Have a wonderful Thanksgiving

The entire staff of Rensselaer Adventures hopes you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

More Christmas decorations

See here for the first batch.

Samantha Joslyn's Law Office.

One of the empty spaces across from the Court House.

Earth Magic Body Potions.

Balvich Dental building.

The Rensselaer Republican office.

Sorrel and Rye Mercantile.

Gutwein-Risner Insurance.

The Police Department.

The newer State Farm Insurance office.

There are still more windows being decorated.

 The Court House has some lights in its trees.

Notes

A Mexican bakery, La Trinidad Bakery, is planning to open in the Ayda's Restaurant building. It will be a separate business.

A few days ago someone posted a link to a long (almost 2 hours) video that the Jasper County Historical Society produced in the 1990s. The video contains a collection of older videos and pictures. It is a digitization of what was a VCR tape and the quality is often quite poor. Included are a short film produced in 1940 that includes scenes from several Rensselaer businesses, video of the fire that destroyed the Wright's furniture store in 1948, and President Eisenhower's visit to Rensselaer in 1962 for Charlie Halleck Day.

I remember seeing a different video of Rensselaer many years ago. I think it might have been done in the 1930s and it featured many of the businesses operating at the time. Does anyone know if that film still exists?

Congratulations to the RCHS girl's basketball team that won the IU Health Hoops Classic title. The field included the big schools from Lafayette and West Lafayette. The Republican story here.

The Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeals met for about five minutes Monday evening and approved a variance for road frontage. The owners of the property want to put in a 50-foot driveway to provide access to the back of the property where a new home will be built. 

Joint Council Commissioners meeting

The County Council and Commissioners met in a joint session on Monday evening at 6:00. There was a full house, with many of the people there because they were interested in the abatement vote in the Council meeting that was to follow. The joint session began with the announcement that Brett Risner had resigned from the Council, with no reason given. His replacement will be appointed by the County Republican caucus.

First on the agenda was a presentation by Kenny Haun, fire chief of the Rensselaer Fire Department. He gave an update on the planned fire tower for the training center. It has been upgraded to a five-story tower and plans are still evolving. In his update on financing, he said that several governmental units have told him to wait until 2024 when they will be in a new budget year. His goal is to raise $250,000 and he is tentatively scheduling training classes to start in May. The new tower will allow live fire training. He would like to receive $75,000 from the County.

Karen Wilson said her office wanted to donate $5,000 to the fire tower and that money was appropriated in the Council meeting that followed. The Sheriff said he was looking for a new correctional officer to replace one that was let go. He was told to get started and approval will be given at the December Commissioners meeting. Rein Bontreger, who was attending via Zoom, said that a committee to write on a new solar ordinance would begin working in January. It will probably also include regulations for battery storage facilities. 

In public comments one person had suggestions for safety regulations for any carbon sequestration project. Another person had a rant on tax abatement that suggested he did not understand how abatements worked. The most interesting comment was by a woman who said that the rail line used to carry coal to the NIPSCO plant was having ties replaced. She asked why there was work on this line if NIPSCO was going to cease using coal in a couple of years and no one had an answer. The meeting lasted until 7:00 and there was a ten-minute break before the County Council meeting started.

County Council meeting

The County Council began with a public hearing on a proposed tax abatement for Solarpack, the company planning a 60 megawatt solar park in Walker township. The hearing began with a lengthy explanation of the proposed tax-abatement agreement. The company was requesting a ten-year 100% abatement, not the usual abatement that declines over time. In return it would give the County four economic development payments in four years totaling $2,267,000, which captures 71% of the abated value. The attraction of these payments to the Council is that these payments give the Council and County more flexibility in using the fund than they have with funds that come through normal tax collection. The increase in the value of land cannot be abated and the land will rise in value according to State rules from its current value of about $2000 per acre to about $13,000. The abatement agreement sets that value higher than the State value, at about $16,000 and the company would make a payment that captures that higher value. If the State value continues at $13,000, the County would gain revenues but if the State value rises in future years above $16,000, the County would lose because it would then have to make a refund to the company. The abatement agreement would also provide a floor value for the project past the ten years of the abatement of about $27 million.

