A new superintendent

Some pictures

On Monday evening  I noticed new forms for concrete on the north side of Filson Park.

The stage structure is looking good.

The new lights along Van Rensselaer Street are in use.

This was Harrison Street over the weekend.

Can you see what is missing in this picture taken of SJC from near the bowling alley?

The fence is gone. Perhaps now that the bleachers have been removed, the insurance company no longer requires the fencing.

Several days ago the Rensselaer VFW announced on Facebook that it was closing its doors due to lack of participation. Then there was a followup post saying that maybe enough people were stepping up so they could continue. Read about this on their Facebook page.

Park Board meeting

The Rensselaer Park Board usually meets only once a month but had a second August meeting when it met Monday evening at 5:00 at the old light plant. The main item on the agenda was Mayor Phillips' reassignment of positions. He had decided to replace Joe Effinger with Heather Hall as Park Superintendent. He had previously appointed Mr Effinger to the position of Weston Cemetery Caretaker and Effinger will retain that position. However, the Mayor needed Park Board approval to the change the Park Superintendent. Only three Board members were present, a bare quorum. There were a number of questions about the transition, including how accounting and other paperwork issues would be handled. There was also discussion of what changes would be needed or desired to make the old light plant a suitable Park headquarters. The current bathroom may not be sufficient and the building should be made ADA compliant. The City is including an extra $100,000 in next year's budget to help make these changes as well as repair the sidewalk in front of the building. Mrs Hall said she would like to see the building used as a recreation center. Perhaps the remodeled building will encourage cooperative programming with the Library. There are many details that have to be worked out and there will be learning by doing. After a lot of discussion, all three members present voted to accept the change in the superintendent.

The meeting continued but about half of the people present, including the old and new park superintendents, left for the City Council meeting which started at 6:00. There had been plans for a tour of the light plant to see what changes were needed or planned, but that did not take place.

Here are some pictures I took of the inside of the building. The first is looking to the north. The area behind the wall will also be used by the park department.

Some of the stuff that was needed for the generators will probably be left to remind people of what the building used to be.

The main door has stairs on the outside and the inside. One walks up the stairs to the door, and walks down another set of stairs. What were the architects thinking when they designed this?

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met at 6:00 on Monday evening. Its first item of business was to move about $72,000 from this year's budget to next year's budget. It also approved a couple of transfers of funds. It approved spending $5,000 for consultants to review City policies and procedures to make sure they are current with State and Federal regulations. The Council approved the Electric Utility signing an interdepartmental agreement with the Park Department concerning use of the light plant and responsibility for utility bills. (The Park Board wanted more time to consider the agreement.) 

The City has been in discussion with CSX and Amtrak about paving the area around the depot and closing the Scott Street railroad crossing. Final details have not been worked out and the Council opted to delay a vote on the matter.

The Council approved paying invoice #5 of $145,566.90 from Grimmer Construction for work on the Brick Street project. It also gave the Gas Utility permission to prepay $13468 for gutters and downspouts for its building. New squad cars for the Police Department have been ordered. Five employees have recently received CDL licenses.

Parking-lot art

I am a little late this year with the painted parking lot spaces at the high school.

Speaking of the high school, the students have a new website, The Bomber Bunker.

Budgets

 Some pictures

On Wednesday I noticed construction had begun on the stage area in Filson Park.

On Thursday what was there on Wednesday was gone, replaced with this.

There is now a bench near the pool. I suspect others will soon be joining it.

Light poles were being erected along Van Rensselaer on Thursday. I believe they were finished by the end of the day.

The concrete curbs that will separate bricks from asphalt at the Harrison/Van Rensselaer interesection are finished. The brick laying on Harrison is slowly working its way up from SR 114.

INDOT posted some pictures on Facebook about work on the bridge south of Rensselaer so I went out to check out the progress. They hope to finish before the end of the month.

There is still work being done at the SJC football field but I cannot get close enough to see what they are doing.

Jasper County Council meeting

The Jasper County Council met Tuesday evening at 6:00. President Steve Jordan was delayed so Gary Fritts called the meeting to order. First on the agenda were transfers and additional appropriations, but one of the additional appropriations, from the Northwest Indiana Solid Waste District, had been advertised for 7:00, so the meeting was flipped and the beginning of budget hearings started the meeting.

Budget hearings are long and often boring. The Council is looking at numbers in a thick book that is not available to the audience and asking questions about them. First up on Monday was the Coroner. He wants to find funding to hire a deputy coroner and found it by reducing some other numbers in his proposed budget. He noted that costs keep rising, including those for autopsies and body bags. He has had 59 calls so far this year, a level not reached last year until October. He has a new van that will be operational soon and that resulted in some shifts in budget numbers.

