Last post for August

Notes

In a post about the Lillian Fendig exhibit, I included a picture of some basketball players that she painted that belongs to the Rensselaer High School. I received this comment:

The basketball painting by Lillian Fendig was commissioned by the RHS Class of 1960 in memory of 1st Lt James E Taylor. Jim was a member of the class of 1960 and the basketball team wearing #23. Jim was killed in Viet Nam on February 1, 1969 and posthumously received the Bronze Star and Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in battle. The painting has hung in the hallway outside the RCHS gymnasium. The Class of 1960 continue to honor Jim for his brave service to his country.

James Taylor is buried in the Remington Cemetery. 

On Friday Markit Arts had a premier showing of a short film about the Rensselaer murals. It will eventually end up on YouTube. Before the showing I snapped a picture of the car that keeps getting repainted.

The film was projected onto a white wall that previously had a tree painted on it. (You can see it at the very bottom of this page.) After the event ended, Ryan Preston started creating a new tree mural. It resembles a tree he had painted on the wall of the old Sears building that was destroyed by fire.

The jail has installed an x-ray machine to screen incoming prisoners. This was the subject of a number of Commissioner and Council meetings.

On Sunday a contractor began resealing the parking lot by the LaRue Pool. The first step was to put tar on all the cracks. The tar showed up clearly with the setting sun.

This past week this part of the lot has been sealed and parking lines painted, and work has progressed to the west.

The Tuesday night Farmers Markets have ended. Some calendars begin the season of autumn with September 1. I hope you had a nice summer.

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met Monday evening in an uneventful meeting. The Council passed an appropriation reduction that will allow money to be used in next year's budget and passed a resolution that amended another resolution that the City can move forward with the proposed phosphorus building at the sewage plant. The Council affirmed a telephone poll allowing use of public relations funds to be used for expenses for Kids Night at the Farmers' Market and also approved reimbursing an employee for some other expenses for the same event. The Council also approved spending $2000 from public relations funds for a City employee Christmas Party later this year and a donation of $500 to the American Legion for their annual Thanksgiving dinner that is available to all.

The City will contribute the same amount to employees HSA as it did last year, $1800 per employee. The Council approved hiring a replacement for the Mayor's administrative assistant, who recently resigned. The City earned $50,556.25 from its recent auction and those monies were distributed to the departments that submitted items. The Council approved spending $5400 for a second Kawasaki mule for the Cemetery. The Police Department has received complaints about the new guardrails on SR 114 east of town where a culvert was recently replaced. It tells complainers that they should complain to the Indiana Department of Transportation. The Fire Department was recently one of several awarded money to expand its training facility. The Fire Chief was not at the meeting so details were sparse.

It's hot

 Notes

We are having a heat wave. Unfortunately the pool is closed for the season.

The City had an auction last Friday. There were over a hundred bikes for sale. Unfortunately for anyone wanting to buy just one bike, they were sold in lots of about a dozen. 

Several vehicles were in the sale as well as a pop machine that may not have worked and an old recycling trailer. I wonder how much it sold for. I did not stay around long enough to find out.

The picture below is from last week and shows work on water line replacement on Van Rensselaer.

A shelter house is under construction in Filson Park. This picture was taken last week. Since then a metal roof has been installed.

On the other side of Front Street, the City parking lot has been seal coated and painted. Tree removal began and then seemed to stop in Potawatomi Park along the River.

The building next to Ayda's that previously was an optometrist's office is now the office of VanHouten Wealth Management. I believe he was previously with Edward Jones on Washington Street. That office is still open.

Willow Switch is in its final days but will be replaced with another business. The new business, Cup of Joy, will expand the coffee part but drop the home goods part of what Willow Switch has. It will open after Labor Day. NuBloom Naturals is closing. The owner had a long statement on Facebook saying that the Police Department is shutting them down even though they are doing nothing illegal. Dollar Tree plans to close its existing store on September 18 and open its new store in the former Walgreens on September 21.

