A very cold week

County meetings

The County Commissioners had enough items to reconvene their January meeting on Monday morning. I had planned to attend in person because I wanted to see the Commissioners Room in the Court House again, but the new snow and the subzero temperatures changed my mind. I opted to attend via Zoom.

(As I put out my recycling in the morning, I noticed animal tracks in the new snow. A deer and its pet cat must have been by during the night.)

The first item on the agenda was signing the three ambulance contracts. This is done annually and now the size of the subsidies is based on the number of runs each of the services makes. Next the Commissioners made several more board appointments. It seemed that they appointed the whole Jasper County Health Board. They appointed a member to the Remington Plan Commission and four to Northwest Indiana Workforce Development.

The Highway Department has received funds from EDP for culverts in the Carpenter Wind Farm. The Commissioners approved the process for spending them, which will have the Council appropriate the funds and the Commissioners approve the claims. They also approved a financial commitment letter for work on roads as part of the CCMG grant. The project will cost more than $2 million and the County's share will be about $600,000. 

Earlier in December the Commissioners had approved getting quotes for a new railing for the Fase Center. Community Services had obtained a quote from Hamstra for $1750 and it was approved. The Recorder's Office makes documents available on-line via a private third party. That party is changing its software, going away from desktop applications to the Internet, and this new process requires a new agreement. The Commissioners approved having the Recorder entering into a new agreement.

Work has started on a new solar farm near Kniman in Walker Township and there was concern that some stop signs might be needed. The matter will probably need a public hearing. Citizens complained that no agenda for this meeting was published and a short discussion followed. There is no legal requirement for a published agenda for a continued meeting since all items fit under "other business" in the main meeting, but an agenda would be nice. 

The County will be upgrading a storage building at the Highway Department, but before they make the upgrades, some repairs are needed. The Commissioners approved $5108 to make those repairs. They also approved starting the process to get the old sidewalks on two sides of the Court House redone. Finally, they gave approval to the Fair Board to use the Commercial Building for Bingo, which is needed for the Fair Board to receive a State gaming permit. The meeting lasted an hour.

The County Council met on Tuesday evening with two pages of additional appropriations on the agenda. Most were small and seemed to be salary additions. I tried to join via Zoom using the url given on Facebook and also sent to me, but I kept getting asked for a meeting passcode. I did not see any passcode in the page with the url link, so I never joined the meeting.

It is always better to attend a meeting in person but when the weather is terrible, Zoom looks attractive. Next year all public meetings are supposed to be available on-line and because of my age I will probably attend most of the evening meetings during winter via computer. I hope that all the bugs are worked out by then.

Meeting of the Rensselaer Redevelopment Authority

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Authority, which is a different body than the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission, met Thursday afternoon. It has only three members, and one of them, Jacob Ahler, was new. (He is not the attorney for the Authority. That is Todd Sammons.)

The Authority approved past minutes and elected Avery Douglas as president, Loren Berenda as Vice President, and Jacob Ahler as Secretary. The Authority issues the bonds that are attached to the TIF districts, and currently they have only one bond outstanding, one issued to finance the local fire department. Twice a year payments must be made on that bond, and the current payment was for $187,000, which the Authority approved. The bond will not be totally repaid until 2040. There was a question of whether the bond could be paid off early, and the answer was that if it were, the TIF district would lose some of its power. 

The members were given a report from Baker Tilly to review. The State Board of Accounts wants them to meet at least twice a year to approve the bond claims and they decided that the next meeting would probably be in June.

Odds and ends

The County has a new website and it may take me a while to find things on it. I wanted to find an old agenda and got a page asking me to log in. Also, the new pages are not visually attractive and hopefully that will change with time.

Going to the open house for the Harvest Christian Academy last Saturday, I stopped to take a picture of the other side of one of the semi trucks used for CDL training. (I had not realized that each side was different when I posted a picture here.)

This week's Rensselaer Republican has more details about the Harvest Christian Academy than I had in my post.

