The brick streets are open

 Brick Streets

The barricades have been removed and the brick streets (parts of Van Rensselaer and Harrison) are now open to traffic.

On Saturday the still-barricaded Van Rensselaer Street hosted the annual Oktoberfest. I arrived early and enjoyed the German band.

The lead male singer even danced with one of the members of the audience.

I took a couple pictures of the finished bricks. On the left are new bricks that allow water to drain between the bricks and on the right are the old bricks that probably do not drain water well.

The Harrison/Van Rensselaer intersection has new bricks with a herringbone pattern in them. Driving on them is much smoother than driving on the old bricks.

As I said, I came early and there were not a lot of people. Around 5:30 some light rain started, probably an outer band from the remnants of Hurricane Helene. The band decided that the rain was not compatible with their electric equipment and stopped playing. I hung around for a while and then decided to leave before most people usually arrive.

The Truth Bible Church, the new owners of what was the Ritz Theater building, was one of several food vendors.

The Brick Street Ice Cream shop was open for the night. I heard that they had a very busy weekend.

The rain stopped after 6:00 but it restarted again later in the evening.

The remnants of Helene gave us a windy day on Friday but almost no rain. The rain bands stopped just to the south of Jasper County, though Remington may have gotten some showers.

Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council meeting

On Monday the Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council held a special meeting to meet with two representatives from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the administration of a grant of $157,945.77 that the Forestry Council had recently received.

The funding of the grant ultimately came from the Federal government. The Inflation Recovery Act allocated $1.5 billion to be used for trees, and Indiana's share of that  was $4 million. The Indiana DNR awarded 16 grants. The Rensselaer grant was awarded to the Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council and it will be administered by the Jasper-Newton Foundation over the next three years. The grant will fund a database of trees on City property and right-of-ways, community outreach to encourage people to appreciate trees and plant them in their yards, and the planting of 50 trees on City right-of-ways. The grant proposal that was submitted requested support for 100 trees, but the DNR cut that to 50 so the other activities could be supported. Much of the hour-long discussion was about the details of grant administration.

Below the people attending the meeting pose in front of the tulip tree behind the Carnegie Center.

Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met on Monday evening to discuss a proposed residential housing development program. The plan includes a new TIF district that will have a small area from which taxes will be collected and a fairly large area on the east side of Rensselaer in which the revenues can be spent. The areas that will collect taxes from new development are two blocks north of Van Rensselaer School and a strip of land north of Elm Street and south of the Melt Blown company. Spending can be done for road improvements and sidewalks, utility improvements, parks, public safety, and education. No vote was taken. I believe the vote will be during the October 7 meeting. Then the matter will pass on to the City Council.

Odd & ends

From the legals in the September 26 issue of the Rensselaer Republican:

"Notice it is hereby given that the Remington Board of Zoning Appeals will conduct a public hearing  at the Remington Townhall,,,on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at 6:00 pm Eastern Standard Timeon Carpenter wind Farm LLC's application for a Special Exception permit to build 12 wind turbines within the town of Remington's extraterritorial jurisdiction."

The notice goes on to note that this is part of a wind farm of 45 turbines, with the other 33 located in areas under the jurisdiction of the Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeal. The Remington Plan Commission had recommended establishing a wind-farm overlay and the Remington Council had passed it.

Meanwhile White County is considering battery storage to complement their wind turbines.

In downtown Rensselaer the building that houses Short Cuts is getting a facelift.

A&B Auto Care has been closed for several weeks and the building remains for sale.

Concrete for the final bit of sidewalk next to the old light plant was poured on Monday.

Scarecrow Trail

Scarecrows are beginning to appear in Milroy Park. The first put up was the Chief Buildings' scarecrow.

The Rensselaer Gas Utility has a scarecrow with a gas meter as its head.

The tin man is from Valley Oaks Health. The sign on the right says. "I shall take the heart. For Brains do not make 1 Happy and happiness is the Best Thing in the World. 

The Carnegie Players sort of advertise their winter play production.

It will be a musical called "Saving Christmas" written by local writer Peter Schulenburg. Auditions are on October 21 and 22 from 6:00 to 8:00 at Saint Augustine;s Church and performances will be December 12, 13, & 14. The Carnegie Players continue to do some very creative and unusual stuff.