Markit Arts is hosting a showing of a short film about Rensselaer murals and mural week this Friday at 7:00 pm. 

We are less than a month away from the fall equinox and days are rapidly shortening. 

Jasper County BZA and Plan Commission meetings

The Jasper County BZA met Monday evening with one item on the agenda, a request for a variance for lot size and frontage for a property in Wheatfield Township. The case was a strange one. The owners had restored an old barn, converting it into what is called a barndominium, with living quarters on the second floor. However, they did not get a building permit for this even though they had checked with the Planning Office about what steps they needed to take before they began. The fact that they had made the changes and the people were living in the barndominium was discovered by accident as something else was being checked. The Planning Office threatened enforcement and the owners then hired a surveyor to retroactively correct things. He and the Planning Office decided they should go back to the start and the first thing that they should have done was to apply for the variances. After discussion, the variances were granted, with one member of the Board voting "No."

The second step was to apply for a two-lot subdivision from the Jasper County Advisory Plan Commission, which met immediately after the BZA meeting. Here there was even more hostility because the applicants seemed to have intentionally ignored the permitting process. The Commission decided to table the application to the next meeting, assess a $2500 fine for violations, and have the owners hire an approved building inspector to see if the barndominium is up to code. The next meeting will be on September 18.

The Plan Commission is short one member and has another member who has missed three consecutive meetings, which the bylaws say is the same as a resignation. They are concerned about getting enough present to have a quorum.

30 years of PAC and the Lillian Fendig Gallery

The Prairie Arts Council is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and has devoted the year to Lillian Fendig. Its exhibits have had a Lillian-Fendig connection, but none so obvious as their major exhibit of the year, a showing of a collection of about 100 works of the gallery's namesake. The art comes from about a dozen collections, including many from the permanent collection of the Prairie Arts Council. 

After the Rensselaer Library moved out of their home at the Carnegie Building in 1992, several citizens stepped up to save it from demolition. The Prairie Arts Council, the Jasper-Newton Foundation, and the Chamber of Commerce were the first occupants of the building after the Library moved.

Lillian Fendig was born Lillian Bossom in London England. She exhibited artistic ability early and went to an art school as a high-school student. During World War II she met Ralph Fendig, who was stationed at a hospital in England. In 1948 she came to the United States and married Ralph. She continued her career in art and was recognized as one of Indiana's finest artists. 

Most of the paintings in the exhibit are water colors. She did many landscapes and floral arrangements.

She also designed clothing and the exhibit has some of her designs. I remembered seeing these before and I found them in an earlier post.

Ralph's brother Frederick owned a guest ranch in Arizona that Ralph and Lillian often visited. Many or most of Lillian's pictures with a western theme were painted as a result of these visits. This portrait was done in oil.

This picture of basketball players is one of two that is owned by the Rensselaer Central School Corporation.

Many of her paintings are of buildings and towns, often in England.

The picture below was loaned by a nephew of Ralph who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His father Phillip Fendig entered the U.S. Foreign Service after leaving Rensselaer and was posted in several foreign countries. You can learn a bit more from the obituary of his widow.

In addition to her paintings, the Prairie Arts Council has a series of her prints and also the blocks from which the prints were printed. These were done by Lillian for Christmas cards. The prints are quite small, a few inches by few inches, but have impressive detail in them.

This is a remarkable exhibit for a small city and if you have any interest in art, check it out. The gallery is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on Tuesdays from noon until four and on Thursdays from two until six. The show continues until September 28,

The Fendig family was an important family in the history of Rensselaer. It has no descendents living in Rensselaer. For a brief summary of the family and their impact on Rensselaer, see here, here, and here.

(Two Fendigs have been featured in the annual Weston Cemetery Walks, in 2019 and in 2022. No Fendigs will be featured in this year's walk, but there will be eight interesting people presented when the event takes place on September 16.)

More August meetings

 Continued Commissions meeting

The Commissioners ended their August 7th meeting by continuing it until the 14th. The reason for continuing the meeting was to have a public hearing on an ordinance for the Health Department. The public hearing could not be held on the 7th because it had not been advertised enough days in advance.

