Murals, a subdivision, and more meetings

 Murals

Below are pictures of the water tower taken on Wednesday. 

A closer look at the base.

Work is being done on the access road to the tower.

The artist, Cameron Moberg, has a mural on a wall inside of eMbers. 

Did you notice the cat in the picture?

Moberg has found the water tower mural the most difficult mural he has ever done. The wind causes his perch high in the sky to sway.

Joint Commissioner/Council meeting

The County Commissioners and Council met in a joint meeting on Tuesday evening. They heard a report from Valley Oaks, a mental health and substance abuse provider. They served 650 people in the County last year and have 30 employees in Jasper County. They have staff in the County school systems and claimed that 12 kids who graduated this year had needed their help sometime in their student years. They have made significant changes since the last time they addressed the Commissioners and Council. They no longer have a wait list but have open access. They have a mobile crisis unit operated with Phoenix Paramedical that operates in the 9 counties they serve. In Lafayette they are opening a primary care facility because people who suffer from mental health issues frequently have other health problems. 

The County Coroner presented a preliminary estimate of the cost of a new morgue building, between $3.5 and $4.2 million. He told the story of recently finding a decomposing body in a car parked near a hotel by the Interstate and the problems of extracting the body, identifying the person, and getting a burial. He said he has had four cases of strangers or homeless people in the last three months and thought there should be clear procedures of how to handle these cases. 

There was a discussion of how to fund EMS. About two thirds of the cost comes from the taxpayer and one third from payment for services. Any serious cases go to the big hospitals. There is a two-year wait time for a new ambulance.

The Commissioners have approved a study of the County's finances by Baker Tilly, which does these studies for many Indiana counties. There was a discussion of the need to replace the sidewalks around the Courthouse, especially the one along Cullen Street which is in awful shape. Later there was a brief discussion of partnering with the City of Rensselaer to provide a sidewalk from the City to the Fairgrounds if grant funding can be found.

There was a discussion of a new public defenders' office, including the cost of fringe benefits and where they could be located. One possibility is to use space currently used to store voting machines, but then a place for that storage would have to be found. Costs of the public defenders' office are compensated 40% by the State.

There was support for a more formal process to be used by entities applying for financing.

No actions were taken at this meeting because its purpose is to share information and opinions between the Commissioners and the Council. 

County Council meeting

Much of the County Council meeting that followed the Joint meeting was for several large additional appropriations. The Commissioners earlier had approved a request from the Jail to move the chiller from the roof to the ground. The equipment is nearing end of life and uses freon, which can no longer be manufactured. The Council approved an appropriation of $700,000 for the project. Trane will serve as the general contractor and will seek bids for the various parts of the project. It also approved $50,000 for a five-year maintenance agreement for the x-ray machine used at the jail to search for illicit items of incoming prisoners.  

A second large appropriation, this for $600,000, was approved for the renovation of the health department building. Some smaller additional appropriations were approved for software fees for the Recorder's Office. 

An appropriation tabled at a previous meeting for the purchase of a trailer for the Health Department and moving some equipment around was also passed.

There were several tax abatements that should have been approved at this meeting, but only one, Dunns Bridge #1, had all the required paperwork submitted. It was approved. Others from REMC, FBI, and for a dairy digester were tabled until the next meeting, which will be the August 20 budget meeting. At that meeting the Council will also consider how the various parts of the Local Income Tax (LIT) can be moved around, reducing some parts to increase other parts.

Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting

There was one big item on the agenda of the Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting Thursday evening, a preliminary plat for St. Joseph's Building and Trades Subdivision. The map of the proposed subdivision, shown below, envisions 30 building sites with three cul-de-sacs off Sparling Avenue. The plan is to build one house a year, or if there are enough students interested, perhaps two. The plat was not approved but tabled because a technical review showed there were details that needed to be ironed out. However, the Commission approved granting a building permit for a first house to be located at the corner of Sparlng and Daugherty Roads. 

The project will have four phases. The first phase will build in the five lots along Daugherty Road. Then lots 6-14, followed by lots 15-23, and finally lots 24-30 will follow. I will not live long enough to see this project finished. (In case you do not know where this is located, it is south of the Health Department building, on the west side of Sparling Avenue, where the Halleck Center parking lot and the softball field were located.)

A few years ago RCHS dropped its building trades practice of building a house each year and Saint Joe is trying to replace that program, opening it up to other schools. However, to be ready to build a house requires prior preparation in preliminary courses and those courses are lacking in some area schools and have apparently atrophied locally. It may take some time to build up this program. There may be only two or three students participating in the program for the coming year.

There will be a ground-breaking ceremony on Thursday, July 25 at 1:00. ( Also on the 25th but at 10:00, the Plevna Implement Company, which purchased what was the MacAllister facility next to the Airport, is planning a grand opening.)

SJC seems to have adopted a new logo. (See the press release linked above.)

A few days ago a SJC alum posted on Facebook the picture of a sign I had in a post at the end of June. The sign said "Future Building Site of Saint Joseph's Building & Trades". The alum interpreted that to mean SJC planned to build a building for the Building &  Trades program, not that the program planned to build houses. I am not sure that the people involved ever realized that their outrage was based on a misunderstanding.

Before the meeting, I was told that on Thursday the football team from Faith Christian High School in Lafayette was taking parts of the stands at the football field to transfer to their school. The entire stands will end up there.

Rensselaer BZA meeting

The Rensselaer BZA had an uneventful meeting Thursday evening. They approved another extension for a building permit for a house on Airport Road. The owner said her original contractor died, then she got cancer, and now it is very difficult to find people to do work. A building permit requires the house be finished n a year.

The BZA also approved a variance of use for a residence on E Washington. The property is in a business zone but has always been a residence. It is changing ownership and thus needs a new variance. 

The zoning ordinance has too many rules and regulations.

Odds & ends

Workers are filling Van Rensselaer with gravel to get it ready for the bricks.

The merchants along Van Rensselaer have had a hard time during this construction. They will be very happy when it is finished.

Our rains were not enough to get the River to minor flood stage; it missed by just a few inches. The rains were enough to pop up mushrooms all over Rensselaer.