A first taste of winter

Winter

On Thursday the 21st Rensselaer woke up to the first snow of the season. 

I expected it to be gone by the afternoon, but I was wrong. We got more snow in the afternoon, enough to have local schools dismiss students early and lots of events were canceled. The temps warmed overnight so almost all of the snow was gone by the next afternoon. Then on Thursday evening the City had a large water main break and had to shut down the water system. As a result, a boil order was issued and City schools had an e-learning day on Friday.

The forecast for the week after Thanksgiving features real winter weather, with highs below freezing and lows in the teens. Real winter is coming.

Rensselaer City Council meeting

At the November 25, 2024 meeting of the Rensselaer City Council, Michelle Lagestee, representing the Jasper County Trails Club, gave Council members a handout. She complimented Rensselaer for being very walkable and said that Jasper County has been registered with the DNR for trail development. She noted that Jasper County does not have abandoned rail right-of-way to develop as trails, which some counties have. She and the Trail Club are working with the Mayor's office to get funding for a trail from Brookside Park to the Fairgrounds and possibly the Interstate. 

The Council opened a public hearing to discuss vacating an unnamed street and also a portion of Prairie Street. Adjoining landowners requested that the hearing be postponed until the December 9th meeting, and it was. Returning to the agenda, the Council approved several transfers of funds, most of which were to provide matching funding for the Community Crossings grant. The Superintendent of the Gas Department, Carol Lockridge, is retiring at the beginning of 2025 and the Council approved Todd Wilson as her replacement.

The Council approved signing two items, a HWC Engineering Contract for a ADA Transition Plan and Title VI Update and a USDA-RD 2025 Proposed Budget Statement. It also approved a contract with Peerless Midwest for a Wellhead Protection Plan 5-Year Update Proposal. That contract was for $14,750. 

The Water Department had received two bids for a new truck to use by the water treatment plant. The Council approved the Gutwein Motor bid of $62,119. The truck will be ready in April.

The leaf vac was out of service for four days but is now working again. There was a discussion of the City obtaining a system to broadcast emergency information, such as last week's water-main break and resulting boil order. There was a suggestion to see if the City might piggyback on the Sheriff''s system. The Council approved hiring an outside representative for some building department issue.

The Christmas lights are up in the downtown and on Tuesday the Electric Department will finish installing the street lights in Filson Park. 95% of the design work is finished for the crossing of I-65 by the water, sewer, and gas lines. Contractors are finishing up a few loose ends on the Brick Street Project and the Water Tower Project. The Park Department is working on getting a master plan started. After the Christmas Parade on December 7 there will be activities in Both Filson and Potawatomi Parks and there may be a dedication ceremony for Filson Park.

The various offices in City Hall are competing for the best decorated office.

As promised in the City Council meeting, the Electric Department was installing street lights for Filson Park on Tuesday.

Odds and ends

On Monday a crew was busy taking down several large trees in Weston Cemetery. The northwest corner of Section D will look different.

The outer shell of the building trades house at SJC is finished. 

Someone on Facebook noticed new windows on the building next to the new Clinic of Family Medicine and the post lead to an interesting series of comments. 

It looks to me that the old windows, which were probably in very bad shape, were removed and these decorated windows are temporary until new windows can be installed.

The Christmas lights are up in the downtown. 

The Cobre mural, one of the most impressive murals that Rensselaer has, is showing its age. 

There have been crews installing cable for the past few weeks. On Tuesday they were by the First Merchants drive up.

The old Dollar Tree store, which is now empty, has had its lights on for about a month. When I first noticed the lights, I thought maybe something new was going into the space. Now I think someone just forgot to turn the lights off.

More decorated windows

The window painters have been busy and have finished most or all of what they are planning to do downtown. Now they will paint windows of Chamber members that are not downtown. However, the cold weather may stop them. When it gets too cold, the paint freezes.

The next two are on the windows of the Rensselaer Republican.

Jordan Balvich Dentistry.

The picture says it all.

The State Farm office on the corner of Washington and Cullen.

Rule's Auto Care.

Sblendid.

CI Insurance.

The next two are on the Clinic of Family Medicine.

Earth Magic.

First Merchants Bank.

Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Three--make that two--ribbon cuttings

Ribbon cutting for a revived greenhouse

On Wednesday the Rensselaer branch of the Indiana Ag and Tech School (IATS) held a ribbon cutting for the reopening of a green house on the SJC campus. The green house was abandoned when SJC suspended operations in 2010 2017. This year IATS moved its Rensselaer location from the Fairgrounds to the campus and decided to take advantage of the greenhouse.

When I saw the announcement I assumed that they had fixed the old hoop house. They had not. Instead they had repaired a smaller building next to it that included a small greenhouse and a classroom behind it.

The skeleton of the hoop house remains but it will take some work to restore it. That may happen next spring.

Before the ribbon cutting, students who had worked to restore the building spoke. They mentioned that the building was full of mouse droppings and they began cleaning it wearing hazmat suits. They had to replace some of the panels of the green house and there was a lot of work needed to get the hydroponics part of the greenhouse working. They also cleaned, painted, and refinished floors in the classroom part of the building. They were proud of what they had accomplished and deservedly so.

The Rensselaer branch has about 35 students. IATS is a public charter school that draws students from as far away as Clinton County. After the ribbon cutting I had a guide take me through the building and he was an eighth grader from the Rossville area. The bulk of their classroom work is done on-line using Edgenuity, a national provider of on-line instruction. Once a week, on Wednesdays, they meet together at SJC.

Below is a picture of the ribbon cutting. The people on either side of the door are IATS students.

Below is a very short video showing the ribbon being cut.

Below is the classroom behind the greenhouse. There are also some storage closets and a small room used to germinate plants.

To keep the plants from freezing in the winter, the greenhouse has a heating unit.

Those attending were treated to some homemade cookies after the ribbon cutting.

I asked a couple of students why they chose IATS. One girl said she lived on a farm and entered many animals in 4H, but the key to her choosing IATS seemed to be that she was bullied at her regular school. I wish I had talked to more of them and gotten their stories.

Fall fun at Filson Park

A ribbon-cutting event had been scheduled for Filson Park Thursday evening but it was postponed because one of the principals was ill. However, the rest of the planned activities took place including a concert, pumpkin carving, roasting hot dogs, making smores, and the movie, "Hocus Pocus".

The bird that for the past few years has been sitting outside eMbers has a new home. It was given to the City but until now the City had no place to display it.

This ringed globe is new. It was provided by the Prairie Arts Council.

The fire hydrant on the corner has been made into an art piece.

A lot of asphalt patching has been done recently, including around the new sidewalks at Filson Park.

Fire tower dedication

I left Filson Park before the sun set to get ready to go the second planned ribbon cutting of the day. That ceremony began with about 20 minutes of various people thanking the many people who contributed to the planning and building of the fire tower.

There was no ribbon cutting. Instead two hoses were uncoupled. The people standing above were firefighters from Rensselaer with a few from neighboring departments.

Then the best part of the evening began. Those attending were invited to explore the tower, which is constructed from shipping containers. There are many hallways that have white walls. They may not stay white after bales of hay are set on fire as part of training.

Metal stairs take up a lot of the room inside.

I kept climbing until I reached the top so I could take some pictures. The final ascent was on a ladder, not stairs. The bright lights made it hard to get pictures in some directions. Below is the view looking to the east. Notice the partial circle next to the building. That is around a second ladder, this one on the outside of the building. I contemplated descending using it but decided to go back down the way I had come up.

Below is the view of the fire station from atop the fire tower.

Coming back down I left the building to go onto the deck that the firefighters had used for the uncoupling picture. 

After leaving the building, I thought the southeast corner was lit very nicely so I stopped and took a picture. Notice the cage around the ladder mentioned earlier.

The tower will provide training not only for fire fighters from around the state but for other first responders including police and EMTs. One of the reasons that Rensselaer wanted this is to reduce the burden of traveling for training. There is a lot of training needed to become a fireman and if it includes frequent trips lasting a couple of hours, that makes the training burdensome.

Odd and ends

On Thursday morning we had another patchy frost. The first light frost was a week earlier. The first frost damaged some of my garden plants but I do not think it killed any.

Work on converting the old tennis courts at Brookside Park to pickleball courts continues. On Wednesday the foundation was being prepared.

The next step was to put on a layer of crushed stone.

I was asked if I knew what was happening with YNG. I do not know but the large space that they rented in the College Mall is empty. (Update: See comment at end.)

Finally, a picture of Fall.

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.