The State of Indiana is trying to standardized rules for septic systems and has issued what it wants those standards to be. It voided all County ordinances that were more restrictive than those standards and told the counties to pass new ordinances that will be reviewed by a State technical review board in October, starting with those that are submitted earliest. At this meeting the Commissioners passed a new ordinance that remains more restrictive than the State standards in three ways. The County wants 100 feet of separation between a water well and the discharge field of the septic system, the County wants all installers to be licensed by Jasper County and the State wants installers to be licensed in at least one county, and the County prohibits homeowner installation unless the homeowner is licensed while the State allows homeowner installation. The Commissioners passed the ordinance.

Rensselaer Board of Public Works meeting

The Rensselaer BPW met on Monday afternoon and approved a series of pay requests:

McGuire Iron for $593.735 for work on a new water tower;

Grimmer Construction for $157,806 for service line replacement on Weston Street;

Commonwealth Engineering for $32,388 for easement work and inspecting water tower and line replacement work;

Thieneman Construction for #36,449.84 for odds and ends while finishing up work on the lift station;

Commonwealth for $3,399.99 for supervising the work of Thieneman.

The Board also approved change order #7 for $782 thousand for Thieneman to work on phosphorus removal at the WasteWater Treatment Plant. IDEM and the Federal Government are mandating the City remove phosphorus, and Commonwealth was approved for $116,800 for their work on this project.

The concrete base for the water tower has been finished but nothing is rising above ground yet.

City Council meeting

In the citizens' comments at the beginning of the meeting, Main Street Rensselaer asked and received approval for use of Van Rensselaer Street in front of City Hall for its Oktoberfest event in September. The Street will not be torn up by then.

The Council held a public hearing (at which no one spoke) and then approved continuing tax abatements for Conagra, Filtration Parts, Indiana Facemasks and American Melt Blown Filtration, Gold Bond Building Products (National Gypsum), and Genova.

The gas tracker for August will reflect a 2¢ increase per hundred cubic feet.

Two bids were opened for the brick street project. One had a base bid of $2,530,554,65 with two additions of $101,114 and 51,958.20. I believe this bid was from Milestone. The other bid was from Grimmer Construction and had a base bid of $2,246,572 with the two additions of $98,684 and $66,164. The bids were taken under advisement and the winner will probably be declared at the next Council meeting.

The Council agreed to a 3% increase in employee salaries for next year's budget, and the same increase for elected officials. The Council approved using $189,300 of ARP funds to help finance the construction of a building at the wastewater treatment plant to remove phosphorus. The total cost is estimated at $1,669,700 and several other sources of funds will be used to pay for the building. This is mandated by both State and Federal governments.

A concern was raised about maintaining City Parks. A splash pad is under consideration and it may replace the baby pool at the LaRue Pool. The Street Department requested and was granted permission to replace a striper (machine paints markings on roads) for $6,408.21. The Department can no longer get parts for its current machine. The Gas Department requested and was given permission to purchase a new pipe trailer for $18,223,42.

The City auction will be held on Friday at the Police Department.

County Council meeting

The County Council began its budget hearings on Tuesday evening. Each department explains the changes they want to make in their budget. The discussion of the Coroner's and the Sheriff's budget took some time, while the discussion of the Auditor's, Council's, and EMA's budgets was quite short. The budget hearing continues all day on Wednesday, starting with the Highway budget.

Before the budget hearings began, the Council held its regular meeting. It approved an additional appropriation of $25,000 for funding the GIS team's request to hire a consultant to evaluate moving to new software. The old software is losing its support. It also approved a salary ordinance for two part-time employees hired with grant funding. The Health Department had at a previous meeting said it could pay for expanding the parking lot but the State Board of Accounts said that it cannot.

Several additional appropriations were approved. One was for medical/psychiatric consultants for one of the courts. This year there have been more than the usual number of trials with defendants that may be impaired. Another was for the other court for special prosecutor expenses.

