amount was less than the base bid read at the meeting, so I assume that some of the planned project was dropped.  The Council approved $3100 for the Gas Department's open house on April 28 from 11:00 to 1:00. In the past the Gas Department has obtained a grant that reimburses the cost of this event and is applying for that grant again this year.

The Council approved submitting a PER (Preliminary Engineering Report to the State Revolving Fund to see if financing might be available for improvements at the wastewater treatment plant, improvements that the City must eventually make. The Council approved a transfer of funds within the Gas Departments budget. A committee was formed to review fines and to see if they can be better enforced. There was a question of whether the City had an appointment to the School Board this year. Several people were confident that it did not. Several departments—electric, cemetery, gas, and parks—were given permission to hire summer help. A bid of $7300 was accepted to remove eight trees at Brookside Park along SR 114. April 27 is electronics recycling day. May 1-5 is clean-up week. 

Changes

The window of Fenwicks Distillery now has a sign

Remodeling of the of Forsythe mansion is underway. There are tenants for the upper floors.

More of the sidewalk that was ripped out last week was poured on Wednesday. This is the stretch in front of Printco.

There will be a new insurance office opening in front of Rules Auto.

27 trees were delivered to Rensselaer's Urban Forestry Council last week.

Some daffodils are blooming.

Window art

Windows downtown are being decorated with themes of Spring.

Some history updates

On March 21 I published a post about The Rensselaer Gazette, an early newspaper in Rensselaer. The editor was Daniel F. Davies. He was elected as sheriff in 1862 and died in office. (A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties, p 56.) Unfortunately one cannot read about that in the newspapers. There are no newspaper issues that survive from 1861 until 1868. Some of them were apparently lost in a Courthouse fire of 1864 (1864 is the date given in A Standard History; the book about the Jasper County Courthouse published for its centennial says the fire started on Jan 18, 1865.)

Benjamin Henkle had a store in Rensselaer. Below is an ad for the store that ran in several issues of the Rensselaer Banner in 1854.

He must have been a very versatile fellow because he also built the first brick courthouse:

Our friend Benj Henkle Esqr., we see has commenced work in earnest upon the new Court House Building, quite a number of hands, are now engaged on the work and from present appearances, we should judge that the foundation and first story of the edifice will be erected this fall.

(Jasper Banner, Volume 1, Number 35,Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1854 p 2) A Standard History mentions him as the builder of the Courthouse, but spells his name Hinkle.