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.