A slow week

 Weather rollercoaster

This week the bitter cold ended and rain began. On Tuesday area schools were canceled because of concerns about the weather. The temperature rose above freezing but apparently many County roads were still icy and the forecast for the afternoon was heavy fog. I drove to Lafayette in the late morning and there was light rain the whole way. At the 205 entrance to I-65 and for several miles further south there were many large potholes. Coming home a few hours later I saw a crew filling them and they backed up traffic for at least a mile.

We have had light rain and fog for most of the week and most of the snow is gone. The Iroquois River has risen and may reach flood stage.

A government agency tracks the ice cover on the Great Lakes. At the beginning of January it was almost zero but then with the cold it rapidly rose to 16% on January 22 and has since dropped with the warmer weather. 

Water tank

On Thursday the water tank was being put together. Here are some pictures from a video that the City of Rensselaer has on its Facebook page.

A few years ago I might have gone out to see the work but as I get older I am less and less adventurous. 

Something from the distant past

Wolves were once common in Jasper County and the County paid a bounty on them. Here is an article from the Evening Republican of February 12, 1914 page 4.

On the same page was this little bit that made me smile.

Both of these were found using the Hoosier State Chronicles.

It has been an uneventful week and I expect next week to be the same.

Bad weather continues but a warmup is on the way

 Rensselaer Plan Commission and BZA

The Rensselaer Plan Commission met Thursday evening (1-18-2024) with a short agenda. It approved minutes, elected officers (Stan Haines remains president, Kevin Armold VP who replaces Cliff Wood, and Jessica Call will be Secretary), and decided that the normal meeting day will be the third Thursday of the month. Before they adjourned they approved a property split of five acres from a larger lot. The property is in the City's buffer zone and the County had told the petitioners that they needed City Plan Commission approval. The petitioners plan to build a house.

The Rensselaer BZA meeting had an even shorter agenda. They kept the officers from 2023 (Stan Haines Chair, Sean Cawby Vice Chair, and Rob Dobson Secretary) and agreed with the Plan Commission to have their normal meeting day the third Thursday of the month.

Notes

We had a week in which the temperatures never got above freezing. We got several bouts of snow, fortunately light. There were many closings and delays. The local schools were closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day, closed Tuesday for weather, delayed on Wednesday for two hours, open on Thursday, and closed again on Friday. On Monday they opened but closed early because of icy roads. The meetings of the Rensselaer City Council and the Jasper County BZA and Plan Commission scheduled for Monday evening were canceled because of weather.

The Iroquois River still has open water where there is swift current. The picture was taken Saturday.

The snow lets one see what animals are visiting your yard. I found the expected squirrel and rabbit tracks but was surprised to see that a deer had visited my yard.

The forecast for the next ten days is that we will have warmer temperatures so the snow may be gone soon.

The erection of the water tower near I-65 that was scheduled for the 18th has been rescheduled for the 24th and that may not hold. It will not be until this summer that the tower will be filled.

The City put out a notice that electric meters would soon be switched out, but then updated to say more preparation needs to be done before installation begins.

The renovation of the David Nowles house on North McKinley (the McKinley Manor) has gotten some national publicity.

Real winter arrived

 The title of the previous post was "Real winter is Coming." It arrived late Saturday night when temperatures dipped below zero. They stayed below zero all of Sunday and briefly rose above zero on Monday. Tuesday was also bitterly cold. Most schools closed on Monday and Tuesday. The cold air affected much of the middle of the US, extending down into Texas.

Below is a picture from Sunday. The snow on Friday was mixed with rain and when the snow plows cleared the streets, there were big blocks left along the sides of the roads. Then the lighter snow and heavy winds that followed created a drift around some of these blocks.

Part of the River froze, as this picture taken from the Talbert Bridge shows. However, you can see in the distance that some of the River is unfrozen. The rains from last week increased the flow in the River and the current is too strong for it to completely freeze despite the bitter cold.

I heard a some reports of frozen pipes and saw a car in the College Mall parking lot getting an assist with jumper cables. I wonder how many people had some significant inconveniences caused by this arctic cold.

County Council meeting

Tuesday night was cold and the roads were still sketchy, so I decided to attend the County Council meeting via Zoom. The audio was good, but the video was blurry.

