Approaching the solstice

Pictures

I finally got around to taking pictures of the trees in Potawotomi Park. I am not sure who put up some of the trees.

I think this one is K&W Trucking, Amazon Freight Partner.

Franciscan Health

The one of the right is Fendig Theater and the one on the left is probably ConAgra because it has a picture of Orville Redenbacher on the tree. The one in the middle is Edward Jones.

Chief Industries.

Part of White Castle on the left and the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce on the right.

White Castle Bakery.

Several trees that I did not identify leading up to the White Castle display.

On the left Donaldson and Little Cousin Jasper on the right.

Renew Salon and DAR.

The very blue one is IBEC and the one next to Santa's house is Brushwood Church. The middle one is the Post Office. The closest is either by the Police Department or in honor of the Police Department.

A better look at the IBEC and Brushwood Church trees.

Two Park trees. The one close was planted here a few years ago.

Painted windows at Rensselaer Pet Care.

The decoration on the windows of the Library are more modest than they were last year. The artist was running out of time and daylight when she did it.

Main Street Rensselaer has a light show playing on the Court House.

I have seen a very limited part of Rensselaer after dark, but the parts I have seen impress me with the number of houses with outside decorations. Many are quite elaborate.

Jasper County BZA meeting

The Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeals met Monday evening with three requests for variances on their agenda. First, however, they decided new dates for their January and February meetings. The third Monday of those months are Federal holidays, so they decided to move those meetings to the fourth Mondays. The Board had a new member, Scott Walker who replaced Scott Walstra, who had resigned because he had been elected to the County Council.

The three requests for variances were all from dairy farms and all were for setbacks. The required setbacks are 300 feet from the property line. The first request was from DeJong Family Farms in Gillam Township. They want to erect solar panels to partially power their dairy farm. The Federal government has a program that subsidizes these solar installations. They had selected a parcel of land that was unused for any productive purpose, but that land extended to 75 feet from the edge of Division Road. Not part of the variance, but the Farm wants to add another digester to produce more methane that is then injected into the natural gas pipeline. All the adjacent land is farmland, some owned by the DeJong Farms. Members of the Board wondered if the panels could be located on a different part of the property so they would not need a variance. The lawyer representing the Farms said that the BZA had always stressed preserving crop land and that is what this location did. Other locations would reduce cropland. The Board voted on the three findings of facts and nay votes exceeded yes votes on two of them so the variance was denied.

The second request for a variance was from Windy Ridge Dairy in Union Township. This dairy is on the east side of I-65 north of SR 14. It is the first dairy that was permitted in Jasper County and it also wants to install solar panels because of the Federal subsidy. The solar panels planned would be about 100 feet from CR 1100 W. Again, they had tried to find space that would avoid crop loss. Some of the panels they planned were on a bit of land that was not near the road. The dairy needs to renovate and expand, but none of that will need a variance. The panels are designed to provide 80% of the power the dairy needs when the sun is shining and 35% to 40% overall. The Board again asked if other siting was possible, including perhaps on roofs, but was told that there were problems with roof siting. The attorney representing the dairy was a bit frustrated that the Board was more interested in preserving setbacks than crop land. Eventually the Board decided that they could approve an increased setback that was 45 feet more than the 100 feet that the dairy had requested.

The final variance request was from the Oak Basin Dairy in Barkley Township and this one had no solar but was for an additional free-stall barn that would be less than 300 feet from the farm field to its west. The owner of that property had no objection to the siting. The new barn would add about 1400 additional cows but, when it was built, the infrastructure of the dairy had been planned to handle these cows. This variance passed with little discussion.

County Council meeting

I attended the County Council meeting on Tuesday evening via Zoom because the agenda did not look very interesting. The agenda had six additional appropriations, all of which were approved. There were also several transfers of funds that were approved. A salary ordinance was approved with the comment that the salaries listed are maximums and a department can pay less. The ordinance does not include salaries for the public defender's office.

The Council approved the salary contracts for the Sheriff for both 2024 and 2025. They had previously been approved by the Commissioners. It also approved the contract for its attorney, Jacob Ahler.

Under old business, the Council considered a resolution that says the Council will modify its tax-abatement scorecard to give negative points for commercial solar farms and battery storage facilities. In the discussion one councilman pointed out that the statement that the majority of citizens opposed solar farms had no factual backing. There was a discussion of tax rates and assessed valuation. One member wanted the matter tabled because it had not been available before the meeting and he said he needed time to evaluate it. The motion to table was rejected 2-4. The motion to pass the resolution with one section omitted and another added passed 4-2.

The Sheriff's office wanted to make some promotions so there would be a supervisor on each shift. The Council agreed and will work on implementing it in the next salary ordinance.  The EMS director has resigned and has been replaced by one of the EMTs. The January and February meetings will be in the Court House due to remodeling at the Sparling Annex.