I do not know if one can call the cheery Tri Kappa exhibit a scarecrow.

The Little-Cousin-Jasper display is very small and unusual.

Finally

My asters are now blooming, which is a bit depressing because they are among the very last flowers to bloom in the summer or early fall. The bees love them.

Still blooming is the plant shown below, which is a garden vegetable. I have appreciated it this year because it is one of the few plants that my resident bunnies and squirrels as well as the wandering deer have left alone. Do you recognize what it is?

It is abelmoschus esculentus. (Google that name to learn its common name.)

Lots of meetings

Rensselaer Board of Public Works

The September meeting of the Rensselaer Board of Public Works approved payment of three invoices. The largest was to Thieneman Construction for work on the new lift station. The payment was for $500,036.85 and with the three previous payments, the City has paid 22% of the roughly $7 million that the project will cost. The construction of the buildings continues as does digging to place sewer lines.

The two other invoices were for Commonwealth Engineering, a payment of $26374.28 for their work on the Lift-station project, and $43,688.75 for their work on the elevated water storage and water-main replacement project.

The Board also approved an applicant for an internship at the Fire Department for an individual who will soon be leaving for a military assignment overseas. He will be able to do some of the training while he is out of the country. It also approved use of the Fire Station for a meeting of the Indiana Volunteer Firefighters Association on October 1.

Between meetings I asked Mr. Lockridge how much brush, tree branches, and other debris the City had hauled after the July storm. He said that the City had hauled about 370 truckloads weighing 780 tons. That is much more than the City hauls during the annual clean up week in May.

City Council meeting

At the beginning of Monday's City Council meeting, the Council held a public hearing on its budget. Since there were no members of the public attending (other than me), there were no comments. Nevertheless, the Clerk-Treasurer read the budget. You can find it and the budgets of other Jasper County entities here. (Take a guess: what Jasper County public agency has the largest budget? My guess would have been wrong.) The Council will vote to adopt the budget at its next meeting.

The gas tracker for September will be a 5¢ increase per hundred cubic feet. The Council voted to renew the various health and other insurance policies affecting employees with one change. It switched options for the dental plan.

The City will hold a public auction in the near future. It needs to first determine a date.

Councilman Noelle Weishaar noted that a constituent who was over 65 who is on auto pay did not realize that a smaller can and trash fee was available and he wanted to be reimbursed for the higher fees that he had paid. His argument was that he had not been notified that the lower fee was available to those over 65 who generate only small amounts of trash. After some discussion, the Council decided to refuse his request because the option had been well publicized and members thought it would open a can of worms.

The City is behind on collecting yard waste because three employees have recently moved on to other jobs.

Airport Authority meeting

I attended the start of the Airport Authority meeting on Tuesday evening via Zoom. The members conditionally approved, pending attorney review, a contract with a consultant to work on a five-year capital improvement plan. The plan, when finished, will need INDOT approval. The contract was submitted earlier in the day, which is why the attorney could not review it before the meeting. 

A new hangar rental was approved. Fuel sales for the year to date are almost $180,000. After the members approved a contractor to seal-coat the aprons of the old hangar building, I left the meeting because I wanted to go to another event.

Open-house discussion of Rensselaer's Comprehensive Plan.

Rensselaer is in the process of developing a new comprehensive development plan. The current plan was adopted in 2007, so is probably out of date. (You can find it here.) It has had a survey that citizens can use to provide input. (It is here.) The City has hired a company that specializes in developing these plans and on Tuesday two representatives of the company were at the open house to listen and answer questions. 

There was no presentation, which some attendees expected. There was conversation and while I was there I heard mention of the importance of health care and the hospital, the desire to have a sidewalk/walkway along SR 114 extending at least to the Fairgrounds, possibilities of other sidewalks or trails, the desirability of a truck route to take garbage truck traffic out of town, housing, and some discussion of addiction, mental health, and homelessness. The Coworking Center that SJC is starting was mentioned and it has apparently drawn a lot of interest. Other people attending would have heard a different list of topics.

I took a couple of pictures. The first shows the City's boundaries and also its exclusion zone, where it controls land use (zoning and building permits). The other shows themes, some of which seem to be outdated.

Other things

The first Walk with A Doc session of the Fall was held on Tuesday and attendance was light. It is held each Tuesday at noon beginning at the Hall Shelter in Brookside Park.