The meeting began with reorganization. The Council retained its officers from 2023, Steve Jordan as Chair and Gary Fritts as Vice Chair. The agenda had two pages of additional appropriations, most because of discrepancies between the budget and the salary ordinance. A few were things that had been discussed in the past but no action had been taken. The longest discussion was about Animal Control. Several Council members wanted to see data to justify the amount spent on the Department. Animal Control said that all the area rescues are full so that they cannot transfer animals as they could in the past. All of the various additional appropriations were passed.

Rensselaer Fire Chief Kenny Haun gave the Council members a packet about the fire tower that will be constructed behind the FireHouse. His goal was to raise $250,000 for site preparation and if the County gives him the $75,000 he has requested, he will have raised a bit more than $300,000. Some of the additional funds will be used to purchase storage containers, two to hold bales of hay used for live burn training and one for everything else. The City has paid for everything done so far. The anticipated completion is late March or early April and the first class has been scheduled for April 6. There was a discussion of the problems of staffing, and Haun said that calls keep increasing but getting volunteers remains very difficult. Because the additional appropriation had not been advertised, the Council could not give him the $75,000 he wanted but it did vote to advertise the item for the next meeting.

The Council approved an amendment to the salary ordinance and then made appointments to various boards. The retained members and the only question they had was whether the Chair of the Council could serve on the Plan Commission. They approved a contract for their attorney and had a brief discussion about pay for public defenders. The meeting lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.

Façade Grant

Jasper County Economic Development Organization announced the first recipient of a façade grant, Toplink Business Center. 

Here is their announcement from Facebook.

We are pleased to announce Toplink Business Center as our very first Rensselaer Facade Improvement Grant awardee. We had two applications to this first round of the Facade Improvement Grant, both applications were very competitive. Toplink ultimately had a stronger application due to the building's size and number of businesses within its footprint. After several years of vacancy, the passion and dedication Toplink's owners put forward to completely refurbishing this building is an accomplishment. This building's predominance in the downtown area means this grant money funding will go a long way to beautify this vitally important piece of the city. We look forward to future applications and are excited to see how the Facade Improvement Grant will revitalize Rensselaer.

Toplink will use the grant funds for new windows and awning on the north side of the building, new windows and doors on the west side, tuck pointing on the entire building, and signage.

This grant would not be possible without a partnership from the City of Rensselaer and the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission.

Our next round of grants are due by Monday, February 24th. For more information on the grant itself please visit: https://www.jaspercountyin.com/grants/

Notes

Last year the Commissioners had said that they wanted to reexamine the solar ordinance. They have organized two public meetings to discuss the solar ordinance and also battery storage and carbon sequestration. The first is at the Fase Center in DeMotte on January 25 at 6:00 pm and the second is scheduled for February 16 at 6:00 pm at the Jasper County Fairgrounds. Hopefully they will generate more than heat.

Candidates for the May primary election have until Feb 9 to file with the County Clerk. She released the names of early files and there will be at least two contested races on the Republican ballot. Congressman James Baird will be challenged by Charles Bookwalter. Two people have filed for the position of County Auditor, Diana Boersma and Treasure Gilbert.

Dollar Tree was briefly closed on Tuesday morning because they forgot to renew a food license with the Health Department. The fee was quickly paid and the store opened.

The Tourism Commission that was rescheduled to January 17 has been canceled.

The Fendig Gallery is currently showing the first of their local school exhibits. This one is the 31st Regional School Art Show: Primary School, K-2. It will hang until Jan 28. Hours are T 12-4, Th 2-6, S 12-2.

Real winter is coming

 Board of Public Works

The Board of Public Works had four new faces on Monday evening. Mayor Phillips presided and Jeff Rayburn joined the Board. Rensselaer has a new City Attorney, Todd Sammons. Officer Daniel White attended representing the Police. I do not know if he will continue; Police Chief Matt Anderson was present at the City Council meeting that followed.

As usual, the meeting approved pay requests for City projects.  It approved two totaling about $7750 for Commonwealth Engineering for work on the New Lift Station and Unsewered Areas Project. It approved $167,663 for Maguire Iron Partial Payment Request #7. Maguire continues assembling the pieces for the new water tower near the Interstate and erection of the tower is scheduled for January 18. There was a change order for the Water Main and Water Service Replacement project of $83,209.58 that will allow some additional service replacements. Citywide there are still several hundred lead service lines that should be replaced and the average cost of replacing them is about $15,000 each. Grimmer Plumbing is almost finished with its work and it had two payment requests approved, one for $128,896 and the other for $67,804. Commonwealth Engineering had a pay request for $34,107 approved. 