Next up was the auditor. She put in the 10% increase in salaries that all the departments are including. I suspect that number will be adjusted to make the final budget fit revenues.

Emergency management presented a budget with only small changes from the 2024 budget. One change will be expenses for a vehicle. The department is getting a vehicle from the Sheriff's Department. The State pays 50% of salaries in this very small department. 

The Sheriff has one of the biggest and most complicated budgets in the County government. He had a number of pay differentials he wanted to establish; that is, when two positions pay the same but one has greater responsibilities, increasing the pay of the person with the greater responsibilities. There was a discussion of the meal budget in the jail, which has had a large increase because of rising food costs and more inmates. Meals cost about $7.50 per prisoner per day. He has budgeted for three new vehicles, two trucks and one car. When the cars are retired by the Sheriff, they usually go to another County department. He noted that his salaries are below those in some of the area law enforcement agencies and that makes recruitment and retention a challenge. He noted that it is difficult to recruit, train, and retain dispatchers.

With the Sheriff's budget discussed, the meeting returned to transfers and additional appropriations, several of which were for the Sheriff. There was a transfer because repairs for a damaged squad car had been paid from the wrong account. There were additional appropriations for several insurance lines because insurance costs have increased. There were several additional appropriations that were Coroner related. One request was for a new budget line, "Indigenous Pauper Burial" that the Commissioners had requested as a result of the burial of a decomposing stranger, who was later identified. The Council decided that it would not be needed this year so voted to not appropriate the money.

Generally pauper burials are the responsibility of the township in which the death occurs. However, Newton Township has no township cemetery so deaths there (and Newton Township includes a long strip of i-65) become the responsibility of the County. There is a cemetery in the Township, Makeever Cemetery, but it is legally owned by the County. The Commissioners want to give it to Newton Township.

One additional appropriation was for consultants. This was to pay for services the County hires to monitor SolarPack, which then reimburses the County. The reimbursement goes into the general fund so the payments have to be re-appropriated.

There was a large additional appropriation for jail meals, explained above. What I found interesting is that the jail uses inmates to help prepare the meals. They get a bit of pay (which I believe they get when they are released) and they get out of their cells.

There was a very large additional appropriation for EMS. It is needed to finish the year. EMS budgeting continues to be a problem.

The last additional appropriation was for the Northwest Indiana Solid Waste District and because it did not involve County money, the Council quickly approved it.

The Council had a discussion of the Local Income Tax on the agenda but decided to take that up on Wednesday morning at 8:30 when the budget hearings would continue. I have a high tolerance for long boring meetings, but not enough to want to go to that meeting.

A final note

I am on the planning committee for the Memories Alive Cemetery Walk in Weston Cemetery. We have found some interesting stories to tell and have recruited our cast. Here is the announcement of the event.

Most of the planning is finished but we need three or four able-bodied volunteers to help with set up and tear down. If you are interested, e-mail me at rensselaeradventures at yahoo.com and I will give you details of what is involved.

Unwanted wildlife

 Jasper County BZA meeting

As I was getting ready to go to the Jasper County BZA meeting Monday evening, I looked out my back window and saw this:

A closer view:

I am not happy to see a deer in my garden because I know why it is there: to eat my plants. From past experience I know deer like sweet potato leaves. And something has been nibbling on the tomato plants and I suspect it is this deer. Because of the deer, my resident rabbits, and the ever present squirrels, this is turning out to be a dismal garden year.

Back to the Jasper County BZA meeting. There was only one item on the agenda, a request for sand mining in Walker Township. The sand being mined is the result of a person digging a pond that is less than one acre. He would like to sell the sand that he excavates as a way of getting rid of it. It turns out that a pond of more than an acre requires a lot more permitting, including an erosion control plan. The BZA approved his request provided he keep the size of his pond less than an acre and that construction be confined to daylight hours.

Continued Commissioners' meeting

On Monday morning the Commissioners met in a continuation of their meeting two weeks earlier. The main reason for the meeting was to open bids for the remodeling of the Health Department. Tecton Construction Management had solicited the bids for eight different parts of the project. Some of the parts received only one bid, but five bids were received for the electrical contract, ranging from $34,800 to $112,000. All bids were taken under consideration by Tecton, which will give a recommendation at the September Commissioners' meeting. Construction may begin in October.

The remodel will remove the post in the middle of the Conference Room in what I call the Sparling Annex.