The RENARTWK has a new sign near the City parking lot south of Front Street.

Work continues on the removal of engines from the power plant. There is now a very large machine inside the building.

A new opening has been created a bit to the north.

The City of Monticello is considering replacing its swimming pool with a new one. The current one is considered too old—it was constructed way back in 1969 and is 53 years old. (What does that make the LaRue Pool?)

Time March-es on

 At the last City Council meeting, Kenny Haun mentioned that a business expansion was being planned. Perhaps the expansion he was referring to was by Genova. A press release from the Jasper County Economic Development Organization said that Genova will spend $2.3 million to build a 22,000 square foot expansion to its current facility. When completed, the company will hire about 12 new employees.

The annual Easter Egg Hunt will not be a hunt this year but a drive-thru event. The children 2-10 must remain in the car to receive candy. The date is April 3 from 11:00 until the candy is gone or 1:00, whichever comes first.

A new month brings a new round of monthly meetings. The Commissioners met Monday in a hybrid meeting. There was an in-person meeting at the Sparling Annex with a Zoom option that used the new equipment that the conference room has. Only one of the Commissioners was in the room; two attended remotely, one from Florida. There were at one time 20 people on the Zoom link, more than were in the meeting room. I opted to attend the in-person meeting but sat in front of one of the monitors (there are two) so I could see what the meeting looked like on Zoom.

This was not the first meeting to use the new equipment. BZA and Plan Commission meetings had used it for meetings that I did not know about so I missed. I try to find the announcements in the Rensselaer Republican, but the paper has recently changed its format, publishing all the legals from the various papers that Kankakee Publishing owns, so there are now several pages of fine print to scan. 

There were three buried cable requests. The major one was for the methane pipeline that will connect two dairies to the natural gas trunk line. It will be over 7 miles long and will have two pipes in the same trench for most of that distance. The Commissioners requested that the pipeline not use the County right-of-way when it can be located on the properties of the dairies. With that provision, the request to use the County right-of-way for the project was approved. 

The Commissioners approved a rezone from A1 to A2 that had been recommended by the Plan Commission and also a new fee of $200 for filing an appeal. They also approved the NIPSCO agreement that had previously been approved by PTABOA. The agreement settles the tax issues from 2016 to 2019 and sets out how valuation will be computed as NIPSCO shuts down its coal generation.

The Commissioners approved Sheriff Williamson's request to replace two more positions in the jail that are vacant because people left for other jobs. They also approved filling a third position that will result after a retirement and some shifting of people among jobs. He asked the Commissioners to consider replacing three part-time positions in Court House security with one full-time position. He said that currently there were 59 inmates at the jail but the census has been as high as 70 recently.

The County Health Department had given 3670 COVID vaccines as of Thursday. It will give another 740 this week. It has been told by the State to give vaccines only to Indiana residents so people now have to show proof of residency. The Department is preparing to start giving home-based vaccines and has requested the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine for this use because it is a one-dose shot. The County should soon be given blue status because the number of cases has dropped. The truck that the Department ordered has arrived but does not have plates so has not been released to the Health Department.

REMC is planning to provide high-speed internet connections throughout the County. In the northern third of the County where population density is greater, they will provide it with fiber optic cable. In the southern two thirds they are planning to provide it wirelessly. To do that, they will erect 120-foot-tall poles that will provide coverage for a five-mile radius. They asked the Commissioners for permission to place them in County right-of-ways. They will place 8 towers in the first round of construction and 16 more next year. The presenter noted that some neighboring counties are ahead of Jasper in providing high-speed internet and that this service is important for economic development. The Commissioners decided that their previous approval for this project covered the poles. 

The Commissioners moved on the smaller matters. DeMotte and Norwej want to use the County tax statements to collect a hydrant fee. The County Treasurer does not want to add the fee and she has final say, not the Commissioners. The Commissioners opened bids for lawn-care service for the jail, the Sparling Annex, and the Surveyor's office and accepted the low bids. They approved a motion to sign a listing agreement with Jenkins for the now-vacant annex that recently housed the prosecutor. The State legislature is considering a bill that would allow the State to override county restrictions on solar and wind farms. At least 50 counties have passed resolutions opposing the legislation and the Commissioners added Jasper County to that list.