The Board then had a discussion with a representative from Commonwealth about a City-County project to extend water and sewer to the west side of I-65. This will be done in two phases, the first getting the lines drilled under the Interstate and the second extending them to at least CR 1000W. I am not exactly sure what the Board approved. I think it gave the Mayor authority to sign a City-Council agreement that is being prepared by attorneys.  When the project is completed, residents in the area will get lower  fire insurance rates because of the closer hydrants, the City will get utility revenues, and the County will get increased tax revenue as the land is developed.

The phosphorus plant at the sewage plant is a couple of weeks away being operational. (I tried to get a picture of the building several weeks ago but my camera malfunctioned. The building is red.)

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council began its meeting by electing Noel Weishaar president of the Council. (George Cover had for many years held that position.) The Mayor then swore in the City superintendents. Most were the 2023 superintendents, but there were two that were different. Brett Wilhite is the new electric superintendent and Bryce Black, who had been heading the Street and Water Departments for over a year as an assistant superintendent, was sworn in as the Street, Water, & Sanitation Superintendent.

Below is a picture of the Council before the meeting began. From left to right are Councilmen Rayburn, Watson, Police Chief Anderson, Clerk-Treasurer Keys, Mayor Phillips, Councilmen Overton, Armold, and Weishaar. 

(When I started attending the City Council meetings the people seated at the Council table consisted of G. Cover, E. Watson, F Bretzinger, S. Wood, R. Odle, W. Hollerman, and S Barton.)

The Council quickly approved three items from the Rensselaer Plan Commission: a rezone of some SJC property from RS to R1, a rezone of the Busy Bee lot from R1 to B1, and a revised zoning ordinance that the Council had sent back to the Plan Commission for modification. (In the City the Council has final say on zoning changes just as in the County the Commissioners have final say on zoning changes.) Mr Watson recused himself from the SJC zoning vote. The Council also quickly passed the January gas tracker that reflects a 5¢ increase per hundred cubic feet of usage.

The rest of the meeting was routine. The Council approved a burial-rights request (sold a lot in Weston Cemetery), a PR request for an employee retirement, and a FMLA request. Several people have been working on utility budgets. There is a Court hearing scheduled for Friday about a Front Street property that has concerned the Council. The Building Inspector wants a committee to develop an ordinance about parking in alleys and on sidewalks. The Police Department is going through the steps needed to hire a new officer. The Street Department has a couple of positions open. It was given permission to purchase safety equipment for working in holes. The Electric Department is taking down Christmas decorations and will be working to get electricity to to shelter in Foundation Park.

I missed the City Council meeting on December 26. The minutes are here.

Park Board meeting

On Tuesday evening I had a choice between the Airport Authority Commission meeting or the Park Board meeting; both met at the same time. I chose the Park Board meeting. 

New to the Park Board was Jeff Rayburn representing the City Council. Three members of the Park Corporation, Jannelle Musch, Stace Pickering, and Jenny Boget, were reappointed.  Officers from 2023 were retained.

There was discussion of getting ready for tournaments at Blacker Fields. There will be some girls softball tournaments and they will only take place on Sundays and Saturdays. Attending the meeting was Mayor Phillips who discussed some of the possibilities he is pursuing. He is looking for uses of the old light plant and thought that it might have possibilities for Park usage. He would like to get more trails but needs some grants for that. He is working on getting electricity and lights to Foundation Park. He would like to convince SJC to do something to make their unused indoor athletic facilities available to the public. The minutes from the November meeting, which I missed, are available here. The next meeting is scheduled for February 5.

Chamber lunch

The featured speaker at the January Chamber of Commerce lunch was JCEDO executive director Sara DeYoung. She talked about what JCEDO does and about economic development. She said that before she became director of JCEDO, she traveled through the small towns of the area and noted that some small towns were thriving and others seemed to be declining and wondered why. She has tried to learn from towns that are successful.

An initiative from her office is Yodel, a calendar application and website that she hopes will aid tourism and help County residents be more aware of what is happening in the County. Jasper County tourism has a new website at discoverjaspercounty.com.

Projects that JECDO is supporting or has recently supported include those of White Castle, FBI, Wheatfield Elevator, the DeMotte water expansion, Remington site expansion, a multicounty ag strategy, and child care. Community development and quality of life are now seen as important in economic development, something not true a few decades ago. There are no silver bullets and everyone should do what they can to improve quality of life.