Odds and ends

New County officials were sworn in on Monday evening at the same time as the BZA meeting started.

The rescheduled Tourism Commission meeting was canceled. The next meeting will be in January and it will meet at the meeting room in the Carnegie Center.

The old carriage building that was last used to store stuff for the Fendig Theater is getting a new roof.

Comments on this blog are moderated, which means they do not appear until I review them. The reason for this is that almost half the comments that are submitted are spam. A lot of them seem to be designed for search engine optimization. The more links going to a site, the higher it appears in search-engine results. So I get things from Indonesia and India offering products and services that can not be of interest to the blog readers. 

Another note: Much fuller accounts of the meetings reported on the blog are available in official minutes that can be found on County or City websites. However, they do not get posted until they are approved, which is usually two weeks or a month after the meeting. 

The winter solstice will be on December 21 this year. On that date we will have nine hours and 17 minutes of daylight. By Christmas we will have added 38 seconds more. You can track the changes in daylight at https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/rensselaer-in.

The Christmas parade and more

Christmas parade

On Friday evening the City had a Christmas parade. This year the lineup was on Harrison Street. From there the vehicles went northeast to McKinley and then onto Washington Street, ending at Potawatomi Park.  I decided that I would get better pictures if I took them of the lineup because the light was better. The pictures below are not in the order that the vehicles were in for the parade.

D-1 had several of its large tow trucks in the parade.

The County Fair Queen and her court had a float.

Grace Pentacostal Church of God.

Jasper County Highway Department

There were a couple of horses near the rear of the parade.

Mayor Wood and Mrs Wood in a picture that came out unusually well.

Trinity United Methodists had a Nativity scene, but no live animals this year.

WorkOne or the Chamber of Commerce

I do not remember what this group was.

REMC. The people in the inflatable costumes walked and it looked like it was uncomforable walking in the costumes.

Santa made the parade. He was delivered to his house at Potawatomi Park and heard requests from kids.

Another vehicle from Jasper County Highway Department.

The parade had over thirty entrants. There was a lot of lights and the kids were happy with the abundance of candy.

 More windows and trees

I missed the Baked Bean window in previous posts, but maybe it was one of the later paintings.

Not all of the window painting was downtown and I found some of those below only because I was told where they were. This next one is at Brookside Florists on Vine Street.

Knights of Columbus Hall

The Rensselaer Care Center. I never would have found this one by myself.

Arni's

Gallina Insurance. The others on this street were done earlier than this one.

I am confident that I am still missing some of them.

White Castle

The White Castle expansion has begun. A bit of the old Soesbe Building has been demolished. Also, stone has been spread for what I think will be a large parking lot. I believe that a detention pond will go where the Soesbe Building is. I will have to get to the site more frequently if I want to watch the demolition.

Commissioner's meeting

The Commissioners first December meeting was short, lasting just a bit over an hour. There were four buried cable permits, three of which were simple bores under a road. The other seemed not to have been a bore but a changing of above-ground cables necessitated by a State Highway bridge replacement and now these also need to fill out a permit form. All were approved. 

The REMC broadband manager addressed the Commissioners, telling them that REMC wants to start Phase Two of its plans to provide broadband to the County. Phase One, which was building a ring of towers, has been completed. Phase Two will connect homes to fiber optics in the northeast part of the County. (There will be phases three and four to provide fiber optics to the remainder of the County.) This part of the County is the least well served part of the County. The project will be funded by REMC and by State and Federal grants. It will include about 135 miles of cable, with about 108 on existing poles and 27.4 underground. About 1400 homes will be served. All phases will use about 400 miles of cable. There was no approval of this plan at this meeting because the required paperwork has not been finished. The goal of REMC and County officials (Highway and Surveyor) is to have the plan ready for approval at the end-of-the-year meeting on December 28, REMC hopes to complete this phase in 80 working days once it is started.

There was a public hearing at which no one spoke for an ordinance to put stop signs at one intersection and to put speed limits on sections of CR 900W and CR 1000W. The ordinance was approved. The Commissioners also approved an ordinance that increased the cost of highway culvert delivery from $50 to $150. County Treasurer McEwan had a case of repeatedly trying to have a property owner make good on a check with insufficient funds. The Commissioners approved something that will allow the property to go to the tax sale if payment on what is owed is not paid.

The Commissioners approved a proposal of the Sheriff to pay for accumulated vacation pay of an employee. They also approved filling several current or upcoming vacancies. The Commissioners told the Sheriff that they appreciated the good relations that they have with his department; at a recent meeting with other commissioners they heard horror stories about counties that had bad relationships between commissioners and sheriffs. The Sheriff was asked about license-plate readers. The cameras on the I65/SR10 intersection have worked well and have resulted in several arrests. The others in various other places were provided by a different vendor and the Sheriff is opting out of that contract because of poor service. He will seek a different vendor. He mentioned that there is a lot of Covid in the jail. 

