A first meeting
The newly-established Rensselaer Plat Committee met on Thursday (Jan 30) for a quick meeting. This committee was established on Monday (1-27) at the Rensselaer Plan Commission and City Council meetings. The Committee elected Scott Barton as President and Todd Sammons as Vice President. There was only one item on the agenda, Fenwick Simple Subdivision. The owner of this 3.5 acre lot wanted to divide it into two roughly equal lots, one with barns and grain bins that he would keep and another with the existing residence that he would sell. The Committee found that this plan did not open up any new public right-of-ways, that it met the minimum lot sizes set in the Code for A2 zoning, and each lot met the minimum requirements for road frontage. (Video of the meeting here.)
Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission meeting
The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met Monday evening. Mayor Phillips swore in the members and the members voted to keep the same officers as they had in 2024. (Kevin Smith President, Estel George Vice President, & Jeff Webb Secretary) The Commission approved claims and then voted to convert a loan for sewage work improvements to a grant. This action satisfies the State Board of Accounts and will keep sewer rates from rising even more than they have and will.
The Commission received an update from the Mayor on the I-65 water and sewer extension. Planning is finished. A difficulty in the future will occur when a customer decides to hook up to City sewer but not City water. The sewer bill depends on water usage, but apparently there is an alternative way to determine the charge. In addition, a four-inch gas line will also go under the Interstate, creating a loop to provide more reliable service. There were questions about extending the lines west of CR 1000W. That will require more than additional pipes. If this area can be put into a TIF, the tax revenues from improvements could be used to do the things needed in order to extend the lines. Bids will be opened on February 10.
The Mayor gave an update on 7th Street, which is currently undeveloped. Commonwealth Engineering wants $70,000 to finish plans to develop the area. A motion to move forward was approved.
The Commission approved having meetings in 2025 on first Mondays at 5:00 pm. (A video of the meeting is here. As for the audio, I do not know where that is.)
Rensselaer Park Board meeting
Also meeting Monday evening was the Rensselaer Park Board. They heard that the Woodchuck It disc golf tournament had 23 people show up.
Craig Hooker was sworn in as a new member, filling the remaining term of Rick Williams.
The Board approved a motion to demolish the former Park Headquarters in Iroquois Park. All operations have been moved out of the building. Whatever can be reused will be reused, whatever can be sold will be sold, and whatever can be recycled will be recycled. The concrete pad will remain and its future use will depend on its state after demolition.
The demolition work will be done by park staff and perhaps some other City workers. With the building gone, the back end of the park will be opened up.
The Board also voted to demolish a garage at Foundation Park. It was left after the Blacker Trust bought a house and demolished it.
The new Park headquarters is progressing. The high pressure natural gas line that was needed for electrical generation has been removed and a low pressure line has been installed. Plumbing has been roughed in and there is hot water. The Park hopes that a planning grant can be obtained.
The pool house roof will be replaced this spring. However, the cost has risen because the gables need to be replaced, so there will not be enough money to keep the cupola. Cupolas provide ventilation, but the roofers will add vents to the roof, so it would only be decorative.
The Park Corporation approved spending $2400 to cover the added cost of re-roofing the building. The Gifford Shelter is also scheduled to get a new roof this year.
There was a brief discussion of striping and surfacing the new pickleball courts, but action was postponed until the March meeting. There was a longer discussion of baseball, which I had a hard time understanding because I do not know how the system works. There were thoughts of having the Park sponsor its own tournaments and there were suggestions that the Park-sponsored teams could play teams from neighboring towns. The first scheduled tournament for the Blacker Fields is for April 4-6. There was a concern about too many people parking on the grass and that people attending tournaments do not know that there is additional parking near the pool. The next meeting will be on March 3.
Odds and ends
Garden plots in the Community garden are again available this year. (In the past I had plots there, but have gotten too old to do this anymore.)
In February day length increases by 67 minutes.
In mid-January I had a series of snippets from very old issues of the Rensselaer Republican that mentioned the construction of the first St. Augustine's Church. One of those snippets mentioned Alfred McCoy and I am ashamed to admit that I did not immediately recognize who that was. He was a hero who became a zero. While he was a hero he was a banker, part of the time with Alfred Thompson and they built the building that is now the Beaver Law Office, perhaps the oldest building in downtown Rensselaer. He also had a large farm east of Rensselaer and the little settlement of Marlboro changed its name to McCoysburg. Rensselaer named one of its streets to honor the family, McCoy Avenue. When he retired from banking, his son Thomas McCoy, who was the first mayor of the City of Rensselaer, took over the bank. And then he became a zero. In April of 1904 the bank closed, and hundreds of depositors lost funds. Thomas McCoy was eventually found guilty of fraud and sent to prison. Alfred left town in disgrace and moved to Missouri, where he died and is buried. Rensselaer renamed McCoy Avenue to Milroy Avenue, and someone dynamited Thomas McCoy's house, which was eventually restored by Earle Reynolds, one of Rensselaer's most famous residents. The annual Weston Cemetery Walk found a way to talk about the McCoys because the father of Alfred is buried in Weston Cemetery. (I found an obituary for Alfred and posted it on his find-a-grave memorial.)
The failure of McCoy's bank was local news. The failure of the bank of another Rensselaerian was national news.
On Feb 1 I heard sandhill cranes flying overhead and on Feb 2 I heard a flock of robins.
We no longer have the bitter cold that we had in January, but it has remained cold enough so that some river ice remains. (The view is downriver from the College Avenue bridge.)
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