The farmers market will be open from May until October and it was given permission to set use a bit of the Court-House lot. A County auction was tentatively scheduled for the second Saturday in April. Departments that have items to sell need to provide a listing. The bonds for the jail will be paid off in 2022 and there was a brief discussion of the possibility of using the money saved for EMS. The County Coroner said that human remains had been found by two coyote hunters. The meeting was continued until March 15, if necessary.

The frost law is in effect, limiting use of County roads by heavy vehicles. 

The Drainage Board met in a Zoom-only meeting in the afternoon. It received three bids to clean five miles of the Stover Ditch and accepted the low bid. However, Newton County will also have to agree to accept this bid.

There were two items continued from the last meeting, the REMC Fiber Optic Build and the methane pipeline. Both were quickly handled. REMC had agreed to the changes requested at the last meeting so their plans were approved and the methane pipeline had been discussed at the Commissioners meeting and it was approved with the recommendations made there.

In the evening there was a scheduled Park Board meeting that was in-person with no Zoom option. Only three members showed up, which was not enough for a quorum so no votes could be taken. However, the new concession stand for the Blacker Fields needs to be equipped, and the Park Board needs to approve the spending. It will be done with an e-mail poll. There will be 14 tournaments this summer and groups are scheduled to work the concession stand for all 14. The majority are school groups. Someone in the County plans to dig out a small pond and has offered the dirt to the Parks. It may be used to build a hill in Brookside that could be used as a sledding hill in the winter. 

Recently I visited Monticello and noticed a statue in the plaza of the White County Court House.

It was erected as part of the 2016 Indiana Bicentennial. Below is a picture from a different angle.

A closer look at the head.

And the plaque that tells who he was.

I prefer our Milroy statue and I wish we could add another. We do have some local figures with enough prominence to merit a statue: Charles Halleck, Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson and her Greyfriars Bobby, and my favorites, Earle Reynolds and Nellie Donegan Reynolds.

Snow, snow, and more snow (updated)

I have not been able to get out enough to find really good winter pictures. Below is what my sidewalk to the street looks like. Many in the city have much higher snow canyons.

The river alongside Weston Cemetery had nearly frozen over a couple days ago. There is a swift current in this stretch that has kept parts of the river open.

It is not a good time to check out old gravestones.

At least we are ready for cold and snow. The people of Texas were not. 

Are you curious about the generating from the two Rensselaer solar parks? You can see what they are doing here.

The County Council met Tuesday in a rather routine meeting. The meeting was supposed to be in-person at the Sparling Annex with a Zoom option, but it appeared that everyone chose the Zoom option because of the weather and the uncertain status of the roads. First up was a report from Valley Oaks. They receive over $300,000 in property tax dollars and that amount of support seems to be mandated by State law. Valley Oaks provides services in nine counties, the largest of which is Tippecanoe. It started in 1938 and until a couple years ago it had a different name, Wabash Valley. It provides services for mental health and addiction. It employs 28 people from the Rensselaer office, with two more ready to start and three open positions. The bulk of their payments come from Medicare or Medicaid. Last year they served about 400 Jasper County adults and about 250 youths. They closely cooperate with area schools.

Next up was Judge Potter, who mentioned that relations between Jasper County government and Valley Oaks had improved over the past couple years. He also mentioned that Tippecanoe County has been hiring away our public defenders because they pay considerably more, but that was not his concern at the moment. Rather it was the pay discrepancy between what the local CASA director is paid and what CASA directors in comparable counties are paid. (Judge Potter oversees the CASA program.) His suggestion was to use grant funding to supplement the pay in the same way outside funding supplements the salary of the director of Community Corrections. The Council accepted his suggestion and he will draw up an agreement for the next Council meeting.

Sheriff Williamson returned this month with two options to allow the northern School Resource Officers to use overtime to patrol roads before and after school hours. The Council approved the five-day option.

The Council approved some additional appropriations that had been tabled from the last meeting. Most had been in the budget book when the Council set the County budget but for some reason had not been approved in August during the budget meetings. 

Members of the Council expressed appreciation for the State, County, and local plow crews for clearing the roads.

