Demolition and meetings

 Demolition continued

The previous post showed the beginning of the demolition of the old lift station adjacent to Weston Cemetery. On Thursday the walls were gone and the concrete foundation was being removed.

On Friday the base had been smashed into pieces with lots of rebar extruding.

On Monday the pieces and rebar had been removed, still leaving some concrete with rebar in the ground.

On Tuesday dirt had partially filled the hole. In the backgound you can see a dump truck delivering topsoil and bales of hay behind it. There has been lots of dirt moving in the past week. I assume that the project is in landscaping mode to finish up.

On West Washington the cuts in the road needed to install the sewer line were being paved. 

Some of the roads in Weston Cemetery were closed on Tuesday for seal coating. Perhaps more will be closed this week to finish the job.

Last week City workers removed the tunnel beneath Harrison Street. Below is a picture of the tunnel extending under Halleck Park.

Closings

The Little Coffee Shop on 231 announced that they were closing on May 16.

IVY Tech is discontinuing classes in Monticello. Monticello was a satelite campus of the Lafayette IVY Tech.

Rensselaer BZA

The Rensselaer Board of Zoning Appeals met on Thursday evening. The announced agenda had only one item, but the revised agenda available with the meeting packet had several more items.

The announced item was for a variance of use. The applicant lives on Fairview Drive (west of the golf course), which is not in City limits but is in the City's exclusion zone, so the matter is subject to City rather than County approval. The applicant would like to get a federal firearms license (FFL) to be able to buy and sell firearms as a licensed dealer. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) told him to obtain the license, he would need a variance of use because he lives in a subdivision. If he lived in the country, he would not need this. He is presently buying and selling firearms, but must process the transactions through licensed dealers, which adds expense and inconvenience. He buys and sells using on-line platforms that are for the gun market and does not plan to have his own website. He will not buy and sell from his residence. The BZA had received one written complaint, but it was based on the assumption that he would be doing retail business from his residence. One of the members of the Board said that there were at least two other people in the County doing what the applicant wanted to do.The Board approved the variance of use with several conditions. The variance will lapse if the applicant does not get his FFL. Any changes to his LLC or any change in his business model will cause the variance to lapse. No commodities of any kind can be bought or sold at the residence; the applicant is not even allowed to have a garage sale. No business signage is allowed. The business must be registered with the City. 

The Board then heard a case of an expired building permit issued to build an extension to an existing garage. The existing garage straddles the property line. It was built when there was one owner of two adjacent houses and the two residents shared the garage. About three years ago the resident of one of the properties who had been renting bought their house. Construction took longer than they expected, and after two years it is still not completed. Further, the new construction is over their gas line, which the gas utility finds unacceptable. The Building Commissioner ordered them to stop further construction and to remove what they had built. There was much discussion and the Commissioner stayed the removal order to let the BZA decide what should happen next.  Action could not be taken at this meeting because the item had not been advertised.

The Building Commissioner then reviewed a number of cases that were not in compliance with the building codes. Accessory buildings are not supposed to be more than twelve feet high but one very recently constructed was 16. A privacy fence in a front yard was higher than allowed. Downtown is zoned B3 and this does not allow residential uses. I know that the City has objected to residences on the first floor of what were retail shops, but does the ordinance really prohibit apartments on the second floor? There were a couple of issues with the business selling storage sheds and gazebos on North McKinley. They were too close to the street and the ordinance says they should have a concrete foundation. Pizza King recently changed ownership and the use variance that the old owners had did not transfer, so the new owners need to reapply. There were a couple of residential properties that had permanent storage of construction equipment. The Building Department is changing software and going to the cloud for most of the paperwork.The meeting ended with a preview of some of the items that may be on the June agenda: A small in-house daycare would like a conditional use, one of the very narrow businesses downtown would like to rent out the back of the building as a short-term rental, a church from DeMotte seems to be interested in purchasing the R&M property and making it a branch church. The next meeting is scheduled for June 8.

JC Plan Commission

The Jasper County Plan Commission met on Monday evening with only one item on the agenda, a rezone request from A1 to A2 in Wheatfield Township. The owner wants the property rezoned for a future buildable site. The property may have some elevation problems so the applicant was warned that when he built, he should make sure that the house is high enough so he will not have to pay high flood insurance premiums. The rezone was approved and now goes to the Commissioners for final consideration.The Board managed to get a quorum but it has at least one vacancy so there was a discussion of what might be done to make sure that quorums are available at future meetings. The idea of having alternate members was mentioned but it may not be permitted by State law. The next meeting will be June 19 if there is an agenda.

County Council

The Jasper County Council met Tuesday evening with a fairly short agenda. The Council approved an expenditure of about $15K for fencing of new dog runs at the animal shelter. Presently only two dogs can be outside at a time and new runs will increase the number. The funding will come from the donation fund. Sheriff Williamson had three quotes for an x-ray machine. It will be used to search for drugs. Most of the prisoners at the County jail are addicted to drugs and incoming prisoners can swallow drugs and retrieve them when they defecate. The cost of the machine will be about $160,000 with maintenance extra. The Sheriff suggested that he could spend $80K from his budget and get the rest from opioids funds but there were questions if that would be an allowed use of the opioids fund. The spending had not been advertised so the Council could not approve it at this meeting.

The Sheriff also reported that he had submitted a Cops grant that, if funded, would provide the County with funds for 36 months to partially fund one or two new deputies. The Department should learn in August if the grant is approved. He also reported that despite a rise in utility rates at the beginning of the year, the jail's utility bill was lower this year for the first four months than last year. The Jail has made efforts to become more energy efficient with the solar array, LED bulbs, insulation, and water restrictions.

The Council approved additional appropriations for the Surveyor's office. Some were to replenish budget lines that were used to purchase a new truck liner and others for a study of corner markers. The Commissioners had asked for additional funds to pay for the audit of County books by the State Board of Accounts. Last year the audit lasted for weeks. This year the audit was much quicker and the expected bill is smaller, so the Council approved only $40,000 of the $63,000 request. There were comments that it did not seem right that the State charges counties for the audits, but that is the way it is.

The County Clerk had two quotes for the Council, one for additional voting machines and another to replace the existing voting machines. The existing machines date from 2003 and new models have improvements. The request for additional machines is to cut waiting times on busy election days. The State is funding the purchase of new booths and something that I think is called BB pads. There was some discussion of how to fund this, whether to do an additional appropriation for this budget year or put it into next year's budget, or do a bit of both. The appropriation had not been advertised, so it could not be approved at this meeting, but the Council did approve her pursuing both proposals and something may be appropriated at the next meeting.

The Auditor said that two part-time deputies who came out of retirement to help train new deputies were upset that they were being paid the same as the new people they were training. The matter was taken under advisement. In public comments a new resident of the County who had come from Cook County, Illinois asked if the County would consider going to paper ballots for voting. The Clerk and the people she brought with her explained that voting machines in Indiana are required to also print a paper ballot that can be checked against the electronic tally and that paper ballots are not fraud-proof. She was invited to become a poll worker and seemed interested.