Winter

Meterological winter starts December 1 and lasts through February. Astronomical winter does not start until December 21, the winter solstice. I prefer to start winter now because then spring starts earlier.

I hate the short days of winter. On December 3 the day will be 9 hours, 27 minutes and 53 seconds long. (That number is from https://sunrise-sunset.org/us/rensselaer-in). The shortest day will be December 21, with 9 hours and 17 minutes. It could be worse. I have a niece in Winnipeg Canada and on December 3 her day will be 8 hours, 25 minutes, and 16 seconds long.

 Odds and ends

The Rensselaer Library celebrated 30 years in its current building on November 30. Visitors on that day could enjoy cake and cookies. 

As part of the celebration, the Library had invited patrons to submit artwork inspired by adventures that the library had inspired them to take.

In the former Library building the Prairie Arts Council now has its Celebrating Photography exhibit. It will run until January 5. The PAC has announced their 2023 schedule. The first four exhibits that last until mid April are the regional school shows. The Annual PAC Member Show fills May. June and part of July will feature local artist Abbie Parmele and August and September will feature Lilian Fendig. In October there will be a Jasper County Art League member show with the theme of "Fendig Inspired." And finally in December the Fendig Gallery will host the annual Celebrating Photography exhibit.

On Facebook Pottsy's announced he had paid off the bowling alley. In the comments, someone asked about reopening and he replied, " I’d love to give you a date but my installer sawed his finger off. Literally. He is one of the few in the country. He only has 2 weeks left to finish. But when will he get back."

Christmas decorations have been painted on some of the windows downtown.

Sage Bridal is no longer in this building but S-blended Nutrition has not finished moving in. The opening at the new location will be Saturday.

More windows were being painted on Friday.

I missed the ribbon cutting at the high school pool last week, but I expected that the Republican would give it excellent coverage. I was not disappointed. See here or on the front page of this week's edition.

The Republican has begun to cover Commissioner and County Council meetings. The reporter is Cheri Shelhart, who does an excellent job—I used to check her stories to see if I had made mistakes in what I posted. She writes for the Kankakee Valley Posts News, Demotte's paper.

There will be several businesses moving and one closing in the next few weeks. Steffens Jewelry will close before Christmas. The optometrist next to Aydas is moving soon to what was Jordans Floral and their current office building is for sale.

Work has begun on a storage building/garage for the Health Department, though it is only site preparation for a concrete slab. The location is to the west of the parking lot at what I call the Sparling Annex.

City Council meeting

The City Council met on Monday evening (November 28) and had four items on the agenda for utility rate changes: for water, sewage, electricity, and gas. A person from Baker Tilly, a consultant firm that prepared the rate-change recommendations, gave a long explanation of the state of the utilities, their debt, new and construction underway, changes in federal and state rules, and anything else that might affect the rates that they should be charging. He said that the recommended changes should cause about a 2% rise in the average utility bill. To pass these changes, a public hearing is required and that must be advertised. I see that a special Council meeting is scheduled for December 19 and I suspect that is when they will be approved. The vote at the meeting was to move forward with the process.

Twice a year the City must file a financial report with the USDA Rural Development department (which has given the City grant money) and the Council approved filing the report. The Council approved the three supply bids that it received at the last meeting (for gasoline, diesel, and tire services). The Council approved $2000 for an employee Christmas party/lunch. Next week the purchaser of the Wärtsilä generator will begin removing some of the components of the system.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for Friday morning did not have a quorum so no business could be done. The few attending discussed changing the meeting time. Friday was seen as undesirable and I think they eventually settled on the second Tuesday of the month. That would make January 10th the next meeting. They very briefly discussed the new tourism logo, which you can find on the Discover Jasper County Facebook page. There will be carriage rides in Rensselaer on December 10 and 17 from 5:00 until 8:00. More here. Someone mentioned that a Dunkin Donuts has opened at the DeMotte on SR 10 West of I-65. 