The Commissioners had no suggestions to fill a vacancy on the Library Board but did approve Diva Rish for the Tourism Board. A member of the Animal Control Board sent a letter saying that he did not want to be reappointed and they approved a replacement for him. The County currently houses juvenile defenders in Porter County but Porter County has notified the judges that they will not be renewing that agreement. The County will have to find another County for juvenile offenders and the cost will probably be higher. 

In public comments a woman asked what was happening with the tax cliff that was expected as the result of NIPSCO abandoning the Schahfer plant. She was told that the cliff will largely be averted because of the Dunn's Bridge solar farms built and being built in the northeast part of the County. 

Drainage Board

The Drainage Board, meeting a few minutes after the end of the Commissioners meeting, had several items on its agenda. A person living next to the South Bailey Ditch asked for a variance so he could build an attached garage onto his house. The right of way for the ditch is 75 feet and the edge of the garage would be only 42 feet away. In the past the Drainage Board would have rejected this variance, but the fact that the house is at the very start of the ditch was important to the current members. They approved the variance with the conditions that the landowner take care of the maintenance of his part of the ditch and that he sign a hold-harmless agreement saying he will not sue the County if he suffers any damage as the result of being closer than 75 feet to the ditch.

The Board approved a drainage plan for phase B of the Briarwood subdivision. The drainage plan had been approved in 1993 but DeMotte did something that required it to be re-approved for the undeveloped part of the subdivision.

NIPSCO received approval to cross a regulated drain as part of a bridge replacement project of INDOT.

A citizen noted that there were two beaver dams on ditches near her in northern Jasper County. The Surveyor commented that there had been a lot of beaver dams this year, over 35.

Notes

Former Indiana Representative Douglas Gutwein died on December 1. His obituary is here.

Brookside Park has a new bench in honor of Corey Sanders. It is located near the south entrance to the Park.

Days are almost as short as they will be this year. We only lose another ten minutes of daylight before the solstice and all of it will be in the morning. Starting on the 11th sunset times get later.

Not Your Typical Wingz passed their health inspection and is now open for business. 

Addendum

The Commissioners met on November 20th in a continued meeting. I did not attend. The minutes of the meeting are here. The main business was approval of an economic development agreement for the Walker Township Solar Park. 

It's beginning to feel a lot like winter

Near I-65

The water tower that is being constructed behind KFC is starting to take shape.

The Dairy Queen across SR 114 is being remodeled.

It's beginning to feel a lot like winter

Last week we had a day with light snow during most of the day and then a morning when the temperature got down to 12º. It was cold enough to put some ice on the Iroquois River.

Below are a few more painted windows. The first is at the Rensselaer Library.

The next two are Estel George's State Farm Office.

The final two are at A.S.G. Staffing.

I may have missed a few, but I have now posted pictures of all the decorated windows that I have found.

The trees are arriving for the Christmas Tree Walk in Potawatomi Park. The light was not right for a good picture of this entry from Brushwood Church.

This next one is from the Rensselaer Fire Department.

Santa's house has arrived. 

I am not sure who sponsored the next three trees.

The grinch comes from Chief Industries.

White Castle Bakery and Donaldsons have trees near the River.

I forget who did these trees.

The City of Rensselaer did this closer tree. It may be a permanent tree of the park.

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council meeting on Monday evening was short, lasting only about 25 minutes. It approved a change to the Responsible Building Ordinance that was not explained but it has something to do with apprentices. Several transfers of funds were approved before the Council approved the electric tracker that raises electrical rates for the next quarter by $2.18 for 1000 kilowatt hours of usage. The Council approved a budget for the sewer department that must be submitted to USDA-Rural Development because that agency is funding improvements to the sewer utility. In administrative comments Mr Watson mentioned that the American Legion had served 759 Thanksgiving dinners. The work being done on the streets that have been torn up to replace lead service lines is to prepare the streets ready for patching.

Notes

The last art exhibit of 2023 is now on display at the Fendig Gallery. It is the annual Photography exhibit.

I had heard that the Steffen Jewelry Building had sold and on Thursday I noted an "Open" sign in the window. The store is open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday mornings and is selling odds and ends, much like a flea market. The new owners are remodeling the second floor to make it into a residence. It has not had people living there for many years. They specialize in remodeling homes and this is their first venture with a commercial property. They hope eventually to rent the downstairs to a business.

Not Your Typical Wingz wrote on their Facebook page that they have a health department inspection on Friday and hope to be able to open after that. 

Only about 40% of the students attending Saint Augustine's School are Catholic. Few if any of them pay tuition because of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program.  I think SJC ended up with about the same percentage of Catholic students.

Events this weekend include the Carnegie Players presenting A Christmas Carol, the Christmas parade, and Frosty Fest.