There were a number of public comments, most of which said that they did not want another solar farm. One threatened those who supported the abatement with election defeat. After about two hours of discussion, the matter was put to a vote, the results of which were predictable given the vote at the last meeting for the preliminary resolution, which resulted in a tie, with the tie broken by the president of the Council. Without Brett Risner, who had voted for the preliminary resolution, the vote was three against and two in favor. So the abatement was not granted.

I will be surprised if the denial of the abatement causes the project to be abandoned. The company had made a lot of concessions which greatly reduced the value of the abatement. However, the denial may affect future development if the message received is that the County is not a friendly place to invest.

The Council passed its 2024 calendar and I could not hear some of what was discussed because of the noise from the audience. The Council then passed several additional appropriations and approved a long series of transfers. The Sheriff and the Surveyor each had changes that they wanted in the salary ordinance that will be approved in the December meeting. The meeting finally ended a bit before 10:00.

A lot of pictures (and no meetings)

Some business news

The former autodealership on North McKinley will soon be a kitchen and bath showroom for the Deerwood Group. The former occupant was P&P Hobbies and Collectables.

The recently opened office of First Hometown Mortgages had a ribbon cutting on Wednesday.

I heard at the City Council meeting that the Steffens building had sold but so far have not found the new owner on the County's GIS site. However, it appears that remodeling of the inside has begun. In the same block the former Gutwein-Risner building is again for rent. The tenant who signed up intending to establish a smoke shop never did open a business.

While I was attending the Tourism Commission meeting on Tuesday, a paving machine was delivered to the Sparling Annex. When I checked back on Thursday, a layer of asphalt had been applied. No cars were using it yet so it may need another layer.

Christmas decorations

The City has installed the street decorations downtown and along the business streets.

The Chamber of Commerce is again this year sponsoring window painting on the downtown businesses. Here is one of the artists in action.

Below are three windows of the Beaver law office.

The Chamber's windows in the Ritz Theater building.

A couple of City Hall windows, which were reflecting the Court House,

The Ritz Theater

Unique Finds.

The former Gutwein-Risner building.

Cup of Joy

Fenwick's

First Merchants Bank

Ayda's

DeMotte Carpet

We have had some very mild days. I hope the farmers were able to finish their harvest because now we are going to get temperatures that fit the pictures on the downtown windows. 

Yodel is coming

Veterans Day

On Saturday the City held the annual Veterans Day ceremony at Weston Cemetery. The crowd was quite small, but I saw no mention of the event on social media. Perhaps Yodel for Rensselaer should have been started a couple months earlier.  

Rensselaer Plan Commission

The Rensselaer Plan Commission met on Thursday evening. They approved the vacating of the east end of Cherry Street that is between Lirio and Genova. This part of the street has never been developed and Genova, which owns land on both sides according to the GIS map wants to use this area for storage of materials. The approval by the Plan Commission is only a recommendation. The City Council has final say. 

At the the previous meeting the Commission had considered and then tabled a request to change the zoning of a couple lots along Melville from I1 to R1. The Commission was reluctant to rezone only part of a block and wanted to know what the other property owners wanted. The person who owns most of the lots did not want it rezoned because he is using a couple lots for business purposes. After discussing several options, including rezoning half the block, the matter was again tabled so that options could be discussed with the other property owners. 

The Commission briefly discussed but took no action on the ordinance amendment that the Council tabled at its last meeting, with Council members saying it was too vague and open to misuse: "Where twenty five percent (25%) or more of the lots in a block frontage are occupied by existing buildings, all exterior architectural styles and materials shall be the same type or an alternative that simulates a complementary material and style."

There was a discussion of buffer zone expansion. The buffer zone can be up to two miles from City limits and with the annexation of St Joseph's College, there is now more land that can be in the buffer zone. There was also discussion of some overlay districts, such as the airport, which can have stricter requirements. For example, the FAA must approve some things within 4000 feet of runways.

There was mention that SJC will be requesting a change in zoning at the next meeting, to be held Dec 7 at 5:00. They will want a parcel changed from RS to R1 zoning. I searched for what RS zoning is and found the Rensselaer zoning ordinance here. The ordinance is 198 pages long. RS is residential suburban and R1 is residential. The RS zoning requires an acre of land per house while the R1 zoning only requires a lot size of 7500 square feet. As I understood the discussion, and I could not see the TV screen that the Commission members were viewing, the area to be rezoned will be west of Sparling Avenue south of the Health Department. It will be used for building trades construction, and I think that the students will be from area high schools. I look forward to learning more about what SJC is planning.