Notes

On Sunday I visited the Remington town park and saw the mural that Cameron Moberg painted there.

The park has a small sledding hill which kids find fun even in the summer.

And of course, the splash pad is popular.

This park shows what can be done if a a large plot of land is designed as a park rather than have a park that grows gradually. Its one drawback is that it is not easy to get to because it is remote.

Water line replacement has begun on Van Rensselaer Street south of the brick street part of the street. It will be closed until sometime in September.

After a dry start to the summer, we got a lot of rain in August and that has popped up mushrooms. When you see a ring of them, you know that there was once a tree on that site.

The rain has made the grass grow and I am worried that our freedom from mosquitoes may come to an end soon.

Some more electric news

Chamber luncheon and tour of Solar Park II

On Wednesday the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce had a luncheon at Rensselaer's solar park #2 with a presentation by officials from IMPA and a tour of the solar field. IMPA is the Indiana Municipal Power Agency. It was formed in 1983 with 26 member communities and Rensselaer was one of those founding communities. It currently serves 51 cities and towns in Indiana and Ohio. Rensselaer buys all of its electricity from IMPA.

Solar Park II is west of the primary school on Matteson. It has the capacity to generate 3.8 megawatts of electricity. The panels in the smaller Solar Park I are fixed in place. Those in Solar Park II are single axis trackers; they move to follow the sun. Many other IMPA communities have solar parks; IMPA is approaching 200 megawatts of solar capacity on 1100 acres. It likes locating within city or town limits so its property taxes are paid to a member community.  Some asked about residental solar panels and the answer was that only three people have rooftop solar panels connected to the grid. There are only about 100 in the entire IMPA network.

Below is a picture of the group in the solar park, with an official from IMPA explaining an inverter, which takes the DC output from the panels and converts it to AC current.

Not visible in the picture, there was a row of panels on the south end of the park that were damaged in Saturday's storm. The storm also did some damage to panels at Solar Park I.

IMPA uses drones with infrared cameras to search for malfunctions in the park. It is cheaper and much quicker than the previous ways of trying to find problems.

Below is a picture of one of the motors that turn the panels. Because it was midday and the sun was almost directly overhead, the panels were almost parallel to the ground. Some asked why they did not plant the park with plants for pollinator insects. The answer was that many people considered pollinator fields to be fields of weeds and IMPA wanted to be seen as a good neighbor.

Since the installation of this park, solar panels have gotten more efficient. The panels in our parks can only generate electricity from one side. Now most panels have a transparent back so that if there is reflected light from snow or sand on the ground, that light can also generate electricity.

The ribbon cutting for this park took place in October, 2018.

The big chimney leaves

On Wednesday I noticed a truck that parked near the power plant. The driver got out, pressed some buttons on the trailer, and the back of the trailer slid back, extending the length of the trailer. I knew something was about to happen, so I waited. 

It took a while as the workers prepared to move the chimney. They had to get straps around it, which they were able to do because it was resting on boards to give it some clearance from the ground., Eventually I caught the video below.

The workers settled the chimney on the trailer, but it was not quite right, so they lifted it again and resettled it. Below is the final result.

The driver then tied down the load and I assume he drove off after I left.

As I left, another truck was getting into position to receive another part of the exhaust assembly. It and the other part were gone Thursday morning. There was still one bit of the assembly left on Thursday, but it must not have been important because it was still on the lot Thursday evening and the Barnhart people seem to have left Rensselaer.

Rensselaer BZA meeting

The Rensselaer BZA met on Thursday evening with two main items on the agenda. The first was a variance of use application to allow the construction of an office and shop in an A-1 zone. The property is a six-acre lot south of Rensselaer in the buffer zone and is currently being used for construction storage. The business that wants to move to and purchase this lot fabricates and installs quartz, marble, and granite countertops in DeMotte. They plan to erect a 4500 square foot shop for the fabrication. A neighbor had concerns about materials blowing into her fields, something that happens with the current use. The applicant was agreeable to installing a fence. The application was approved.

