The tower arrives

Fire training tower

The long-awaited fire training tower has been put together behind the fire station. It is composed of shipping containers and will be used to train with fire. Below is a picture showing all the crates assembled.

Below is the tower from the opposite side.

The erection of the tower began on Monday.

The picture below, taken on Tuesday, shows the almost-completed tower. There was still one layer left to install.

The picture below shows a worker welding. The intensity of the light cannot be captured in a picture.

There will be an open house and a ribbon cutting for the tower on October 24.

Some downtown news

On Tuesday workers were almost finished with laying bricks for the Brick Street Project.

On Wednesday workers were putting down the asphalt and still had not completely finished the bricks.

The owner of Busy Bee left the ice-cream business and started a dog-grooming business. Now the owner of Biscuit & a Bath is leaving the dog-grooming business and starting an ice-cream business, the Brick Street ice cream shop. The dog-grooming business will not shut but has a new owner, Smoochie Pooch.

The ice cream shop will open this weekend.

City Council meeting

Mayor Phillips was absent for the City Council meeting on Monday evening, so the President of the Council, Mrs Weishaar, led the meeting. (It was the first Noelle led meeting.) The first order of business was a public hearing on the 2025 budget. Miss Keyes read the numbers for each of the funds. There were no comments so the regular meeting resumed. The vote on the budget will be at the next meeting.

The electric tracker for the final quarter will be an increase of $142 per 1000 kilowatt hours, or about $1.00 on the average monthly bill. 

The American Legion will be hosting its 36th annual Thanksgiving dinner. Last year they served 720 meals, about one half delivered. Last year the Council approved a grant of $500 for this event. This year the amount was raised to $600 to account for inflation.

Grimmer pay request #6 of $326,430.54 for its work on the Brick Street Project was approved. Left to be finished is striping, some brick work, landscaping, and asphalt at the ends of the bricks.  The Council also approved signing a contract with First Group for paperwork and various other tasks need for the CCMG grant of almost a million dollars to fund road repair in the City. The Council then approved another contract, with Mr Armold voting against, for work in design, permitting, construction monitoring for work around the Amtrak Station. Money for this will come from Amtrak and CSX but only if the City closes the Scott Street crossing.

In comments from the superintendents, Police Chief Anderson said he is preparing a revised golf-cart ordinance for the next meeting. Mr Davis said the meeting on the 14th will have a public hearing for the closing of the railroad crossing. The Redevelopment Commission will meet on September 30 for a hearing on a residential TIFF and hold a regular meeting on October 7. Fire Chief Haun said that the containers for the fire tower are arriving and will be assembled this week. He asked the Council to approve a $9240 claim for concrete work needed before the tower was erected and it was approved. He had attended a class on EV fires and said that when they burn, they emit toxic fumes and the area around the fire should be evacuated, perhaps for days. The recommended action was to cool the vehicles enough so they can be moved out of town and allowed to burn out. Letting them burn was cheaper than attempting to put out the fire. He also suggested that the City create an ordinance requiring a cut-off switch for charging stations.  There will be a hazardous waste collection event on Saturday, September 28 from 8:00 to noon at the Jasper County Highway Garage.

Plans are being developed for the extension of water and sewer to the west of I-65. The final 2024 tournament for the Blacker fields will be a girls softball tournament on October 5-6.

Odds and ends

A proposed development in Newton County may affect Rensselaer.  The Marvella sports complex (Mavella was the wife of Birch Bayh) will offer facilities for girls sports at Fair Oaks Farms in Newton County. The entire complex will cost an estimated $98 million, with the first phase costing about $38.8 million. Construction is expected to start this fall. Because it is in Newton County, the project has not come before any County boards and so I do not know more about it than what I can find on the Internet. It might put some guests into Jasper County hotels.

The Memories Alive at Weston Cemetery event took place this past weekend. Below a group hears about the life and times of Truitt Parker Wright, who was the County Coroner long, long ago from the present County Coroner, and in the background another group hears about Emmet Kannal.

The program for this year's Walk can be found here. This year the Walk focused on people buried in the easternmost part of Weston Cemetery. (This week's Rensselaer Republican has an excellent summary of the event.) Next year the Walk will move west to the middle part of the Cemetery.

Have you seen the two trucks sitting in front of the SJC Fieldhouse? They will soon be decorated. They are used for the CDL Academy.

The sidewalk in front of the old power plant is being replaced. It was heavily damaged when the generators were removed.

Saint Augustine has ambitious plans for the future.

Many corn fields look ready for harvest, though the recent rains may delay field work.



I found a tree with leaves that are starting to turn. They should be common in a week or two.

The autumnal equinox occurred on Sunday so we are offically in Fall.