Mostly more meetings

 Open house at fire station

The Rensselaer Fire Department had an open house last week and it attracted a lot of parents with children. Below Sparky is interacting with a couple.

The inflatable house that the Department has been taking to schools to talk about safety was set up.

Alliance Bank was one of several places kids and adults could get a treat. There were also cookies, popcorn, and apple slices drenched in carmel and sprinkles.

One of the stations that attracted a really long line had a fire alarm that a kid could pull and then use a fire extinguisher to electronically put out an electronic fire. The alarm was almost always going off and it was annoying. (I guess that is the goal of a fire alarm.)

I enjoyed watching little kids tossing a ball into Bozo buckets to get candy or a prize. A lot needed more practice.

Rensselaer Board of Public Works meeting

In its meeting on Monday afternoon, the Rensselaer Board of Public Works & Safety approved two applicants for the Fire Department. It then approved paying four invoices, two from Commonwealth Engineering for $9,607 and $12,331, and two from Maguire Iron for $162,685 and $$20,550. Work on the Drexel water tower is not finished. The work that is being done is inside the tank.

The Board then approved moving forward with an engineering agreement with Commonwealth for the long-term sewage control plan. This plan will have three sections, the waste-water treatment plant, an interceptor line, and relining the Melville sewer. The goal is to have it finished to have bids by April and close with the State Revolving Fund (SRF) by June. I did not catch the amount of the agreement.

Finally, the Board approved using funds left over from the water project to replace the water main along McKinley from Angelica to Vine and to also replace some lead service lines. The section of the water main along McKinley is a problem section that has had several leaks. The use of funds also needs SRF approval.

Rensselaer City Council meeting

Half an hour after the start of the BPW meeting started, the Rensselaer City Council met. After the usual preliminaries, the Major asked for citizens' comments and got one. A woman wants an ordinance that closes to vehicles undeveloped alleys, where the City owns the land but there is no roadway. Her concern comes from a neighbor who insists he has a right to drive down the undefined alley and may be driving on her property. The City will investigate her problem.

Next the Council had a public hearing on the proposed closing of the Scott Street rail crossing. Only one citizen spoke, asking why the City wanted to close the crossing. The City will receive about $80,000 from CSX for closing the crossing and would like to use the funds to pave the area around the depot and fix the drainage in that area. The Scott Street crossing does not have a stop light, unlike other crossings. Once closed, the City will not be able to reopen it. The vote on this matter will be taken at the next Council meeting.

Community Services, which operates the only public transportation service in Jasper County, would like the City to provide $12,000 as it did last year to support its transportation services. 95% of the trips it makes are in Rensselaer and it charges only $1 for a trip. It has 9 vehicles and will be getting a new one at the beginning of the year funded by a grant but must provide a cash match. The Council took no action at this meeting.

The Street Department had sought bids to remove 29 trees, 26 in City right-of-ways and three in the Cemetery. The low bid was from Timber Tree Service for $22,715 and the Council approved accepting the bid.

The Chief of Police would like a revision to the golf-cart ordinance so that only golf carts will be registered and not UTVs (utility task vehicles). He would like the ordinance to grandfather in UTVs that have already been registered but not allow any new ones. No action was taken at this meeting because the item was meant only for discussion.

The Council received an AMI metering update. AMI stands for Advanced metering  infrastructure and the meters are smart meters, able to communicate with the utility, allowing the supplier to catch problems quickly. Most or most of the electrical and water customers have AMI metering, but there are no plans at present to do gas. Installation of AMI meters is ahead of schedule.

The Council approved Grimmer pay request #7 of $211,504.50 for work on the Brick Streets project. The project is finishing up with items from a punch list being addressed. The Council passed the 2025 budget. It transferred $74,000 from this year's budget to the rainy-day fund. It did not pass the 2025 salary ordinance because there were still some changes to be made for on-call work. The gas tracker for October is a 1.5¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet.