The second item was a conditional use application for a park in a B-3 (business) zone. The park is Filson Park, land that the City Council accepted from the Filson family with the condition that it remain a park for at least 15 years. The discussion seemed to focus on the plans for developing the park, which is being funded by the Filson family. When the City Council made the decision to accept the land, the argument against accepting the land was that the land would be better used for retail or commercial uses. That argument resurfaced again at this meeting. Other concerns were vandalism and maintenance costs. Several people voiced support for continuing development, arguing that the City should respect the wishes of the donors, that it would promote tourism as an extension of the RENARTWLK, and that community members wanted more and better parks. The vote was unanimous to approve the conditional use application.

Looking back on the issue, the whole thing seems rather strange. If the Board had voted against the conditional use, would that have invalidated the action of the City Council in accepting the land with the conditions that were attached to it? Would the land have reverted back to the Filsons? The applicant listed was the Park Board, but should not the applicant have been the City Council? Can the BZA, a board appointed by the City Council and Mayor, override the decisions of the City Council?

Notes

Signs are up at the former Walgreens store announcing that it will soon be a Dollar Tree store.

On the way to the BZA meeting, I noticed something new in the alley behind Fenwicks. It is one of the panels painted at the Art Battle at the Art in the Alley event on July 29. Three other panels are on the wall of Fenwicks under the roof of the outdoor seating area.

The bollards promised for the north end of this alley are now installed.

There is a new art exhibit in the Fendig Gallery, works of Lillian Fendig. It is an impressive exhibit and I will try to write about it next week. The reception for the exhibit is Sunday from 1:00 to 3:00.

The Rensselaer Republican is reporting that the Pleasant Ridge grain elevator will close in October.

Finally, there is a pretty display of flowers blooming outside of the Rensselaer Library.

A ribbon cutting and some meetings

 Ribbon cutting for EV1

On Monday afternoon the Rensselaer Central School Corporation had a ribboncutting for its new bus. This bus is special because it is an electric bus, the first in the fleet. It was purchased with much of the funding (over $200,000)  coming from the Volkwagen Environmental Mitigation Trust. There were three groups that posed for a photograph. The first included all those who were part of the Corporation's transportation department.

The second group were people from companies that manufactured, sold, or in some way contributed to making the acquisition possible. The lady to the left of Mr Odle represented Collins Bus Company of Hutchinson, Kansas, the manufacturer of the bus. On the other side of Mr. Odle is S. Jordan representing REMC, which supplied the charging station in the bus barn.

The final group were school employees and members of the community and this is when the ribbon was cut. Mr Odle was the person who pushed to get this bus purchased.

I did not get a good picture of the bus. Below is the best I have, taken when the Superintendent Craig was addressing the crowd.

The bus has seven seats and appears to be able to comfortably seat 14. It has a wheel chair lift and is the only orange bus in the fleet that has a wheel chair lift. It will be used primarily to pick up special needs students, including any with wheel chairs.

The range is abou 100 miles per charge. A bit more is here.

Classes start at the local school this Thursday.

August Commissioners meeting

The Jasper County Commissioners met Monday for their August meeting with lots of little items on the agenda. There was a proposal to provide CPR training for County employees and it was approved.

 Apparently Community Corrections was not recognized by Reliable Exterminators as being on the contract and there was a discussion about what was included on the contract. The Health Department received approval for a contract hiring translators when needed and the Recorder's Office had a supplier contract approved. There was a discussion of a proposal to register all County contractors. No action was taken at this meeting; the commissioners want a sample form before they approve it. The recommendations from the July plan commission meeting were approved. One parcel was changed from A1 to A3 for a fertilizer plant and another parcel was changed for A1 to A2 for a future subdivision. There were two amendments to ordinances, one allowing rebuilding of a residence in the business district and the other updating the county flood ordinance to conform to the model State ordinance.

