Rensselaer Adventures: Little Cousin Jasper and more

Festival and parade

One of the attractions at the Little Cousin Jasper Festival this year was a zip line that was advertised as going across the Iroquois River. It did not. It went down the alley that runs along the river. The line was at the festival only on Friday night and below you can see one of the first people to try it.

A few seconds later she was dangling at the end of the run.

The festival was held at Potawotomi Park this year because the brick streets on Van Rensselaer and Harrison were expected to be torn up. That project has been delayed, but that was not known when planning took place. The food court was in the parking lot across the Iroquois River from the park.

Most of the booths were along the walking paths but a few were in the grass at the west side of the park.

The grand marshalls of the parade were the owners of the local McDonalds franchiese and McDonalds had space along the path. I could not resist taking the picture below.

In the center of the park, behind most of the booths, were inflatables and this strange game(?). Kids were inside the giant balls. I am not sure if there was a goal or it was just to have fun rolling around in a giant ball.

The stage for the music acts was behind Mount Hood Pizza.

The pony rides were back this year and were on Front Street. The area still stunk on Monday afternoon.

The theme of the Festival for this year was Potawotomi Pirates. I guess that is the reason for the alligator in the River.

Some people liked the new venue and others did not.

The parade featured just about every vehicle in Rensselaer that has a loud siren. It also included fire trucks from the Keener Township Fire Department and the Goodland Fire Department.

The new King and Queen rode in a convertable without seat belts.

The only band in the parade was the Rensselaer High School band.

The horses were in the middle of the parade, not at the end.

Of course we had some tractors.

The float with the most people was from the Rensselaer Regional Soccer group. The float was followed by dozens of young soccer kids.

I am not sure why these two cars were in the parade.

A variety of businesses had vehicles in the parade.

I would have enjoyed the parade more if the people on the floats and marching had not been throwing things at the spectators. I kept trying to figure out what they were throwing, but swarms of kids would immediately descend on whatever they threw so I could not see what it was. **

BPW and City Council meetings

The September Rensselaer Board of Public Works meeting approved paying five invoices. Three were for Commonwealth Engineering:, one was the closeout Thieneman pay request, and one was for Grimmer Plumbing. They totaled about $850,000.

The Rensselaer Urban Forestry addressed the City Council with an annual report. The Council was formed in 2008 and Rensselaer has been recognized as a Tree City USA for 15 years. The Council would like the City to update its tree ordinance. It would like the City to plant a new tree for every tree removed, hire an arborist as a consultant, and update zoning to specify trees for landscaping.

The gas tracker for September will reflect a 28¢ decrease per 100 cubic feet of usage.

Bids for the Brick Street Project were opened at a previous meeting. The engineering consultants recommended the low bid of $2,421,420 from Grimmer and the Council approved the award.

The Fire Department was recently notified that it was one of four departments selected for a training tower. The Fire Chief said that he was very surprised by this award because about 100 departments applied. The Department will not receive any money in this award. Rather the State will bid all four towers and pay to have them built. However, the local department must pay for a foundation for the tower and Rensselaer will also have to expand water service to the site. The cost of these two items will be about $200,000 and the Department is reaching out to various organizations and groups for funds. The City Council supports the project but will not commit any money until it sees what the Department can raise from others. The groundbreaking is set for October 26 at 5:00 pm. The tower should be completed by March and the expansion of water supply should be finished by the end of 2024.

Trick and treat hours for this year will be on Saturday, October 28 from 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm.

A Council member said that she had received complaints about a property on North Front Street. The matter was referred to the City's attorney. The annexation of Saint Joseph's College is almost complete. The City needs a response from the County Auditor's office to finish the process. The Gas Department will begin work on the gas regulator next to McDonalds on South College and will be working on replacing it next week.

Special Commissioners meeting

The County Commissioners met in a special meeting on Tuesday morning at the Highway Department''s conference room (shown below before it filled up). The purpose of the meeting was to hammer out the details of a road-use agreement with BP for their seismic testing.