The last bit of business was an unadvertised request to separate a house from a 3.5 acre lot in the City's buffer zone. The owner wants to keep the grain storage bins but does not want to be a landlord. The attorney wondered why this could not be approved contingent on have the survey completed, but was told that the survey had to be done first. Since it had not been advertised, no action could be taken.

Rensselaer Board of Public Works meeting

The Monday Board of Public Works meeting had only two members present. Rich Odle has resigned. He has sold his house and moved, so probably is no longer eligible to serve.

The Board approved the vacating of the eastern and undeveloped part of Cherry Street. That approval is only a recommendation to the City Council, which will have the item on its agenda for the second meeting of November. The Board also approved a promotion of a police officer from master patrolman to corporal. 

Next it approved paying a series of bills. It approved partial pay request #18 for $300,000 from Theineman for work on the phosphorus removal station at the waste water treatment plant and two invoices from Commonwealth Engineering for other work on this station, one for $846.43 and the other for $23.05. For the Water project they approved several SRF disbursement requests, $6,193 to Commonwealth for engineering, $389,500 to McGuire Iron for work on the water tower, and $760,176 to Grimmer Construction for replacing lead service lines. As of Monday 102 have been finished and there are funds for only one more replacement but eight others have the easements finished and the City will try to find funds to complete these. Applications from three people to join the Fire Department were approved. The meeting lasted a bit over 15 minutes.

City Council meeting

Monday's City Council meeting began with the Council sending a zoning ordinance back to the Plan Commission without the paragraph mentioned above in the summary of the Plan Commission meeting. The gas tracker for November reflects a 46¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet of use. A person from Baker-Tilly gave the Council members a report on the four utilities and said it was up to the Council to decide if they wanted similar reports in the future or if they wanted other things to be reported. He noted that the sewer may need more revenue to finance upcoming projects that are State mandated.

The Council heard a request to close the rest of the alley behind Fenwicks but Council members wanted to make sure that none of the businesses would be harmed. The Council approved spending $18,900 to exchange a tractor that the Street Department considers a lemon with a new tractor. The Council also approved purchase of 10 mobile log-ins for maps showing the City utility infrastructure that was recently inventoried and mapped. This will give field access to the information and a couple of utilities said it could be very useful. The initial cost will be $6700 with an annual fee of $2400.

Rick Odle's move from the City creates a vacancy on the Rensselaer Central School Board. The City is seeking applicants to fill the remaining six months of his term and the submission deadline is December 4. The Council changed the date of its December 25th meting to the 26th. It approved public relations request of $200 to buy candy and supplies for the Christmas parade (Dec 4). The Fire Department was given approval to purchase pipes for a water main needed for its proposed fire tower training facility. It received two bids and the low bid was $34,233.25.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Tourism Commission meeting on Monday began with the approval of the August minutes. (The September meeting did not have a quorum and the October meeting was canceled.) Two big items keeping the Tourism office busy are upcoming meetings with a group from Ball State that will be developing a strategic plan and the roll out of the Yodel calendar for Rensselaer. People from Yodel are reaching out to organizations to invite them to some zoom sessions and if you are contacted, it is in your interest to get your organization on Yodel, which will be rolling out in December. It is a community calendar and also a resource guide to organizations. You can see what it will be like by looking at the Yodel page for Crawfordsville. Click the events link to get items organized on a calendar and the org tag to see the organizations with their specific events.

The Commission members will meet with the group from Ball State this week to give them information to help them get started on the strategic plan. The next tourism meeting on December 12 to be held at eMbers will invite various stakeholders to give their input into the process. 

Most of the meeting was devoted to a presentation and then a discussion of a plan by Greg Whaley to bring a miniature train that was manufactured in Rensselaer to a Rensselaer park. (See here for his presentation at a Park Board meeting.) Mr Whaley needs to have funding available so that when one of these trains becomes available, he can move quickly. However, government funding is designed to be slow, with bills paid with a delay. The Commission members present liked the idea, but did not think the plan was detailed enough for them to act. Plus it was not clear to them how they could make the funding available in a way that he could make a quick decision. The Tourism director will work with Mr Whaley and someone from the Park Corporation to flesh out the plan and a budget and hopefully someone from the Park Corporation will be at the next meeting to help explain the role of the Parks. 

