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.