A citizen living in the buffer zone of DeMotte wanted to strip the buffer zone from Demotte. She said that the town does not want growth. The DeMotte plan commission had ruled that she could not operate her food truck at her residence. Later in the meeting a citizen said that he wanted no change in the buffer zone and he wanted to keep businesses out of the buffer zone.

The sheriff was on the agenda to discuss resealing the jail parking lot but was told that he needs to go to the County Council to release the funds. He mentioned an issue with an irrigation rig that is shooting water onto the road. The Commissioners will have their attorney write a letter to the landowner.

The EMS building is on schedule and should open before the end of the year.

The question of whether the County should hire a grant writer continues as is the discussion concerning some spacing issues in the courthouse involving the Clerk's office. Perhaps there will be a plan by the next meeting. The flagpole in front of the Health department has had a new concrete base poured and the bricks are being refinished and will be replaced soon. 

REMC wanted a letter to support a grant they are writing to provide for fiber optic throughout the county. The head of the Jasper County Economic Development Organization will write the letter. Little Cousin Jasper wanted permission to put a sign in the Courthouse gazebo directing people to Potawatomi Park for Little Cousin Jasper. The request was granted. Josh Davis from the Rensselaer Planning Department asked about lights for the courthouse. He was told that the County does not want cables reaching to the top of the courthouse. The County Surveyor wants stipends for public use of private phones. The matter was not resolved. Two buried cable permits were approved. The meeting was continued until Monday, August 14 at 8:30 when there will be a public hearing for Health Department ordinances.

Drainage Board meeting

The Drainage Board meeting followed. The Board quickly approved the drainage plan for an expansion of a parking lot that involved some dairies. The discussion of a citizen's complaint about a dam in a ditch in the north of the County took more time. Apparently the farmers have many dams to retain water and keep the water table high and without them, farming would not be possible. However, now houses are being built near some of them and because the northern part of the County is mostly flood plain, the dams can cause problems if they are not lowered when there are heavy rains. The Board decided to tell the dam owner to maintain it properly or it will be removed.

Another citizen had a complaint that a neighbor was not cleaning his part of a mutual drain. The Board will have its attorney write a letter. The drainage plan for a proposed fertilizer plant near the SR 14/I-65 interchange was approved with little discussion. The building will be 844 feet long but will have no close neighbors because the dairy owns a large parcel of land and no neighbors will be affected by runoff.

A citizen has a fence that is in the easement of a ditch, but if he gets it off the easement, he will have no back yard. He was told to keep the fence at least 30 feet from the bank of the ditch to allow equipment access to the ditch. There were three ditches that needed reconstruction and the Board offered the landowners the opportunity to do the work themselves. For two of the ditches the landowners organized and proposed cleaning parts of the ditch that needed cleaning and leaving untouched the upper parts of the ditch where landowners wanted no change. The Board accepted those proposals. No one stepped up on the third ditch so the Surveyor's office will plan reconstruction.

Park Board meeting.

The Rensselaer Park Board met Monday evening with a quorum for the Park Board but not for the Park Corporation Board. The meeting heard from the Rensselaer Building Commissioner about what to expect at the BZA meeting on Thursday that will consider a variance that will allow construction in Filson Park. There will be a ribbon cutting for the Blacker Fields on September 15 at 4:00. The last day for public access for the LaRue pool is Sunday, August 13.

Jasper County Tourism Board meeting.

The Jasper County Tourism Board met on Tuesday morning and managed a bare minimum quorum. After discussion they approved, pending legal review, hiring Yodel for two years to provide a community calendar. This matter had been discussed at the previous meeting. This year's Jasper Jaunt bike ride on September 16 will head south to visit at least three farms. There was a discussion of untapped opportunities that mural week provides. A funding request from Little Cousin Jasper to help build a fence in Potawatomi Park was denied because it is not something that will drive tourism. The next meeting will be on September 12.

Jasper County Airport Authority Commission meeting

I managed to attend the August meeting of the Airport Authority Commission in person. As I entered the building I took a picture of one of the crop dusters. Their season can extend into September.

