A parade and a lot more to start September

 Homecoming parade

The Rensselaer High School Homecoming Parade started at 7:00 on Wednesday night. The grand marshall was John Ahler, with the Rensselaer High School band close behind.

The FFA had a float.

Each of the classes had a float and they all threw candy to the kids, who were not really that interested in the parade itself.

This group also threw bags of popcorn.

The girls volleyball team had a float and threw a lot of candy.

The football players rode on fire trucks.

There will be another parade and more candy littering the street on Saturday at noon with the Little Cousin Jasper parade.

New stores

Earth Magic Body Potions opened on Tuesday and had a good crowd when I stopped in. They are in the tiny building that was the 231 coffee shop.

In addition to a variety of products that I do not understand, they serve coffee, tea, and some food. A self-professed coffee snob told me that the coffee was excellent. (I do not drink coffee so can not offer an opinion.)

In addition to coffee and tea, they offer a cooler full of sandwiches and other grab-and-go items and also a small salad bar.

Earth Magic will have a ribbon cutting on September 13 at 1:30.

The other new business that is opening this week is Cup of Joy in the space formerly occupied by Willow Switch. This is their second location; the first is in DeMotte.

Commissioners meeting

The Monday Commissioners meeting started at 8:30 instead of 8:15 because there was a public hearing for the Drainage Board at 8:15. The hearing was for the abandonment of more of a tile that had been partially abandoned a few years ago. There were no public comments and the abandonment was approved.

The agenda of the Commissioners meeting had nothing of great public interest. The Commissioners approved a couple of buried cable requests, one a simple bore under a road to connect to water and the other for fiber optic cable. They approved a request from the Recorder to move from local servers to a cloud site to help avoid a cyber attack. Two thirds of Indiana counties have already made this kind of move. The voting center for the Rensselaer municipal election will be at the Fairgrounds. No mention was made of the Fire Station. Main Street Rensselaer asked permission to use a bit of the Courthouse lawn for OktoberFest and it was granted. The Sheriff's Department needs to upgrade the 911 equipment and the lowest quote they found was $335,000 and the Commissioners approved the contract pending legal review. The Commissioners also approved replacing a deputy and a corrections officer. Bids were approved for flooring and painting in Community Corrections and waterproofing the Courthouse basement.

The Highway Department contracted out some of the snow removal in subdivisions last winter and wants to continue that contracting this year and the Commissioners approved the request. They approved hiring early for a person retiring so the new person will be able to train with the soon-to-be retiree. Someone had floated the idea to one of the Commissioners of finding a barn and moving it to the Fairgrounds as an event center. The Commissioners were favorable to exploring the ideal. The Wheatfield Fire Department wants to build a new fire station near the high school and is considering including a splash pad. Project Ribeye has not seen eye-to-eye with DeMotte and is considering locating in Porter County.

The people from BP were at the meeting to discuss their plans for seismic testing in Jasper County. They have been doing testing in Benton County and seem to have run into some kind of issue. They would like to continue on into Jasper County, but the road-use agreement needs to be approved or revised. After a bid of discussion, the Commissioners decided to have a special meeting on Tuesday at 8:30 am at the Highway Department. (The conference room in the Sparling Annex had been reserved for some other meeting at that time.) BP will host another open house in Jasper County, this one at the Connection Center in DeMotte at 4:30 on September 21.

Drainage Board meeting

The Drainage Board met after the Commissioners meeting. It approved a drainage plan for a company whose name I did not catch that is removing an old building and replacing it with a new building. 

The Dunn's Bridge Solar II project is giving daily updates to the Surveyor's office.

The issue that most concerned the Surveyor was a very old 260' corrugated pipe that connects two sections of a ditch. It is near CR 430E and CR 300N and small sinkholes are starting to develop over it. To replace the pipe would require about $50,000 in materials, and it would be cheaper to convert it to a ditch, but that would require encroachment on private property. It is not clear which agency should handle this, Surveyor or Highway Department. No action was taken.

Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met Monday in the late afternoon. I stayed for about an hour and then left to attend the Park Board meeting. The main issue discussed while I was there was a request from the City for financing help for sewage work. The City must construct a building for phosphorus removal from sewage and also other improvements to the sewage plant. These are mandated by the State. It has found some several hundred thousand dollars to do this, but the cost is estimated at $1,669,700. It requested the Redevelopment Commission contribute $468,200 to the project and also lend $675,000 for up to five years. Apparently the financial markets are very unfavorable for borrowing at this time. There was a long discussion about the loan, with concerns that there might be other needs for funding in the next few years. Eventually the Commission passed both.

The next item on the agenda was the funding request from JCEDO for a façade grant program. This was discussed at the previous Commission meeting. I left as this discussion was beginning but I heard that the proposal was approved.

The Commission is still interested in buying and removing the R&M building. A grant proposal prepared by KIRPC to do an environmental study did not get approval and the Commission wondered if it should pay for a study without a grant. There was also mention that at the next meeting the Rensselaer Parks would be asking for money to help fund the summer programming done in the Parks.

