Four meetings in one day

Notes

The new Mexican Bakery, La Trinidad, opened on Sunday. I stopped by on Monday and took some pictures.

The bakery is renting space from Ayda's Restaurant and is located behind the restaurant on Harrison Street. Its hours are 8 to 8, but once it finds when customers come and when they do not, it will probably adjust the hours. I asked why it opened and was told that this is the only Mexican bakery between Lafayette and Merrillville. 

I do not do food reviews because I do not have a palette (and for health reasons I avoid bakery products-–too much sugar.) Try their offerings yourself and see what you think.

In other downtown news, Gutwein Seeds is relocating into what was the Gutwein-Risner Insurance Building on Washington Street. I am told that their former space in the building with the purple coneflowers will be occupied by Sharon Johnson, a nurse practitioner located in what was the Clinic of Family Medicine across the highway from the hospital.

Commissioners meeting

The Commissioners met Monday with a long agenda and a long meeting. Jeff DeYoung abstained from approving claims because he had a claim for $250 for delivering a load of salt. He said he will take the check, add $750 to it, and donate it to the Park Board. There was one buried cable permit approved, a simple bore under a County road in Union Township to serve a residence. Primary election voting centers were approved. They were the same as in the previous election with one big change. In Rensselaer the Armory replaces the Fire Station.

The Commissioners reappointed Scott Malone to the Airport Authority Board and Holly Eldridge to the Animal Control Board. At a previous meeting there was a question of whether Jacob Misch could serve on the  PTABOA Board after he had been appointed to the County Council, but it was determined that there was no conflict. The Commissions approved the purchase of a used van for the County Coroner.

The Commissioners approved $30,000 for remodeling the kitchen at Community Corrections. The Council will have to re-appropriate the funds because the project was not finished in 2023. The Commissioners approved the annual GUTS Software and Maintenance Agreement. (GUTS = Government Utilities Technology Service, a company based in Lebanon, IN.)

The Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council asked for and received permission to plant a ginkgo tree in the CourtHouse square. It will honor the late James Beaver. Animal Shelter had a request for a strobe-light bar for their vehicles. It was tabled while the Highway Department sees if they have something appropriate in their inventory. The Commissioners approved a software purchase that previously had been funded by the Council. The Commissioners approved spending and estimated $2670 for the Health Department to purchase 90 doses of flu shots for County employees. The full-time food inspector is resigning and the Commissioners approved filling the position. The Health Department needs a new postage machine. There was a brief discussion about other departments that may soon need to renew their machines, but the Health Departments problem was deemed the worse so only its machine replacement was approved at this meeting. The Health Department would like its space to be renovated because its needs have changed since it moved in. There was a discussion of various options and also of the need for new HVAC equipment. The Commissioners approved moving forward with one of the architectural firms that is interested.

The Sheriff received approval to replace three positions, a dispatcher who recently died, a road deputy who is resigning, and a jail correctional officer. He said another road deputy resignation is pending and said these resignations are related to the incentives to retire after 20 years created by the pension system. The Department did not receive a COPS grant it had applied for. The grant had many applications and Jasper County did not have enough crime and was too affluent compared to other applicants. However, he wants to apply again and the Commissioners approved. The grant would fund the addition of one or two new officers for about three years. The jail leaks. The problem is the flat section of roof and he said that flat roofs are prone to leaking. Trane will design a new roof for that section and will also design how to move the HVAC from the roof. Finally, he would like the 911 funds invested. The 911 Board needs to approve this.

The Commissioners approved an agreement with Moolenaar Supreme Professional Lawn Care Services to cut grass at the jail, Courthouse, Health Department, and Surveyor's Office. They approved April 6, 2024 for the next County auction. Sharron Collee from Community Services updated them on various projects and asked for approval to have the Fase Center parking lot striped. It was granted.

The local head of the Jasper County Recovery House gave a short presentation about what the Recovery House does. It has been in operation for eight years and is a first step in a road to recovery for addicts. They spend a first month locally before going to Elkhart to finish the program. The local branch accepts men from all locations but gives preference to locals. The Recovery House would like County support from opioid settlement. The Commissioners were unsure of how much money was in that fund so put the matter on the February agenda. A bit later they heard a similar presentation from the House of Grace, which provides similar services for women, who were invited to the meeting. They currently have a location on the SJC campus and can handle up to four women but usually have only one or two. They have a long list of things they would be able to spend funds on, including moving to a house. They are looking for volunteers. Again, no action was taken at this meeting.

The Commissioners approved a motion to do preliminary work for extending Rensselaer water and sewer west of I-65. March 4 is the date for groundbreaking for the Brick Streets project in downtown Rensselaer. (See update at the end.) The EMS director has resigned as director but will remain as a paramedic. There is an interim director and the leadership positions will be restructured. The Coroner gave a short report and said that a body from Weston Cemetery will be exhumed so that an identification may be found. (See below in notes.) In public comments a woman who has been to previous meetings repeated her concerns about the influence of the World Economic Forum. The Commissioners signed documents needed for work on a bridge over Carpenter Creek that is largely funded by federal dollars. The meeting was adjourned after two and a half hours.