A final post for August

 On Friday S-Blended Nutrition had a ribbon cutting. The business is not new. It opened several years ago as Healthy Haven. The original owner sold it and then recently repurchased it. She decided it needed a rebranding and hence a new name, which is not supposed to be pronounced as "ess blended nutrition" but as "sblended nutrition" with "sblended" sounding almost like "splendid".

The owner also owns two other juice bars, one in Monticello and the other in Brookston. Below is the menu.

Ayda's is erecting a roof over its outdoor seating area. It should be ready for Spring 2023 seating.

The new tennis courts at Brookside Park are painted and ready for use. They also have the markings for pickleball.

Work on the restrooms at Foundation Park has made some progress. This work is being done with money raised by Rensselaer Baseball (RBI).

There is nothing currently in the new addition.

On Saturday mornings the Foundation Park is very busy with youth soccer. 

The pool at Brookside Park was drained last week. It had a good season in 2022.

Most of the metal from the demolition of the cooling tower at the power plant has been removed.

On Monday the dumpster of trash was picked up and hauled away.

I took a peek at the construction site for the new lift station over the weekend. The building is finally starting to emerge.

Last week I traveled on SR 10 near Wheatfield. I saw a number of fields that are part of the Dunns Bridge solar park and almost all had the posts up but no panels. 

In mid August I traveled south on I-65 and in checking gasbuddy.com I was surprised to see that the gas prices in Rensselaer were among the lowest along the route. At least until Kentucky, where Elizabethtown had prices about 50¢ a gallon lower. For years Lebanon has had low gas prices but not this time.

The Saturday Farmers Market had entertainment this past weekend. 

I noticed a poster on the door of City Hall announcing that SJC was establishing a Coworking Center and renting office space. When I first looked at their website for more information, there was nothing there. But now there is. I hope this endeavor works out well. It provides a resource that the community currently lacks.

On Wednesday evening at 7:00 the Ritz Theater will show a video of last year's cemetery walk. The admission is $5.00. Among the people featured last year were Samuel Sparling (1809-1894) for whom Sparling Avenue is named (he lived near where the Sparling Annex is now), Moses Marion (1791-1869) who fought in the war of 1812, Harry Kurrie (1875-1938) who was president of the Monon Railroad, and author Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson (1863-1942). Planning for this year's Walk is almost complete and tickets are on sale at Browns Garden Shop and the Willow Switch.

The longest days

    Current art show

The current art exhibit at the Fendig Gallery features art mostly from Southeast Asia that is in the permanent collection of the Gallery. It was donated a while back by Father William Stang who for quite a few years taught biology at SJC.

The exhibit runs until July 17 and the gallery is open Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. (See here for more.) I had no idea that things like this were in the permanent collection. I wonder what else is there. It would be nice if the Gallery would post a couple items from the collection, and change them each month.)

Odds & ends

Tuesday was the summer solstice, the day with the most daylight in the northern hemisphere. For the next six months daylight will slowly lessen.

I saw this robotic lawnmower busily mowing grass recently. 

There are several construction projects underway. New dugouts are being constructed for the Roth Field in Brookside Park.

The High School is getting a new roof.

The foundation of the old Fletcher Monnett home is being removed. It is next to the REMC building and eventually REMC will probably build something there. I was told that the house was a disaster inside when people from REMC inspected it.

Lots of dirt is still being moved in preparation for a new lift station just to the east of Weston Cemetery. It is hard to see exactly what they are doing because visitors are not welcome at the construction site.

The former Clinic of Family Medicine is now the Liberty Clinic. Last week the Rensselaer Republican had an article about the new garden on the grounds.

There will be a Mural Week this summer, from July 18 to the 23rd. The focus will be in surrounding communities, especially Remington.

The Little Library in front of the Court House sign on the corner of US 231 and SR 114 now has books in it. 

There are lots of tadpoles in Weston Pond. With the hot days in the forecast, the pond may dry up quickly. 

Long ago

I found this article while reviewing microfilm in the Rensselaer Library.