Notes

We did not have snow on Christmas day, but we did get snow on January 6, the traditional day of Epiphany, which for some marks the end of the Christmas season.

Since the 6th we have had repeated rounds of snow and melting. On Tuesday the wintery mix caused a two-hour delay in the Renssealer Schools

Days are getting longer by a little over a minute each day. Most of the extra daylight is being added in the evening. The latest sunrise occurred on January 4.

 From the Rensselaer Vol Fire Department Facebook page: "Our Miss Flame, Alexxys “Nellie” Standish is now your new Indiana State Fair Queen!Since early last year, Alexxys has won the District 9B Miss Flame contest. Next she won the Indiana Volunteer Fireman’s Assco. Miss Flame contest. Then she won the Miss Newton County Fair contest. Now, she is the Indiana State Fair Queen. A clean sweep!   Quite a young lady!"

The first recipient of a JECDO Façade Improvement Grant is Fleming Investments. There will be photos taken on Thursday at 4:00 pm at 120N Cullen St.

The former Busy Bee is now Dowgz in Suds Grooming and will open for business on Wednesday, January 10. It still has Busy Bee signage.

The former R&M building now has a "sold" sign on it.

The City of Rensselaer now has a Facebook page.

I subscribed to the emails from gridbrief.com, which sends me multiple messages each week. Included once a week are graphs showing what keeps the lights on, or how electricity is generated both nationally and in subsections of the nation. Here, for example, is a graph for the end of December into January. Natural gas is the largest source of electricity and because many plants using gas can be turned on or off easily, it picks up the supply when needed. Nuclear cannot be switched on or off quickly, so it is a flat line. Solar only works during daylight and wind is very erratic.

The Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for Tuesday was postponed until Wednesday the 17th due to weather. 

First January meetings 2024

 Commissioners meeting

The Commissioners began their January meeting by reorganizing. They kept the same officers that they had last year, Rein Bontreger president and James Walstra vice president. 

Sharon Colee from Jasper County Community Services gave an update. She said the Community Services has closed its Remington branch because they were serving only four to six people a day. Community Services sent 1000 postcards to Remington residents asking about what services people wanted and got only 14 back. Ms Colee concluded that other organizations were providing the services that her organization provides. They were using a building that had been donated to the town of Remington for Community Services and the keys would be returned to the town. In contrast, the number of people using their services in Rensselaer and especially DeMotte has continued to grow. Community Services received a grant for $92,000 in 2023. The Commissioners approved replacing countertops in Rensselaer and toilets in both Rensselaer and DeMotte. Ms Colee said that the parking lot in Rensselaer needs repairs because it is difficult for people with walkers and canes to walk on it. The Fase Center has a leaky roof that will need to be repaired or replaced. She also said that the parking lot at the Fase Center in Demotte had flooding issues and the Commissioners thought that the County could fix this problem.

The Commissioners accepted a bid of $80,610 from T.R. Hodges to repair the roof on the Prosecutor's Annex. It was the low bid of three. They also accepted a bid of $4055 to wash the windows on five County Buildings. They approved employee bonds, something done each year.

They then spent about 20 minutes opening bids for various materials and supplies used by the Highway Department. As is their custom, they approved all bids so that if the low bidder cannot provide the material or service on the day it is needed, the Highway Department can go to another supplier.

The Health Department received permission to hire a part-time food/environmental assistant sanitarian. Via Zoom the Commissioners heard a presentation of grant software. No action was taken. The Commissioners want to know how many departments would find the software useful. The Commissioners then spent time making appointments to various positions, boards, and commissions. Most were re-appointments.The head of Human Services wanted to do away with tiered levels of pay. She was told that this was a matter for the Council and received some pushback from a couple of departments who said they found the tiers useful when hiring new and probationary employees. The Coroner had 74 cases in 2023. The meeting was continued until January 22 at 8:30 if needed.

Drainage Board meeting

The Drainage Board had a short meeting following the Commissioners meeting, mostly to reorganize. It kept the same officers that it had in 2023, with Jeff DeYoung elected president, James Walstra VP, Rhonda Elridge Secretary, and Jacob Ahler the Drainage Board Attorney. The Board members who in 2023 served on the joint drainage boards that include Jasper and a neighboring county will continue to serve on these boards. Work has started on the R.E. Davis ditch. NIPSCO now owns Dunns Bridge I, having obtained it from NextEra. A lot of beaver dams have been removed from ditches in the northern part of the County.