Airport Authority meeting

The Airport Authority meeting began with one of its engineers reporting how the FAA had dealt with the forecast that the Airport had prepared, a step in developing a master plan. The FAA accepted the forecast but did not accept the traffic count that the airport provided. There was discussion of how the airport could document its traffic count. The Commission voted to proceed with development of the master plan. This is all part of a very long and slow process that has to meet FAA approval because the FAA funds most of the development of airports.

After discussing a variety of airport operations, the members approved a spending limit to replace a 2012 computer, discussed a possible replacement for a member who is leaving the Commission at the end of the year, and approved a motion to begin design work on a new hangar and its bid process.

Notes

On my way to the City Council meeting, I noticed that Jupiter is bright in the eastern sky. I have noticed that Venus is very bright in east before sunrise.

The St A's Bazaar attracted a large crowd despite competing with the Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting.

The park shelter in Filson Park looks like it has been completed. The picture below was taken last week before the final pieces of siding were installed.

We are well past peak color, with many trees bare, but there are still some trees that are in their fall prime. The picture below was taken last week near the library. They are not quite as bright this week.

I noticed another business has moved into the old REMC building, Willowtree Therapeutic Services. First Hometown Mortgage will have a ribbon cutting on Wednesday.

Is Black Friday still a thing? I keep seeing adds for Black Friday sales before Thanksgiving. I remember when Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, was a special day of sales, but I think the efforts by retailers to get a jump on the day have diluted the actual Black Friday.

Early November 2023

 Commissioners meeting

The November Commissioners meeting had an agenda of routine matters and was fairly short for a Commissioners meeting. As I arrived, I noticed that work had begun on expanding the parking lot of what I call the Sparling Annex and work on spreading stone and compacting it continued for most of the meeting.

There were buried cable permits approved for some simple bores, for work on a United Telephone project near Fair Oaks, and three bores for manure lines. The Commissioners decided to wait another month before accepting a bid for fixing the roof on the Prosecutor's annex. The 2024 meeting schedule was approved, with all but two of the monthly meetings to be held on the first Monday at 8:15. The exceptions are for January and September, when the first Monday is a holiday so the meeting will be the first Tuesday at 8:30. There is also a second meeting in December on the 23rd. Joint sessions with the Council are scheduled for July 16 and November 19.

The commissioners approved $200 for the Veteran's Office to host a quarterly training session for veteran service officers. They approved a final agreement with the DNR to close a section of 400E at the shooting range at Jasper-Pulaski. A signed agreement is required by statute. The Sheriff was granted permission to fill two vacant positions, a full-time 911 dispatcher and a part-time controller. The Commissioners again approved a carpet cleaning request from the Extension Office; it had approved this request some time ago but nothing was done. 

There was a short discussion of W-2 forms. 126 County employees have not logged onto the doc delivery system the County has begun using that will allow the employees to download their W-2. The HR department will send reminders but in the end some W-2s will have to be printed. The Commissioners approved spending $21,611.06 to replace the fire-alarm system in the Sparling Annex. The old system is 26 years old, no longer works, and parts are no longer available to fix it. The extension office reports that some of its windows are leaking air and the blinds need to be repaired. They will be inspected to see what the best course of action is.

Animal Control was given permission to fill a vacancy. In the public comments a citizen read a statement urging the Commissioners to revisit the solar ordinance and to put a moratorium on new solar projects until the revision is finished. The meeting was continued until November 20 at 8:30 if needed.

Drainage Board meeting

After a short break, the Drainage Board, which is composed of the three Commissioners, met. They approved a proposal from NIPSC to install gas and electric to a new subdivision in the DeMotte buffer zone. The subdivision is an extension of an existing subdivision and will have 92 lots. Mr DeYoung abstained because he and his brother own the subdivision.

White Castle's drainage plan for its planned expansion was approved. At the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission meeting in the evening there was mention that the old Soebe building would be demolished and that a new building would be built next to the existing factory, doubling its size.

The Walker Township solar farm submitted a preliminary drainage plan. This is a 60 megawatt project. The Board received the plan and gave them permission to move forward but no vote was taken. The Board will wait for the final plan before voting on approval.