After the Redevelopment Authority meeting I visited the bowstring arch bridge to see how much ice was on the Iroquois River. Looking downstream toward College Avenue the River was completely frozen over.

But looking upstream toward the Washington Street Bridge there was open water, which was not surprising because there is a little rapids under the bridge.

I could not resist the temptation to take a picture from the bridge of the mural that the low winter sun was illuminating.

It has been a bitterly cold week but the highs for most days next week will be above zero.

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.

Windmills and windows

Monday evening's meetings

The Jasper County Plan Commission and BZA usually meet starting at 7:00. The start was moved up to 6:00 on Monday, probably in anticipation of a long BZA meeting. I decided I should get there a bit early, but when I got there the seating was almost filled and there were some people standing at the back of the room.


The Plan Commission met first and was a short meeting. The first cause was approval of a 2-lot replat in Keener Township. The lot has a house on it and the owner would like to build a second house on the other part of the lot. Other lots in the area are similar. The request was approved and this one does not need to go to the Commissioners for final approval. The second item was amending the UDO with some changes in language. It had been discussed in the October meeting. It will go to the Commissioners with the recommendation for approval.

There was a short delay until 6:15 when the BZA meeting started. There was only one item on the agenda, a special exception for the location of 33 utility grade wind turbines (UWTs) with 2 alternative sites. The total project of the Carpenter Wind Farm will have 45 UTWs but twelve of them are in the Remington exclusion zone and they had been approved by the Remington government boards. The project will be built by EDP Resources, which was repeatedly referred to as EDPR, and will be owned and managed by them. NIPSCO has agreed to purchase the power generated. All will be constructed on land zoned A1, The presentation by EDP stressed the economic benefits of the project. Over the lifetime of the project there will be $70 million paid to landowners and $32 million in taxes, about half going to the Tri-County School system. In addition the project will make an economic development payment of about $6 million to the County. There will be about 150-200 jobs during construction and some permanent jobs because EDP plans to construct an operations and maintenance office in Carpenter Township. 

The presentation had a map showing the land that EDP had contracted for windmills, service items, or setbacks. The box in the lower left shows the area under the jurisdiction of the Town of Remington. The little circles show where windmills will be placed.

The Board members had some questions about tile damage and maintenance. I was surprised that most of the comments from the public were in favor of the project. Three union representatives mentioned how many of their members lived in Jasper County and might end up working on the construction. The head of the Remington Redevelopment Commission said that the City of Remington was in favor of the project. Again, the stress was on the economic benefits from the project. In contrast, a woman living near Remington said she just wanted to live a simple life that did not include windmills. I was very impressed by the EDP presentation. They clearly had done their homework, understood where the opposition to the project was coming from, and tried to disarm those arguments before they could be raised.

The Board then had to vote on several findings of facts. Those given by EDP were long and the Board did not want some of what was in them to be what the Board endorsed. Eventually they got together and edited out some sentences and paragraphs from the EDP copy and approved the edited findings. With the findings of acts approved, the special exception was approved. This was the final regulatory approval needed before construction can begin.

Scott Walstra, chair of the BZA, was elected to the County Council in the November election. He ended the meeting by announcing his resignation from the BZA. 

The next meeting will be on December 16 if there is an agenda.

After the meeting I had a couple of questions. I wondered if the $6 million economic development payment was contingent on getting a tax abatement and learned that the abatement had been approved in 2022. I also wondered about the legal notice shown below from page B8 in the November 14, 2024 issue of the Rensselaer Republican. I was told that it will be used to track overhead airplanes and will turn on the red warning lights on the turbines when a plane is overhead. Otherwise the lights will be off.

Joint Commissioners/Council meeting

The second Joint Commissioners/Council meeting of the year took place before the Council meeting on Tuesday evening. The first item on the agenda was a presentation by David Myers, Wheatfield Township Trustee, and Nick DeKryger of a proposed splash pad for northern Jasper County. Wheatfield Township owns a five acre parcel on SR 10 west of the KV High School that it plans to use for a future fire station. A number of DeMotte Rotarians have been planning a splash pad for the area and decided that this location would be an ideal location. It would be able to serve the whole population of the northern townships and it was big enough for both a park and a fire station.