The Council approved spending $250 for a ribbon cutting event at Filson Park on October 24. There will be pumpkin carving and other events including a free movie after. There will be a second ribbon cutting on the 24th, this one at about 7:00 at the fire station for the new training tower.

Mr Watson commented that a truck being used by the water department was embarrassing and told them to seek bids for a new truck. New police cars have been delivered and are being made ready for service. About 400 people attended the open house at the fire station last week. The burn ban has been extended for another seven days. The electric department sent people to the area hit by Helene to help restore power. The leaf vac is ready to start picking up leaves. Letters to homeowners with lead service lines will be sent in the next few weeks. The Council approved the Cemetery purchasing two mowers from next year's budget.

Jasper County Council meeting


At Tuesday's meeting the Jasper County Council approved its 2025 meeting schedule with meetings at 6:00 on the third Tuesday of each month. It then moved up approving the budget of the Rensselaer Central School Corporation so the representatives could attend the School Board meeting that also meets on third Tuesday evenings. The current enrollment in the Corporation is 1438. The Corporation recently closed on a bond with a lower-than-expected interest rate of just under 3%.


Returning to order on the agenda, the Council approved a memorandum of understanding with the Jasper County Soil & Water Conservation District about the splitting the salary of an employee of the District. It then heard from the Prosecutor, Jacob Taulman, about the salary of the 4th deputy. The person in that position is leaving for a much higher salary. The salary is listed at $57K in the salary ordinance, which is considerably less than the salaries that will be paid to part-time public defenders and may not be enough to attract qualified applicants. After discussion of what the salary should be, the Council passed a motion to allow up to $96k. That will be put in the Salary Ordinance in December and an additional appropriation will have to be made next year.


The Council held two public hearings. The first was to modify the local option income tax rate. The Council wanted to increase the amount going to Emergency Medical Services and reduce the amount going to the stabilization fund. (The Stabilization Fund is money the State withholds from the County so that if there is a year with unusually low tax receipts, the County budget will not have to drastically shrink.) In the discussion, a citizen pointed out that the numbers that the President of the Council read were not the same as those published in the newspaper. The changes passed with the note that the advertised numbers were incorrect.


The second public hearing was to modify the property tax credit rate allocations between the three property tax classifications. I did not understand this item or the discussion. The three classifications are 1) homesteads; 2) residential, agricultural, long-term care, and other tangible property; and 3) nonresidential real property, personal property and other tangible property. The first two had their credit slightly increased and the third slightly decreased.

The Sheriff came to the meeting late because he did not realize that the Council had changed its start time to 6:00 from 7:00. He noted that the price of meal service is increasing. He said that his department has had eight deer-car accidents and as a result of this and some other factors, he will need more in his auto budget to finish the year. It will be on the agenda for the November meeting. He reported that the Department's retirement fund has had very good returns for the past two years and is now 81-82% fully funded.

The Council then approved its budget and also the budgets of the Airport Authority, the Northwest Solid Waste district, and the Iroquois Conservancy.

Karen Wilson from Emergency Management reported that she has been working with others collecting supplies for the area hit by Hurricane Helene and they have filled one truck trailer and part of a second. She also said that her office had received a grant of $150K to purchase radios for local first responders.

The next meeting will be on November 19th with a joint Commissioners/Council meeting preceding it at 5:00.

Odds & ends

Here is a link to a video, most shot by drones, showing the construction of the new water tower.

Over the weekend this is what the house being built by the Building Trades program at SJC looked like.

The Fire Department has a scarecrow in Milroy Park.

I had a picture of the gas department scarecrow in an earlier post, but the light was much better for this picture.

I had a picture of the Chief Industries scarecrow earlier, but in that picture it did not have a head.

There is a comet in the western sky just after sunset. I have not seen it yet but it is supposed to be quite bright.

The cold north wind on Tuesday created lake-effect rain, but it mostly passed to our west. The forecast is for frost early Thursday.

Early voting is taking place at the Court House.