Drainage Board

The Drainage Board meeting that followed the Commissioners meeting was much shorter, lasting only a bit more than half an hour. Two NIPSCO representatives who sat behind me for the entire Commissioners meeting presented a request to bore under a ditch to serve a subdivision near DeMotte. It was granted. The Board then gave approval for work on the bridge discussed in the Commissioners meeting to work in the County drainage right-of-way. Next it quickly approved a drainage plan from Rensselaer Central Schools, which is building a new concession stand. The drainage will tie into a tile owned by the school corporation and drain into the School House Ditch.There was a discussion about a ditch that has a section with a 48-inch pipe that is failing. The easiest solution seems to be to abandon the pipe and create a ditch on the other side of the road and the landowner is willing to donate the land. There is no maintenance fund for this ditch so the issue is how to finance it. No action was taken at this meeting and the matter will be on next month's agenda.The Board approved the Surveyor's Spray Maintenance Report. The Surveyor'''s office will treat 80 miles of ditch in-house and these are smaller ditches. They only spray one side of the ditch and have to abide by restrictions from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Larger ditches are done by contractors. The meeting adjourned after about half an hour.

Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met late on Monday afternoon. It began with Mayor Phillips swearing in members. There was one new member, Matt MacAleer (sp?). The Commission then elected officers: Kevin Smith president, Estel George Vice president, and Jeff Webb Secretary. The Commission voted to release $25,000 to the Rensselaer Park Board for various educational programs and camps that the Parks provide. It then accepted a tax increment report from Baker Tilly for 2023. The main item on the agenda was a presentation from Adam Alson for a Appleseed Childcare Educational funding request. For 2023 the Commission had granted Appleseed $130,000. The rationale for giving this money is that child care makes Rensselaer a more attractive place to live and thus encourages workers to locate here, providing local companies with a better workforce. Appleseed has served over 80 families since it opened and currently has about 60 children, aged 6 month to five years, enrolled. Mayor Phillips, who was at the meeting, said he would like to get the funding established through the City budget. The Commission was unsure of how much money they could budget for education (in addition to the Rensselaer Parks that have sought this money, the Rensselaer School Corporation has also asked for funds), so the Commission tabled the request.

The Commission decided that it would hold meetings on the first Monday of the month, as needed.

Rensselaer Park Board

The Rensselaer Park Board also met Monday evening. They heard from a citizen who wanted a special-needs baseball team. Currently DeMotte has such a team and several Rensselaer parents have used this team for their children. Special-needs children cannot compete with normal kids but want to be like other kids and play ball. The team would be open to children from four to 18. The parents behind this request think that they can draw enough kids from the local special-ed classes to fill a roster. They limit games to one hour, which often means one inning. Blacker Fields is the appropriate location because it has the best bathrooms for handicapped accessibility. The only problem foreseen was the problems of scheduling games in an already busy schedule for the fields. The request was approved.The Board also approved an Eagle Scout request to repair the boat launch in Bicentennial Park. The boat launch there was another Eagle Scout project and it had some issues because Bicentennial Parks located above an old garbage dump.

If all goes well, the Blacker Fields will host 13 tournaments this summer. The first girls softball tournament will be on April 20-21.

The Park employees are working on remodeling the restrooms south of Roth Field.

There was a discussion of disc golf and the possibility of finishing the course with concrete tee pads. Someone noted that the course attracted out-of-towners to Rensselaer and someone mentioned that Mount Ayr has a disc golf course and may be the smallest community in the U.S with its own course.

The meeting finished with a discussion of the problem of getting grass to grow in certain places on athletic fields. The biggest example is where the former Monnett School stood. The next meeting will be on the first Monday in March.

From the Cemetery

After hearing about the plans to exhume a body in Weston Cemetery, I checked with the caretaker of the Cemetery. He said that the idea had been around for about nine months but rules have to be followed. The State must approve digging up bodies. He said that the person of interest was buried in the southeast part of the Cemetery where there are many unmarked graves and quite a few that are only identified as "occupied" on the Cemetery's map. He said the person was killed in a train accident.

Below is a picture of the map showing some of the "occupied" graves. This part of the Cemetery has many County burials. Included are burials from those who died at the County Farm, which was located where the new EMS building and Animal Control are now located. One of "unknown from Newton County" buried in one of these lots may be this one.

This second picture shows the grave of the what may be the person of interest. Click the link and read his story. (Should I have put a trigger warning on these? They are kind of gruesome.)

By the way, this mention was tied to an earlier identication of an unknown burial, the John Doe in Old Settlers' Cemetery. It was solved a couple of years ago and here is the story.

Update: The City has now announced that the groundbreaking for the Brick Streets Project will be February 20 at 9:00 in front of City Hall.