I am pretty sure that this Howard Clark is the Howard Clark that later became the editor of the Rensselaer Republican. At the time this was written his father was an editor and Howard was working at the paper. I could not find anything about Lloyd Parks. 

I like the last paragraph. At the time the Washington Street Bridge was an iron truss bridge so the top was 15 to 20 feet above the river. The Creamery Bridge is now the College Avenue Bridge.

July of 1915 must have been a very wet month. In the next issue of the Republican there was a report that the onion crop was a total loss because of too much water in the fields. (At one time onions were an important crop in Jasper County.) And then a bit more than two weeks later a young boy who fell into the River did drown. It would take another drowning thirty one years later to move Rensselaer to build a swimming pool. I wonder how many drownings the public pool has prevented.

County Council

The Jasper County Council met Tuesday evening in what was supposed to be a hybrid meeting, in person with a Zoom option. I am glad I decided to attend in person because the Zoom part never happened. 

Mark Sinclair from Animal Control told the Council he would like to fill a full-time position that has been vacant for several years. The money for that position is no longer in his budget so he wants the Council to restore it. The Council took no action at this meeting and Mr Sinclair did not expect them to.

The County Clerk wants to move part of her office, that part that works for the Superior Court, so she will have room to store new election equipment. She would like to upgrade the office furniture of the three employees who will move and thinks the move time is an ideal time to make the upgrade. The cost is about $5400. The Council voted to support the request but needs to advertise for an additional appropriation and pass it at the next meeting to allow the purchase to take place.

The Sheriff recently lost an officer who took a job with the Federal Marshals program. He has hired a replacement, a man who was a deputy in the Department from 2013 to 2016 and then was deployed to Afghanistan. After his return he worked as a police officer in Houston so he has nine years of experience in law enforcement. The Sheriff would like to hire him at the pay grade of a deputy with seven years of experience and needs an additional appropriation to do that. The Council supported his request but will need to advertise and approve an additional appropriation at its next meeting.  The Sheriff also wants to make some changes for merit retirement, raising the death benefit and allowing those without wives to have beneficiaries. The Council is one of the bodies that must act to make these changes.

The Council passed four additional appropriations. Two were for the Sheriff's Department, allowing officers to start at pay with several years of experience. One was for the absentee voter board and the fourth was for software and a computer for warning siren maintenance.

The Council approved the last year of an abatement for Wilson Chemical. The company continues having problems hiring drivers. A future abatement in the works is a seven-year abatement for a methane pipeline connecting three dairies with the natural gas trunk line that runs through the County. This is a $15 million dollar project. The Council approved a motion to have its attorney start working on the abatement and whatever else needs to be done to get the project started.

The final item was a discussion of whether a dedicated funding source can be found for County EMS service. There is a new State law taking effect on July 1 that allows for a county income tax to be dedicated to EMS, but for a county to pass that tax, it must meet conditions. It is not quite clear what hoops the County needs to jump through to meet those conditions. This topic may be discussed further at the joint Commissioner/Council meeting in July. There was a bit of concern that a new tax might not be well received if it is not offset elsewhere with a tax reduction.

Suddenly Summer

Odds and ends

Last week we went from cold Spring weather to hot summer weather in just a couple days. 

The new Walgreens store looks like it is ready to open. Last week the parking area and drive through were paved and painted and signs were put up. In a letter to customers, Walgreens said that they would be closing the current store on Wednesday, May 25 and opening at the new location on Thursday, May 26.

I hope some business moves into the old building.

The outdoor patio at Fenwicks is finished.

The Chamber of Commerce had a luncheon on Wednesday that featured a presentation about Appleseed Childhood Education. They are almost ready to start taking applications for enrollment. If they have more children enrolled than the 70 or 72 limit, they will use a lottery to determine which children to enroll. The design work for the building is finished and the renovation of the building should begin in a month or two. Check their website for more information.