The Board of Finance

The Board of Finance had a very short but interesting meeting on Monday afternoon. It also reorganized, with Rein Bontreger elected president and James Walstra elected vice president, the same offices they had in 2023. The Board approved the 2024 investment policy, which added a new type of instrument that the Treasurer can invest in. (The State limits how Counties can invest idle funds, limiting them to low risk investments.) The Treasurer then reported on how funds were invested in 2023. Interest rates were higher last year than they were in many previous years, and the Treasurer took advantage of them, usually getting rates of about 5 percent. Because the County has a lot of money in various accounts, much of which can only be spent for specific purposes, the County earned almost $1.6 million in interest for 2023. The Board of Finance usually meets only once a year.

Notes

City elected officials were sworn in on Friday, December 29. There are pictures of them taking the oath of office in this week's Rensselaer Republican.

I do not have any interesting Rensselaer pictures for this post. Here is one I took over the Christmas break far away from Rensselaer.

Some highlights from 2023

2023 brought a number of new businesses.  Barton Design and Backyard Blooms moved into remodeled former GRG garage building. A new State Farm Insurance office opened in what was the showroom of the old Chevy dealership. On Rutsen Street the Sorrel and Rye Mercantile replaced The Briar Patch, which closed in the Spring.  A new coffee ship, Cup of Joy, replace the Willow Switch, which closed in August, and Earth Magic replaced the Little Coffee Shop on 231, which closed in May. NuBloom Naturals opened in June and closed two or three months later. A new co-working place, The Other Place, opened in part of the former REMC building and the other part, called Top Link, is being rented for regular offices and businesses. The first occupant is First Hometown Mortgages. Another small gift shop, Simply Blessed, opened in the front of the Chamberlin Building. A new restaurant, Not Your Typical Wingz, opened next to Mt. Hood Pizza.

Walters Auto Electric closed when its owner retired. P&P Hobbies, which opened last year,  closed this year because another business operating in the building, DeerWood Group, wanted to expand. Evans, Finney, and Taylor Eye Care moved into the former Jordan Floral Building and Dollar Tree moved in the former Walgreen's Building.

A lot of construction involved City projects. The new lift station on Lincoln Street was finished and the old lift station demolished. Sewer lines were extended on Owen Street and John Deere Road. Lead water lines were replaced near the downtown. Part of College was closed for several weeks as a storm sewer was replaced, new sidewalks were installed, and the street repaved. The gas regulator that serves most of the City was replaced. The last two engines at the power plant were removed, one for scrap and the other sent to Canada. Construction of a new water tower to serve the new west end of Rensselaer started. The Fire Department was awared a new fire tower for its training facility.  A new shelter house in Filson Park was completed. 

After a couple years of planning, the County took over EMS services for the Rensselaer area and constructed a new EMS building across the highway from the Fairgrounds. The Fairgrounds got a new horse barn. Contentious issues at the County level were a plan by BP to sequester carbon in Jasper and surrounding counties and a proposed solar farm in Walker Township. 

The City held elections and the City govenment has and will have several new faces. Zyan Miller defeated long-time councilman George Cover in the May primary but in the November election she was narrowly defeated by Jeff Rayburn. Bill Hollerman resigned mid-year and was replaced by Kevin Armold. And in the November election former Police Chief Jeff Philllips defeated Mayor Steven Wood.

The City grew in 2023. It annexed what remains of the SJC properties south of town.

Mural week in July saw several new murals as well as the overpainting of several old ones. The beautiful mural on the back of the Horton-Yallally Building was peeling and it was replaced by another spectacular painting. The Octopus on the Anders' Water Conditioning was replaced with an abstract flower design. The Bird on the back of emBers was replaced with a scooter and the flamingo on the Rensselaer Republican building was replaced by a dragon. The back of City Hall got an abstract mural, the side of the Rensselaer Republican building a couple of birds, and behind Markit Arts there is now a tree with fish. Mural week ended with a mural contest that was very interesting and hopefully the first of many.

Finally, White Castle will be expanding on the east side of Rensselaer. Demolition of the old Soesbe Building began in December.

(I am sure I forgot some things that should be included. You can add them in the comments.)