Inside the lobby of the terminal building was the light that once was atop the beacon. The tower was removed in 2017.

At the meeting I met Isaac, the newly-hired assistant manager. He will finish his course work at Purdue in December and for now is part-time. When the meeting started, the two engineers for the airport gave an update on the master plan that has been submitted to the FAA for approval. The Airport needs to update its forecast and resubmit and perhaps this third resubmittal will be accepted by the FAA.

The Board approved a quote to re-mark the runway. There were 15 participants in the Airport summer camp. There are five students enrolled in three airport classes that will be taught at the airport. There was a discussion of a possible memorandum of understanding with a school called Indiana Ag and Tech. I had never heard of this school. It is a charter school headquartered in Carmel and its northern branch meets at the Jasper County Fairgrounds. 

The Board discussed and approved a budget for 2024. It will now be submitted to Gateway. The total expenditures are unchanged from the current year. As the meeting ended, someone mentioned that Brad Cozza, the airport manager from a few years ago, was now in Oregon and had a baby daughter.

Notes

The City of Rensselaer will have an auction of unneeded equipment on August 18 at 11:00 at the Police Station.

The Rensselaer Republican had a nice article about the Wheatfield murals in last week's paper. (See here.) The mural on the town hall of a snake and mouse offended at least one town official. It is by the same artist who painted the birds that grace the header of this blog.

We got rain, and lots of it over the weekend. The river gauge station at Laird's Landing says we got over five inches. Remarkably, it did not cause flooding. The ground was dry and soaked up the moisture. The river only rose a couple of feet.

The rain did reestablish what I call Weston Pond next to Weston Cemetery.

Highway 114 is closed just to the east of Rensselaer. I thought there might be work on the bridge over the Iroquois, but the reason for the closure is the replacement of the culvert that takes the School House ditch under the highway.

I was surprised on Tuesday to see that the carnival rides that were at the County Fair still had not left. I guess they must not have had other engagements.

Some videos

A mural that moves

On Saturday the motors were turned on for the new mural on the Horton/Yallaly building. Here is a video of it. (View on Youtube here.)

Here is the mural from a different angle.

Off to Canada

Tuesday's post showed the last of the generating engines removed from the power plant. On Wednesday jacks were set up alongside it and it was lifted into the air.

In the late afternoon the truck trailer slid under it. Below is a video showing that.

I believe the initial plan was to move it on Wednesday but by the time the crew was ready, it was too late. The move came Thursday morning. The State Police told them that the earliest they could move it was at 8:30.

I arrived and talked to the lady in the guide car. She said that she had never guided a load so tall. I believe her job was to drive ahead and find where the bucket trucks that were part of the parade had to raise wires.

Below is a video of the truck starting its journey.

About half an hour later it maneuvered around the stop lights on Grace and College.

The truck had a lot of wheels--I counted 62--but that was less than the 74 on this truck.

The truck was headed for Monon where the engine will be loaded onto a train car and shipped to Canada.

Left behind were the jacks and an empty space in the power plant building.

Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission meeting

On Monday afternoon the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission held a meeting. It swore in a new member, Kevin Smith, and elected a secretary, Jeff Webb, who is needed to sign documents. After a long discussion, they approved the payment of $10,700 to a company for assistance in rebidding the brick-street project. They approved a spending plan for 2024, something new that they must do to comply with State regulations. They discussed having a consultant or lawyer research their TIF areas. JCEDO had suggested that the Commission support a facade grant program to encourage downtown business owners to improve the attractiveness of the downtown. At this meeting they gave details of what they wanted. The program would give grants between $5,000 and $25,000 to business owners for exterior improvements. The owner would have to match the grant 50-50 and would only receive the funds when the project was completed. Grants would be given out four times a year and the total for any quarter would be $25,000 or less. The Commission took the matter under advisement.

Finally, the Commission decided that the normal times for future meetings would be the first Monday of the month at 5:00 pm.