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.

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.

Homecoming and harvest

 Homecoming parade

This past weekend was RCHS Homecoming and on Thursday the school held its annual homecoming parade. I stopped by the line-up to take some pictures because I never know how well the pictures at night will turn out. I was surprised to see so many old cars ready for the parade, but I later learned that the grand marshall was shop teacher Walt Brown who co-founded the JC Cruisers.

In the lineup I took pictures of a couple of floats that I did not capture during the parade

I am not sure which class belonged to each of the class floats.

The FFA had its own float.

The band marched by quickly and my camera did not focus on them well.

At the end of the parade the very loud fire trucks carried the members of the football team.

Lots of candy was thrown to the delight of small and some big kids.

The football team won the game.

October Commissioners meeting

The October Commissioners meeting may have been the shortest of the year, lasting only about one hour. After approving minutes and claims, the Commissioners approved a simple bore request in Keener Township for a fiber optic cable.

The Commissioners and Council have discussed reorganizing the public-defender program for the past year. At this meeting a public-defender plan was presented to the Commissioners for their approval. It was based on a draft that came from the State public defender office. That draft had some changes made in various meetings. It will have a chief public defender officer who will do paperwork currently done by the Courts or the Auditor. The budget should be on the agenda of this month's Council meeting. The Commissioners approved the plan and thereby established the office of the chief public defender.

The Commissioners approved the meeting calendar for the Commissioner meetings in 2025 and also the 2025 holiday schedule. It approved a rezone of 83 acres in Walker Township from A1 to A2 in Walker Township. The owner decided that the land was not worth farming and would be better used for housing. An animal shelter shed was on the agenda but was pushed to another meeting for more information. Community Corrections received approval to replace an employee who left. 

The Sheriff reported that his food vendor is increasing prices by 4%. Also, a service a medical provider was providing free will now have a cost. He submitted and the Commissioners approved a conflict-of-interest form so that one of his employees can be hired to fix a car damaged by a deer. 

NIPSCO is planning a gas-fired peaking plant on its Wheatfield property and has agreed to pay for an analysis of an economic agreement with the County. The County has approved this but has not gotten a final word back from NIPSCO.

The harvest is in full swing and the fields are dry. On the advice of the local fire departments, the Commissioners approved reinstating the burn ban for the next seven days. Bids for various supplies for the Highway Department are going out to be opened in January. The Commissioners approved the contract snow plowing for the same subdivisions that had it last year. The Prosecutor was given permission to fill the position of a deputy prosecutor who is leaving. The meeting was continued to Tuesday, Oct 22 at 8:30 if needed. If the Sparling Annex room is unavailable because of construction, the alternative will be the Commissioners room in the Court House.

Drainage Board meeting

The Drainage Board meeting that followed the Commissioners meeting lasted longer than the Commissioners meeting, which is very unusual. The first item after approval of minutes was an adjustment to the drainage plan for the Genova south parking lot in Rensselaer. They will add a pond and the adjustment was approved with a hold-harmless agreement.

A landowner who has been getting water near the Davidson tile thinks there is blockage in the Davidson tile and would like assistance in finding the blockage. There was a long discussion that followed. The tile is from 1902. No action was taken and he was told to carry a petition to maintain or reconstruct.

The next case on the agenda was from a person who bought a 2+ acre lot in a subdivision that has a house. However, most of the lot is a retention pond that he must maintain and cannot build. He was not at the meeting and no action was taken.

There were two items involving NIPSCO. About a year ago they had received permission to make a temporary crossing of a County ditch on their property to do some work. The work is now done and they would like to leave the crossing, thereby making it permanent. The Board approved contingent on them getting the required permits from other agencies. The second item was a request to cross another ditch with a fiber optic cable. That was also approved.

There was a request for a variance to build a pole-barn building on North McKinley that will be over a tile. Several existing buildings are already over this tile. The request was granted but the owner will now be responsible for that section of the tile and must sign a hold-harmless agreement.

At a meeting on reconstructing the Kelly-Denton tile, the landowners decided they would like the tile replaced with a ditch. The Army Corps of Engineers said no to the ditch but the tile can be replaced because the ditch would drain a wetland. A new public hearing was scheduled for 10:30 on December 2. The location is uncertain because of upcoming remodeling at the Sparling Annex.

Two bids were received for cleaning the Claude May ditch and the lower bid was accepted.

Finally someone in Rensselaer wants to build a garage on a County right-of-way. The house is already on the right-of-way, as are some other homes. The variance was granted with a hold-harmless agreement.

Odds & ends

There were multiple Facebook reports on Tuesday morning of reports of people seeing the Northern Lights.

Steinke Funeral Home shared some pictures of their building when it was the Granlund Funeral Home. I had never heard of name. The Jackson Funeral Home began in 1944 when John Jackson bought the Worland Funeral Business and then in 1949 it purchased the Wright Funeral business. The Wrights were the only funeral home in most of Rensselaer's early history.

The brick streets have fancy new trash cans.

I have seen some harvested fields in the past couple of weeks but on Tuesday I saw a combine harvesting a soybean field along Sparling Avenue.

It stopped and unloaded into a large trailer.

Another sign of fall is the appearance of large preying mantises. For some reason this one thought my bike tire made a good perch.

I have more to write but this post is long enough. More later when I get to it.