Park Board meeting

The main item discussed at the Park Board was how to structure the provision of summer programming so it can continue to expand. 

There is a new swing set at Foundation Park. On Wednesday night before the parade there was a large pile of mulch ready for the swing set.

On Thursday the installation was finished. Two of the six swings are for handicapped people.

Over the weekend the Park Department had strung lights on the bowstring arch bridge to prepare for Little Cousin Jasper. That night someone unwrapped the lights and stole them. Vandalism remains a problem in the parks.

There will be a ribbon cutting for the Blacker Fields on Friday, September 15 at 4:00.

Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Advisory Plan Commission met Thursday evening. It held a public hearing about and then passed three zoning amendments that will now go to the City Council for final approval. Instead of having City rules for swimming pool requirements, the new ordinance will simply adopt the State requirements. Currently there is no provision for residences in business districts. The new ordinance allows them in upstairs apartments and in the back of buildings provided they have separate entrances. 

The main discussion was about a request for a rezone from light industrial to residential for a couple of lots along Melville Street. They are in a block between Oak and Maple Streets that is zoned I1 but is entirely residential, mostly rental housing. The owner of the two lots, which are narrow lots split with a line running east-west, would like to combine them and split them with a line running north-south and then add a second house. (There is only one house now.) After a lot of discussion, the members decided it would make more sense to rezone the entire block as residential and the Planning Office will try to get a proposal to do that ready for the next meeting.

At a previous meeting the Commission had appointed Josh Davis to represent them on the County Plan Commission. The County thought that the representative should be a voting member of the Commission, not the City Planning Officer, so the Commission appointed Mike Davis.

Rensselaer BZA meeting

The BZA meeting on Thursday had two requested variances on the agenda. The first was for a carport in a driveway, which was not allowed because it is an accessory structure in the front yard. There had been no complaints and the structure is an attractive structure that had been in place for over four years. The variance was approved.

The second was for an illuminated sign that the Brookside Church (formerly the Bridge Church) wants to erect as a replacement to their current sign. After discussion, the variance was granted with the condition that it be turned off at dusk from April 1 to September 30 and two hours after dusk from October 1 to March 31.

Notes

The exterior of the new EMS building looks finished. The building should be ready for occupancy before the end of the year.

A grave knocked over? No. This is the start of a reconstruction of the marker for George Spitler, which was in danger of falling over. Spitler was featured on the first Weston Cemetery Walk. 

In 1834 George and his father traveled to Indiana looking for land. In 1835 he returned to a site south of Brook where he erected a cabin. A few years later that cabin hosted the first court in the County. In 1841 George moved his family to a site just south of Rensselaer. He was the first school teacher in Rensselaer and served several terms as county clerk. George was killed by lightning in 1863. In 1867 the family sold his farm of 933 acres to the Diocese of Fort Wayne to be used as an orphanage. That land later became the campus of Saint Joseph's College.

This year's Cemetery walk will take place on Saturday September 16, with the shelter program at 11:00 and the walking program at 2:00. Tickets are available at Browns Garden and Sblended.

A person featured this year is perhaps the most famous person in the cemetery who people in Rensselaer have never heard of, Frank Clair. Ever hear of him? He has a wikipedia entry and is in a hall of fame. 

Another person featured is Ruth Bott Beam. She married the son of William Beam, who came up 17 votes short of becoming the mayor of Rensselaer in 1909. Beam has a street name for him. Do you know where it is? Ruth was the daughter of William Leroy Bott (1866-1948) who was orphaned as a child, but became a leading merchant in Star City before moving to Rensselaer in 1914 when he purchased most of the shares in the Rensselaer telephone company. On his death in 1948 he not only was the majority owner in the Rensselaer telephone company, but also that of Wheatfield and Remington. He helped found the Farmers and Merchants Bank and Camp Kanne.

If you want to learn more, come to the Walk on the 16th.

The mural on the back of Markit Arts seems to be finished.

A former Rensselaer resident, Gretchen (Schenk) Baker, has been on the news in the past few days, providing commentary for a cave rescue in Turkey. Here is one example (she appears at the 1:00 mark.) You can find more by searching for Gretchen Baker cave rescue Turkey. She has given a dozen interviews to the media providing background information.

Gretchen developed an interest in caving while working at Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota when she was in college. She now works at Great Basin National Park in Nevada. She is interviewed because she is the National Coordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission, a group that provides training for cave rescues.

Sometime around September 1 blogger says this blog passed the 2 million mark in page views. I am not sure what gets counted in that but some of it probably is machines, not people. I had an unexplained spike in traffic in August that did not get reflected in views of individual posts.

The school corporation is advertising for bids to build a1550 sq ft restroom and concession stand northeast of the middle school. See the legal notices in the 8-24-23 issue of the Rensselaer Republican.

The tree in Weston Cemetery that guards the bridge over the Iroquois is showing signs of color and is dropping some leaves. Fall is fast approaching.

Have a good time at the Little Cousin Jasper Festival.