After approving several  conference requests, the Commissioners heard a report from the Jasper County Trails Club. The Club had received a grant from the Jasper Newton Foundation to hire Kimley Horn to prepare a master plan for trails and that plan was presented to the Commissioners. The last time the County had a trails plan was 12 years ago when one was done by the Jasper County Economic Development Organization, but that plan had little effect. The State has been funding trails but none of that money has come to Jasper County. The hope is that with a plan and with the support of local government the County will be able to get some of the State funding. The master plan has trails connecting the four towns of Jasper County.

There was mention of a possible access to the Kankakee River on land that the County owns. Perhaps there will be follow up and this may be a concrete result of this part of the meeting. 

The Trails Club holds monthly meetings and there is one scheduled for 7:00 pm on September 17 at the Carnegie Center. They have a youtube channel here and a website here.

The Commissioners approved a request from Andrew Boersma to replace the employee that the Coroner and Sheriff share. Human resources received approval to do a mailing to County employees. Some requests from Animal Control were tabled until the September meeting. The Commissioners then took up a Solar Ordinance that the Plan Commission had submitted to them in May with suggestions for changes. A committee had worked to incorporate those changes and the revised ordinance was passed. There may be further changes to the ordinance as some people are still not happy with it. The overall impact is to increase restrictions on solar farms. (Background can be found here.)

EDP Renewables was on the agenda but that item will be discussed in September. At the earlier August meeting there was a discussion of improving a storage barn at the Highway Department. A new quote was presented at this meeting to put a concrete floor in the whole building with a dividing wall. The total quote was about $38,000 and it was approved. The Commissioners approved not more than $3000 to BF&S to work on grants for two Safety initiatives, one from the State and the other Federal. They also gave approval to the Sheriff to replace a jailer and to the Health Department to join the Indiana Network for Patient Care. Purdue Extension wanted a storage shed but the out-going audio was faulty so the matter will be taken up at the September meeting. A billboard company with a billboard next to the Fairgrounds wanted permission to trim a tree that was obstructing the billboard and that was granted. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, September 3. (The Monday is Labor Day.)

Odds & ends

On Monday workers began laying bricks on Harrison Street.

The forms for the last concrete pour were ready on Monday.

I noticed that the Jasper County Economic Development Organization Building has a new sign.

On Monday the goal posts on the SJC football field were being removed.

More pictures and meetings

Chamber luncheon at the Ritz

The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce held its August luncheon at the Ritz Theater. Nancy Klockhow, the owner of the Theater, gave a brief history of the theater, which has had several owners since it was built in 1928. Covid and the construction of the Brick Streets Project have both hurt her business, so she is only showing movies on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She had tales of ghosts in the theater and there is a long video on Youtube of ghost hunters visiting the Ritz.

Judy Kanne gave a report of the local Historical Society's application to get a State historical marker honoring Charles Halleck. He was born in DeMotte and DeMotte is the proposed site for the marker. Paul Norwine and several of his KV students did some of the research work included in the application. Halleck was born in 1900 so next year will be his 125 birthday and perhaps that may help the application chances of being accepted. It is one of 34 applications for a historical marker.

Do you know where historical markers are in Jasper County? There are three in Rensselaer. The answer is here.

After the talks, we were allowed to go into the space behind the screen where the original stage still exists. The theater was built to accommodate vaudeville acts.

Along the walls of the theater are painted murals of famous movie scenes. I had not realized that they were painted rather than photographs.

Ribbon cutting for The Clinic of Family Medicine

After the Chamber lunch, most of the people attending walked over to the new location of the Clinic of Family Medicine for a ribbon cutting.

The hallway in the building is decorated with copies of pictures from the Jasper County Historical Society and the people attending were quite fascinated with them. I do not know anything about this business.

Percy Horton was the son of the dentist who had an office upstairs in what is now the Yallaly Building. Percy was an accomplished musician.

And I also do not know anything about the Clark Brothers Livery Stable.

Myers art exhibit

The current exhibit at the Fendig Gallery features the art of Doris Myers (1921-2023). She was a prolific artist, working with many media. The exhibit runs until September 10.

Myers' most common subjects seem to be landscapes of various sorts and flowers. 

This exhibit is rather unusual because many and perhaps most of the work on display is for sale. The yellow dot on the picture above indicates it is for sale. People buying the works can take them when they leave the gallery, so the number of works on display will decline as the exhibit goes on.

Myers tried many different styles, such as this painting that simulates a mosaic.

The painting below is one that was not for sale.

The red dot on the tag for this picture indicates it was purchased, probably during the opening for PAC members only.

The hands are sculpted from clay, which was then fired.

Some of the flower pieces for sale.

In addition to the many paintings that were framed and hung, there were bins of paintings and prints that were unframed. All were for sale.

Myers was also a very talented potter.

The gallery hours are Tuesday, noon to 4:00; Thursday 2:00 to 6:00, and Saturday noon to 2:00. 