Browns Garden Center recently changed ownership and the new owners had a ribbon cutting on Friday.

Maple trees produced a lot of seeds last year and there are hundreds of them sprouting in my yard. Fortunately, mowing gets rid of them.

A librarian told me about Joseph Harkin, a man with an unusual life story who lived for several years in Jasper County, probably only in the summer. What made him unusual? Read it here.

In Theater news, The Carnegie Players will present The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on June 16-18 and the Fendig Theatre for Children will present Beauty and the Beast on July 7-9.

The last Walk-with-A-Doc event took place on Tuesday. The topic before the walk was mammography and I was surprised to learn that Franciscan-Rensselaer has a more capable and newer mammography machine than Franciscan-Lafayette.

The Jasper County Historical Society held its monthly meeting on Tuesday evening. The meeting heard about the Library's project to digitize newspapers from the 1850s to 1920, an update on the planning for September's Cemetery Walk, recent acquisitions of materials about the George Marshall and Bartoo families, and a presentation on Rensselaer murals.

Jasper County Plan Commission

The Jasper County Plan Commission met Monday evening in the Commissioners' Room of the Court House. They had two items on the agenda. The first was a request for a rezone of 15 acres in northern Newton Township from A1 to A2. The reason for the request was that the owners wanted to follow up the rezone with a request for a three-lot subdivision that would allow them to sell five-acre lots for residences. A neighbor strongly objected because he did not want residences there. After discussion, the Commission voted to sent the request on to the Commissioners with an unfavorable recommendation.

The second item on the agenda was architectural standards in the UDO.  They apply to R1 and R2 zoning and specify things like roof pitch and the number of garages required for a house. The question was why should the Commission regulate details of architecture when they already require buildings to meet an international residential code and all the R1 and R2 zoning is in subdivisions that have their own regulations and covenants. The Commission moved to strike that section from the UDO. This probably will also need to go to the Commissioners.

The rest of the meeting was a discussion of how to deal with people who have offensive trash around on their properties.

County Council meeting

The Jasper County Council met Tuesday evening. It approved some additional appropriations for spending that they had blessed at previous meetings, such as new radios for Community Corrections, license-plate-reading cameras, and spending from the Animal Shelter donation fund. Abatements were on the agenda but that item was moved to June. A grant for the Sheriff was also on the agenda but his grant writer is not available so he needs to find another grant writer. 

Several months ago the County had approved a tax exemption for companies installing new broadband, but the Assessor needed Council approval of some forms to meet State requirements. The Council gave that approval. The exemption lasts for five years and has the same effects as a tax abatement but is done in a different way.

Bret Risner began a discussion of County health insurance with the introduction of a couple of spokesmen from a company that works with Benton County on their health insurance. They thought that there were areas in which Jasper County could improve. I could not follow some of the discussion and eventually it became a discussion between the two spokesmen and Commissioner Culp who was on Zoom. Health insurance is something that is the responsibility of the Commissioners, not the Council.

Mostly odds and ends, May 2022

Odd and ends

The Tourism Commission did not meet on Friday because not enough members could attend to have a quorum. There was little on the agenda and no funding requests.

The winner in the only interesting contested race in last week's primary election was Kendell Culp, who is the Republican nominee for state representative. I was disappointed to see that one of the other candidates resorted to misleading attack ads.

There has been no noticeable activity at the power plant for the past week.

The windows of the old bakery downtown are covered in paper. I heard from people who usually know that an eatery of some kind is planned for the space.

I traveled to Kentucky over the weekend. You can find gas for less than $4.00 a gallon there and the trees seem to be fully leafed out. We stopped at a new Buc-ee's south of Richmond. I had never heard of the chain until a few weeks ago and was amazed at what I saw. Buc-ee's started in Texas and now is expanding. The Kentucky Buc-ee's features 100-200 fuel pumps and a huge convenience store that was packed with people. Search for it on the Internet to find more.

On the way home we wanted to stop at the KFC outlet on US 24 at Remington and were surprised that it is no longer open.