The proposed splash pad is estimated to cost $2 million. They had prepared a pamphlet  that broke the cost into categories, and there are costs for infrastructure because there is none on the lot at present. They argue that the splash pad would improve the quality of life for the area and would be good for the community and the economy. They said that a splash pad is a low-maintenance amenity (at least compared to a pool) and that it would be free as the splash pad in Remington is. Fundraising for the project has just begun and they would like the County to contribute $500,000. If that happens, it will likely be from economic development funds that the Dunns Bridge II project has paid to the County. These funds have no restrictions on how they are used.

There was a brief discussion of the public defenders' office, which is supposed to begin operating at the beginning of the year. Apparently a head of the office has been selected but that information is not yet public. Still undecided is where the office will be located.

The Council has a moratorium on tax abatements for industrial solar and battery storage and Commissioner Bontreger wanted to know what the Council was thinking. The moratorium is being presented by Councilman Misch and he said he largely copied it from Wells County. There were suggestions that the same result could be obtained by tweaking the scorecard that had been developed several years ago to help businesses and the Council determine abatements. 

County Council meeting

The County Council had a bunch of additional appropriations that it passed. Most were technical bookkeeping. The County hires firms to supervise construction of a solar farm and a wind farm. The companies building these projects have agreed to cover the costs of this supervision. They pay the County, and for the County to then pay the supervising companies, the money must be appropriated.

The Sheriff had a number of salary changes, most due to people changing positions. They will be put into the salary ordinance in the December meeting and additional appropriations needed will be done in January. He mentioned that his department did not get the COPS grant it had applied for. Other places have more serious crime problems.

The Commissioners had approved a new position for the Health Department to help with the increasing number of Spanish-speaking people the Department sees. The Council approved a salary up to $49k depending on experience. 

The agenda had an item "Non-Exempt VS Exempt Status for County Employees. Whatever it was was made moot by a court case in Texas. The Council reappointed a person whose four-year appointment to the Remington Library to another four-year term.


There were two people nominated to fill Scott Walstra's position on the BZA. Scott Walker won on a 4-2 vote.

The Council then had a discussion of the moratorium mentioned in the joint meeting. The purpose of the moratorium was to send a message that the County does not welcome new solar investment. The attorney for the Council said that it would be better to have this done with a resolution rather than an ordinance, which was what Mr Misch was proposing. The main argument for it was that the Council members who had campaigned this year found widespread opposition from the public to additional solar farms. A motion to have the Council attorney draft a resolution passed with two nay votes.

The Council passed three changes to the 2024 salary ordinance. Jacob Taulman said that his search for a third deputy prosecutor had found a candidate with extensive experience and that he would be hiring her at the top of the amount the Council had allowed for this position. She will be part-time for four months so she can finish up her private cases. 

The meeting ended with an inconclusive discussion of where the EMS program should go next.

On the way to these meetings I took the picture below, showing the bare trees at twilight reflected in the River. It looked more impressive than what the picture captures.

New pool mural

At its last meeting the Park Board approved a new mural on the pool house at LaRue Pool. Last Saturday I caught Rein Bontreger working on it.

By Monday the mural was finished. Below is the left side of the mural.

And here is the right side.

More Christmas window art

Below are more pictures of window art. The first two show windows of Uptown Girls Styling Salon.

The next two are windows of Fenwick's Brewing.

Two windows of Cup of Joy.

Some windows of buildings that have multiple offices.

Express Employment.

Three paintings on the Beaver Law Office.

Unique Finds.

Four windows of Sorrel and Rye Mercantile.

Artists at work on DeMotte Carpet.

Two windows of the Lori James' office.

A window of First Merchants.

The window paintings are not finished so expect pictures of more in the future.