Genova wants to add a 33,000 square foot parking lot for material storage. It will also be seeking to have an undeveloped section of Cherry Street vacated at the next Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting (Nov 9 at 5:30). The Board approved their drainage plans. 

White County wants to clean a ditch that extends into Jasper County. The Board agreed to waive its rights, which is customary in cases like this. Jasper County will collect the ditch assessments and turn them over to White County.

The Board accepted maintenance certifications for the R. E. Davis and Sands ditches so maintenance collections can begin.

At 10:30 bids were opened on three projects, the R. E. Davis main ditch, the Davis laterals, and the Sands ditch. On the first two only Gutwein Evacuation bid and its bids were well under the Surveyor's estimate. The Gutwein bid on the Sands ditch was $21,500 and the other bid was $230,000.

In public comments a citizen suggested that the best way to deal with the problem of private and mutual drains in a solar development would be to have the development install a perimeter drain. Otherwise there is the risk of tiles being broken and not discovered until the project is completed and then repair is difficult and expensive.

Rensselaer Redevelopment meeting

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission held a short meeting late on Thursday afternoon.They briefly discussed the former R&M property. Titan is working on estimates for demolition and a party that previously had expressed interest in purchasing the building is again showing interest. The Park Department would like a new headquarters building and the Redevelopment Commission may be able to help. It is planned for the old tennis courts and will be a multipurpose building.  At the next City Council meeting a committee may be formed to plan for the building.

The City is working with the County to get City water and sewer west of I-65. The next meeting will be December 4.

Chamber of Commerce lunch

The November Chamber of Commerce lunch was at the hospital and featured Carlos Vasquez as the speaker. It was lightly attended.

Mr Vasquez said that planning for improvements began in 2020. Initially the plan was to modernize the interior with no new additions. Covid delayed everything, and in 2022 the plan had changed to adding to the building behind the emergency room, though this would eliminate the helipad. This updated plan was put out for bid and the bids came back $5 million over the $28 million approved for the project. The reason the bids were high is because construction costs have increased, in part because there has been a lot of health-care construction in Indiana. It is back to the drawing boards. The people involved are considering what might be done with the second floor, which is currently not being used. The problem with rehabilitating it is that the current regulations for hospitals are far more restrictive than they were when the hospital was built in 1963, so exemption may be needed.

He briefly mentioned Medicare Advantage plans, which hospitals hate. The plans make their money by restricting care. Regulations have made it unfeasible for Rensselaer Franciscan and most other rural hospitals to have maternity and delivery services. Mental health services are an increasing need. There are shortages of every type of health-care worker. No one wants to share a hospital room anymore; everyone wants a private room. Finally he passed around an award that the hospital and Appleseed received from the State. The State would like to see other rural hospitals find nontraditional ways to serve their communities as Franciscan-Rensselaer did by partnering with Appleseed.

Notes

We not only got our first freeze as October ended, but we got our first snow. It did not last very long; by afternoon it was mostly gone.

There were three contested races in the Rensselaer municipal elections on Tuesday and a Republican won one, a Democrat won one, and an independent won one. Jeff Phillips easily defeated incumbent Mayor Stephen Wood, Jeff Rayburn narrowly beat Zyan Miller who had defeated George Cover in the primary, and Ernest Watson retained his seat by narrowly beating Richard Comingore. All other races were uncontested and the incumbent was reelected. Less than one third of registered voters cast ballots. Complete results are here.

On the way to take a picture of the Soesbe building, I noticed a new building on Maple Street east of the ambulance building. The lot is owned by the Carnegie Players so I assume this is the storage building that they were hoping to build.

This coming weekend is a big shopping weekend, with Mistletoe Magic at the Fairgrounds, Shop and Stroll in Rensselaer, and the annual craft show at the Carnegie Center.

There are five baseball tournaments scheduled for the Blacker Fields in 2024, three in May and two in June.

The annual St. Augustine Bazaar takes place Thursday.

We have been getting a spam (or scam) call repeatedly. The caller asserts that we owe extra on something that we supposedly purchased (A Keto diet) and I think they want a credit card number. At least it provides a break from all the calls trying to pitch Medicare Advantage plans.