Morocco was featured in a film broadcast on WTTW. You can view it online here.

Over the weekend the Blacker Fields hosted another tournament. I think the Friday night games were canceled due to the rain.

The roof over the outdoor seating at Fenwicks is finished and the area is open for dining. The new Walgreens seems ready to have its drive-through and parking areas paved.

As I type this, I can see a tree frog on my window. It is the first frog I have seen this year.

City meetings

The Board of Public Works met Monday evening and approved paying three invoices. In the City Council meeting that followed, the Council approved use of Filson Park on July 23 for an Art in the Alley event. It also approved the Cylinder and Snacks Car event on Front Street for Thursdays starting May 26. (Last year the event was scheduled for Tuesday evenings.) The car events will run from about 5:00 to 7:30. The Council also approved street closings for the Little Cousin Jasper festival in September.

The meeting had a short agenda. There was an additional appropriation and a couple of transfers. The gas tracker for May will reflect a 14¢ increase per hundred cubic feet. The Council approved the Mayor's holiday of September 2, which will add a day to the Labor Day weekend. 

Councilman Cover suggested that the Park Superintendent get some estimates for a new park headquarters. It will likely be located in Brookside Park where the tennis courts are now. 

The Chief of Police announced that a new car ordered in November will be delivered this week. One of the Department's dispatchers received the Indiana EMS Association (IEMSA) award for 2021 dispatcher of the year. She will soon leave the Department and take a job for Courthouse security.  The City has begun work on a new comprehensive plan. The work is funded by a grant obtained through KIRPC. The existing plan dates from 2007. 125 people attended the Gas Department open house and enjoyed the lunch provided. For cleanup week, the Police tagged 37 vehicles but only had to tow 4. The Street Department collected 83 tires, 194 tons of garbage, 16 tons of brush, 38 of yard waste, 12 gaylord boxes of electronics, and 11 truckloads of scrap metal. 

Odds and ends post Valentines Day

The Carnegie Players performed the first of two showings of "Improv at the Ritz" on Thursday. They provided an enjoyable experience for the audience and they seemed to have a lot of fun doing it. The format was similar to that in the TV series Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

The final performance will this Thursday at 7:00 at the Ritz Theater.

Before attending the Improv show, I attended two meetings. The first was a meeting of Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council, which meets in the basement of the First Christian Church. They are preparing to plant trees this year on South McKinley and South Cullen. They have two people starting planning for this year's Arbor Day program and two other people will be writing articles about trees and the RUFC for the Rensselaer Republican. The Council has a Facebook page here. They had a discussion about the Amazon Smile program in which Amazon donates .5% of the value of purchases to organizations and I see that details are now on the RUFC Facebook page.

From that meeting I went to a meeting of the Rensselaer Advisory Planning Commission, which after a long discussion approved a declaratory resolution that is required to enlarge the Lintner Park TIF area. This was previously approved by the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission in January. Next it will go to the City Council.

(The Lintner Park TIF area is on the northeast corner of Rensselaer and includes businesses such as Chief, National Gypsum, and White Castle. The new addition includes all land within City limits to the east.)

We finally got some days with significant snow melt, including a day with quite a bit of rain. The result is a rise in the level of the Iroquois River. There is still ice on it, but some of it has been dislodged and has been carried downstream.

The Maxwell ditch was full of brown water on Friday.

Our forecast is for roller-coaster weather with significant precipitation. 

On Monday evening the Rensselaer Board of Public Works met and approved two invoices from Commonwealth Engineering. The City Council meeting later approved an ordinance returning outdated warrants. As I understand it, this voids out checks that are two years old and older and returns the amounts back on the books of the issuing fund. It then approved expanding the TIF area that was discussed above. On February 1 the Mayor polled the Council to reduce the quarantine to five days in accordance with guidelines from the CDC and the Jasper County Health Department. The Council ratified the poll. An employee in the metering department was honored for 20 years of employment. 