Other pictures

Last week I saw a truck carrying away some of the support beams for the bleachers being removed from the SJC football field.

The last set of bleachers removed were those in which the SJC band sat. Here is a good picture of that work starting. Below is how the site appeared when the bleachers were removed. They may have been scrapped because some of the bleachers were deteriorating and the College was unable to find anyone who wanted them.

On Tuesday workers were digging up piles of dirt where the main section of bleachers had been. They were removing the underground cement that supported the bleachers.

Also on Tuesday workers were removing the sidewalk from the old location of Dollar Tree.

A few hours later a cement truck arrived to pour new sidewalks. I hope this is a sign that something new will be going into that store.

Work continues on replacing the bricks on Van Rensselaer. Bricks are now south and east of the main door to City Hall. Note the new light fixture on the corner of Van Rensselaer and Harrison.

The dirt that was placed in the bump-outs is sprouting vegetation. Weeds grow fast.

Part of the sidewalk on the northeast side of Filson Park was poured on Tuesday.

Finally, here is the air conditioner at Blacker Fields that was mentioned at the Park Board meeting as being too close to the building and too close to its enclosure.

Odds and ends

From the Facebook page of local author Shannon Anderson:

I've been keeping a secret! 

I'm finally allowed to share that I was a contestant on the new TV game show, Lucky 13! It was so crazy to be on stage trying to answer questions with Shaquille O'Neal and Gina Rodriguez beside me. So much fun! Be sure to watch on August 22nd at 9:00pm EST! 

(I'm not allowed to reveal anything about the show or how I did.)

From the Legals in the August 8, 2024 issue of the Rensselaer Republican (p B7):

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is planning to undertake the I-65 Wolcott NB and SB Rest Area Project, funded in part by the Federal Highway Administration  (FHWA). The project is located on I-65 in White County, Indiana, approximately 1.2 miles west of US 231.

Under the preferred alternative, the proposed project would demolish the existing Wolcott NB and SB facilities and parking lots, decommission the on-site wastewater treatment plant, remove ramp lighting, and restore the site by grading with soil and vegetation cover to maintain the existing drainage pattern. Neither rest area will be reconstructed. 

This information was available for some time, but this was the first time I noticed it.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Tourism Commission meeting on Tuesday morning did not have a quorum so it could discuss items but not vote on them. Remington (either Town or MainStreet) is interested in new signage to attract visitors and wanted to know if the Commission was interested enough for a formal submission. The members there thought that they should submit. There was an application from the Knights of Columbus for a "Blue Light" project that would publicize the importance of first responders. The members wondered what the tourism impact would be. 

The strategic plan has been completed and will at some point be on the Discover-Jasper-County website. A new mural website is being prepared and will be part of the Discover-Jasper-County website. The Tourism office has drone footage of the water-tower mural and that also will be on their website. The Touch of Dutch festival had great weather and record crowds.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Airport Authority Board had an executive session scheduled for 5:30 on Tuesday evening. a Board of Finance meeting at 5:45, and a regular meeting at 6:00.. I had considered attending in person but was tired, so opted to attend via Zoom. Executive sessions, which often discuss personnel performance, are closed to the public, so I logged in at 5:45 and waited. They must have had a lengthy discussion of personnel because the Finance meeting did not start until almost 6:00.

The Finance meeting discussed the tradeoff between liquidity and return. If one wants a higher return, usually one must lose liquidity. So they discussed with their financial advisor how much to have in a money-market account and how much to put in various maturities of T-bills or T-notes. The Airport has a substantial amount of financial assets and because they are a government entity, they are limited in how they can invest those assets. All of this is complicated right now because the Country has an inverted yield curve and most prognosticators expect interest rates to fall in the year ahead.

 The regular meeting opened with an update on the master plan that is being prepared by consultants and that is being approved chapter by chapter by the FAA. This plan is needed for future funding from the FAA. The Airport would like to acquire land to its west for an east-west runway and would like to exchange that land for land it owns along SR 114 that could be valuable for future commercial development. There is a possibility that such an exchange may be arranged. There were discussions of insurance and maintenance for the rental plane as well as Airport minutiae that goes with the day-to-day operations. The Airport manager would like to renovate the bathrooms in the terminal building. The Board approved a pay raise for the assistant manager, probably a result from the executive session. The helicopter rides in July largely flopped because of weather but the biplane rides did very well. 

There are seven students enrolled in the airport class for this semester, three from RCHS, 3 from KV, and 1 from SN. This past summer the Airport had four interns; next year it will hire only one. The Board discussed the budget for next year and considered two options; they voted to approve option 2. They ended the meeting with a discussion of switching cell-phone providers for the Airport.