Covid vaccinations took a break on Monday and Tuesday because of the weather but are otherwise proceeding smoothly. The Coroner reported he has had 35 cases so far this year and has spent a third of his budget. He expects to be before the Council to request an additional appropriation in the future.

My other Zoom meeting this week was with the White County United Way where I serve on a review panel for grant requests. The White County United Way received a substantial grant from Lilly to help not-for-profit organizations in Jasper, White, and Pulaski counties that have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. The grants are supposed to be awarded and spent by the end of July. If you are part of a not-for-profit organization that can make a case that your organization has been harmed by the pandemic, contact the White County United Way to see if you might qualify. They are prioritizing funding for programs and agencies that:

•  Ensure sustainability of our regional social service network
•  Reduce gaps in services, particularly for healthcare and mental health access
•  Increase services offered via alternative or virtual delivery
•  Increase the # of individuals who access services for basic needs
•  Increase the # of individuals participating in healthy food access/nutrition programs
•  Increase the # of children enrolled in childcare or education/engagement programs
•  Increase the # of volunteers engaged in addressing community needs
•  Increase the # of social sector jobs retained through organizational financial supports 

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A couple of quick additions.

Main Street Bakery of Francesville Medaryville is planning to expand to Morocco. It will remodel a building in the downtown and hopes to be open by August. Main Street Bakery bought the equipment and recipes of the bakery that formerly was in downtown Rensselaer.

A recovery house for women called the House of Grace will open their second location on the campus of Saint Josephs’s College. Apparently this has been in the works since October. Here is an announcement by SJC.

A couple of exhibits

The Prairie Arts Council has a new show at the Fendig Gallery featuring art from Jasper County Art League Members. This is an annual show with a theme and this year the theme is "Reflections".

There are fewer works this year than in past years.

There are a number of mirrors among the art works, highlighting the reflections theme.

The inspiration for the painting below is Willow Slough.

You can see the reflection in the eye below, but what about the flower? It was created by the artist after reflection on the isolation during spring this year.

The picture below shows a lamp post in Wabash, the first city to install electric lights according to the note with the picture. Hanging from the lamp is a representation of an early electric-arc lamp, a reflection of the past.

The Gallery hours are noon to 4:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The show runs until the end of September.

Another exhibit that has involved a lot of work and is not yet available to the public is an exhibit at the Jasper County Historical Museum featuring Jasper County authors. Unfortunately, the museum is currently closed because of the Covid virus. The organizer of the exhibit has so far found about 90 people who can be called authors. A few had books that sold into the millions (such as Edison Marshall and Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson), but most have quite modest readership.

 There are dozens of posters with a picture of the author, a short biography, and other information. The exhibit also includes some of the books or articles that the authors wrote.

It is an interesting and impressive display and sometime in the future it will be available to the public.

How many Jasper County authors can you name?

If you get up before sunrise, you may have noticed Venus in the morning sky. It is extremely bright.

In important news, Franciscan Health Rensselaer is planning to close its AlternaCare unit at the beginning of October. Details are in the Saturday Rensselaer Republican.

Here are some additions to the post on the Wolcott murals. The artist of the mural on the Dye Lumber building is Janson Rapisarda who signs his work CERA. More on him here, here, and here. The artist of the woman is Nicole Salgar. More on her here and here. The Republican has more on the Wolcott murals.

Wolcott murals

Wolcott has long had a mural that faces the railroad track. It features the Wolcott House and is showing its age.

Last week and this week the town is adding two murals that are sponsored by Wolcott Main Street in partnership with the Tippecanoe Arts Federation. Wolcott saw what Rensselaer did and wanted to do something similar. The larger of the murals is on north side of the Dye Lumber.

 It is so long that it is hard to see in one photograph. Below are three pictures that break it up.

The artist for these is from near Chicago. I asked how he was selected and he said that Wolcott Main Street was shown the work of several artists and selected from them. He was given a list of things that the mural should reflect, things like rural and patriotic, and he submitted a sketch that they approved.

The other mural is on one of the buildings in the old downtown.

The artist is Nicole from Miami. She started last week and should be finished before Friday.

Wolcott is getting two splendid murals. I am impressed with the efforts of the local citizens to improve their town.

On the way back to Rensselaer I passed by the Smith Transport building that is under construction just to the east of Advance Auto. I did not feel it safe to stop and take a picture, but the building is huge.