Before the meeting Jeff DeYoung got a call from one of his employees saying he had hit an unmarked gas line. Jeff told him to call 911 and get away from the leak.

The sort of testing that BP is doing has already been done in the County by IBEC, so this is not something completely new for the County. However, the extent of the testing is. PB plans to use 182 miles of County roads. It will have three machines, but only two will be active at a time. The machine with the vibrator will be on the road and the sensors to pick up the echoes will be in the right-of-way. They expect to cover 4.5 to 5 miles per day and will work Monday through Saturday from 8:00 until 5:00. They will start at the south, shoot north into Keener Township, and then work their way south. The Commissioners were surprised at how far north they were planning to go because of the concentration of housing along County roads at the north end of the County. They are not doing Newton County at this time but are doing testing in Benton and White Counties. The entire project is expected to take 83 days, with 43-44 days in Jasper County and the entire process done before any frost laws take effect.

The County is concerned about road damage and safety. The harvest will be underway as they test, which may cause traffic problems. One issue that was settled was bonding, which can be done in several ways and is insurance for the County so that it will not get stuck with paying for road repairs. PB agreed to the sum of $3 million. The County kept referring to what it had done with road agreements for solar farms and what White County had done with its road agreements with wind farms. The Surveyor was concerned about the testing damaging culverts and BP said that they would not test within 200 feet of culverts.

There were officials from Rensselaer attending and they voiced concerns about what might be done in the buffer zone. The City of Rensselaer gas utility has several miles of gas lines that run in County road right-of-way and BP said that they would not test along those sections of roads. The County wanted permitting fees of $50 per mile and $10 per intersection in addition to $7500 for professional fees that pay for work the Highway and Surveyor's office do in preparing maps and lists of sensitive areas.

I left before the meeting concluded because I wanted to get to the Tourism Commission meeting that was starting at 10:00. The Commissioners did give PB permission to begin once the bond was in place and the final wording of the road agreement will be worked out by the parties' attorneys and approved at the October Commissioners meeting. The options available to the County may be limited becauses the State legislature has passed legislation about carbon sequestering.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Tourism Commission did not have a quorum so no votes could be taken. The revenue from the innkeeper's tax is about $33,000 higher at the end of August 2023 than it was at the end of August 2022.

The Shop and Stroll program, which supports local businesses, was popular last year and the merchants would like to do it again this year. The dates for this year are November 9-11. Because the meeting lacked a quorum, it could not act on the request of $1000 for support. Businesses pay $300 to participate.

Contracting with Yodel for an event calendar was approved at the last meeting and the contract has been finalized and just needs to be signed.

The Jasper Jaunt bike ride is being canceled for this year. Only two people had signed up.

A December event with carriage rides was popular last year and the organizers, which includes Jasper County Tourism, would like to do it again this year, possibly adding some tractor rides.

A member of the public had questions about how they were spending money. The Tourism Commission expects that they will get a funding request to help finance a dome in DeMotte that will allow indoor sports in the winter. It is being built by the Connection Center.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Jasper County Airport Authority Board met on Tuesday evening and dealt with routine matters. There is a drain tile on the Airport property that is damaged and needs to be repaired. The Board approved the repair. The Board also approved hiring Town and Country to prepare the runway for repainting by removing loose paint. The farm fields that the Airport owns have not been tested for fertility for several years and the Board approved having them tested.

The lease with Excel Air is expiring at the end of the month and the Board approved a new five-year lease. There was discussion of future plans but no actions taken. The aviation classes that the airport is offering in conjunction with the high school are going well.

New businesses

The previous post mentioned that Earth Magic had opened on September 5. It offers coffee, tea, and some food. On Wednesday they had their ribbon cutting.

Another business opened last week, a coffee shop called Cup of Joy. This is their second location, with the first store in DeMotte. It replaces Willow Switch.