The gas tracker for February will be an 11¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet. The Gas Department had obtained three quotes for roof replacement. The building's roof has several leaks. The Council passed a motion to declare an emergency that waives the competitive bidding process and then approved the low bid of $158,080 for a rubber roof.

The City Attorney is preparing a "green" energy ordinance that seems to be something for companies that want to advertise that they use "green" energy. The City may be selling one of the engines from the power plant. The Mayor is waiting on the broker's report. The Council moved to instruct the City Attorney to prepare something to repeal the payments that employees get if they get COVID. The County recently made this change.

The new Walgreens building has four walls and after the picture below was taken, a roof was installed. This may be the last update picture for a while.

Do you know where this picture was taken?

Until a few weeks ago, there was a house there. It is in the lot just west of the REMC building on John Deere Road. REMC bought the property in November. In August the zoning for the property was changed from A2 to L1.

I never got a close look at the property, but the Jasper County Interim Report calls it the Monnett House. It was owned by Fletcher Monnett, brother of Cordelia Monnett who funded the Monnett School. (For some info on Fletcher, check out this blog post.)

Snow day, February 2022

 Today, Wednesday, is a snow day. It will snow all day long. I expected more snow on the ground this morning, but the snow that fell was compacted and wet on the bottom, so there was more there than what a first glance suggested. It was a good day for those who plow snow.

The roads were being plowed, but freshly falling snow kept the roads at least partially white. The City streets were mostly completely white despite the plows.

The River looked strange.

There was little wind overnight so the snow stuck to branches creating the "winter-wonderland" look.

Everything will probably look very different tomorrow morning when the snow fall has finally stopped.

The Prairie Arts Council (PAC) relayed an interesting announcement on Facebook:

Markit Arts located at 108 W. Washington St. Rensselaer is hosting its first painting event on Valentines Day Monday February 14. Join us for a fun evening of pop art inspired painting. See flyer and painting example below. Register for the event at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/street-heart-tickets-249850378207

We are excited to be opening our doors for art experiences in downtown Rensselaer! 

Ryan and Lindsey Preston
Cameron and Crystal Moberg

108 W. Washington is the tiny building that used to be Clean as a Whistle. Cameron Moberg recently purchased it. 

A couple weeks ago I noticed a new building on the south side of East Walnut Street. Judging from the tracks in the snow, it is being used. It is owned by  Sycamore USA LLC. The lot at one time held oil storage tanks and was owned by the Mobil Oil Company. The tanks were removed in 2009 and here are two posts on that: here and here.

The Clinic of Family Medicine and its property changed ownership in December. The Doctors Service Corporation sold to Liberty Rentals LLC.

Frieda's Grill & Breakfast opened this week. It is located next to the Ritz Theater in the building that last housed Moonshiners. It is open Tuesday through Thursdays for breakfast and lunch. On Fridays and Saturdays it will be open later.

The main dining area will be in the building next to the alley. They would have opened a few months ago but had difficulty finding staff.

I keep waiting for the Iroquois River to completely freeze over. Where the current is slow, ice covers the River, but where there is current, the water still flows. For example, here was what the River looked like upstream of the Melville Street Bridge on Saturday, January 31:

The River looked completely different on the other side of the bridge:

There is no current in the SJC reflecting pond, so it froze last week.

There is no current in the Babcock Quarry, but its water is very deep and still has not frozen. Hundreds of Canadian geese hang out there.

On Monday the walls of the new Walgreens started rising.

A day later and they were more than half up. 

Workers were installing roof trusses that will support the walls. The panels are pre-assembled so this part of construction is going very quickly.

I did not check back later on Tuesday to see if they had completed the walls.

I stopped in Walgreens on Monday and asked if they would have a big moving sale. I was told that the merchandise would be trucked to other stores and that the moving date may be in May.

One last picture:

In early December Rensselaer had a storm that knocked over a number of trees, including a big one in Weston Cemetery. On Monday the trunk was trucked away.