Inauguration day 2025

 A ribbon cutting

On Friday morning Brick Built Real Estate Cafe and Coworking had its ribbon cutting. While I waited for more people to arrive, I took pictures of their menu.

In the picture below the owner of the cafe, Kylie Black, is holding the scissors to the right of Mayor Phillips. Next to her is the owner of the Brick Built Realty company, which is headquartered in the South Bend area.. Mrs Black began doing marketing for Brick Built several years ago and that eventually led her to becoming a realtor.

Below is a very short video of the ribbon being cut. (My camera adds these to the pictures I take.)

Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Plan Commission met Thursday evening. It elected Kevin Armold as President, Stan Haines as Vice President, and Krystal Bassett as Secretary. After discussion, it approved the preliminary plat for the St. Joseph's Building & Trades Subdivision. The requirements for curbs and gutters along Sparling and Daugherty Roads were waived and a decision on sidewalks was deferred until phase Four. The approval was contingent on completion of a few minor changes. The assistant street superintendent will inspect water and sewer installation for the first phase. A final plat of the first phase must be completed in three years, of the second phase in 5 years, of the third phase in 14 years, and of phase four in 23 years. Brice Black abstained because as Street Superintendent his department must approve inspections.

The Commission recommended to the City Council a new fee schedule for zoning and subdivision control. I did not see the schedule. It discussed changing the subdivision ordinance so that simple two- or three-lot subdivisions have a simpler process for approval than large subdivisions. This matter will be taken up again in a January 27 meeting at 5:00 before the City Council meeting. The Commission approved the 2025 meeting schedule, with meetings on the third Thursday of the month at 5:30 (and BZA meetings at 6:30). The schedule also has filing deadlines on Tuesdays preceding the meeting at 3:00 pm and a public notice date 14 days prior to the meeting.

I did not stay for the BZA meeting because the agenda only had election of officers and approval of the meeting schedule.

A map of the subdivision is in this post. The only difference between the updated map and this one is that the lot numbers of phase one have been reversed.

Open Houses

On Saturday both Saint Augustine School and the newly-forming Harvest Christian Academy had open houses. I stopped by both.

Saint Augustine School opened in 1903, though not in its present building. The original building was located in the corner of what is now the parking lot. The people visiting while I was there were interested in enrolling in the kindergarten. The announcement of the open house mentioned that the parish was 140 years old. I checked the Hoosier State Chronicles and found these notes in the Rensselaer Republican for 1884 and 1885:

3 Jan 1894 In a long list of improvements in Rensselaer for 1883 and their values:  Additional work on Catholic Church, $1400.

17 April 1884: Last Monday was a great day with our Catholic fellow citizens. Their “rattle'’ came off and the new bell was christened and hoisted to its place in the belfry of their neat little church where it now warns the faithful of their duty three times a day, morning noon and night.

31 July 1884 Mr. Alfred McCoy propounded the question to this pastor of the Catholic congregation, “Why don't you finish your church building?” The pastor replied that they lacked the means. “How much will it take?” said McCoy. The reply was, about $400. “Well,” said McCoy, “go ahead and finish it, put me down for $25. I want to see the boards pulled out of those windows.” Mr. McCoy had already made a donation of $100 towards the building. 

27 Nov 1884 The windows of the new Catholic church are at last being put in place, the furniture of the church will soon arrive, and, we are glad to announce, the building is soon to be dedicated. Bishop Dwenger will be present at the dedication, we understand.

18 Dec 1884  The fine brick church building of our Catholic brethren is now almost completed and furnished. The gallery is now in process of erection, and when that is completed the building will be ready for dedication. The dedication services will take place as soon as Bishop Dwenger can spare a Sunday for the purpose. 

8 Jan 1885 The Dedication of the new Catholic church will take place on Sunday, January 18th, 1885, Bishop Dwenger officiating.

That first church building was demolished long ago to make room for the current building. However, the open house was exactly 140 years after the dedication of the first St. Augustine church.

The Harvest Christian Academy is planning to open this fall in one wing of the Core Building. Their slogan is already on their entrance to their wing of the Core Building.

Both Saint Augustine's and Harvest Academy were telling parents of the vouchers available in Indiana that can be used for students in private schools. The cost for many students attending a private school is about the same as attending a public school.

Harvest Academy had one classroom staged to show what a Kindergarten or first-grade classroom might look like.

Odds & ends

Aydas purchased a building next to the Ritz some time ago and their plans did not work out. Here is their explanation of what happened.

JCEDO announed two more façade grants.

The new façade at Short Cuts looks like it is finished except for signage. It was done without a façade grant.

Adam Alson has resigned from the board of Apple Seed and refers questions to the new director, Anthony Butler. Appletree would not have happened if not for the dedication and persistence of Mr Alson.

Bazz's roller rink is now offering breakfasts.

I had planned to publish this post after two County meetings on Tuesday, but decided waiting would make this post too long. The County meetings will wait for the next post.

Park dedication and Christmas parade

Dedication and parade

On Saturday evening Filson Park was dedicated with speeches by Heather Hall, Stace Pickering, Brienne Hooker, Mayor Jeff Phillips, and Barb Michals followed by a ribbon cutting. The lighting was poor, so I adjusted the exposure so the ribbon could be seen. (This week's Rensselaer Republican will almost certainly have a much better picture and also an article with more details.)

The picture below is more like what the event looked like to me.

Before the park dedication and other events of the evening, there was a parade. The crowd waited until it got dark, with kids excited by the prospect of picking up lots of candy.

The parade started with a lot of noise with fire trucks and tow trucks, all with horns honking and sirens screaming.

One of the highway department trucks had a decoration that I remember was in last year's parade.

The snow plows were intimidating.

I am not sure what group these were with.

Teen Mission

No horses this year, but giant tractors.

The Rensselaer High School band played on.

The City of Rensselaer had several entries, including their recycling trailer.

Bomber softball.

Probably ConAgra. Someone gave me popcorn,

The kids on either side of me got plenty of candy, though some of it was not thrown well and was left on the street. (See picture above.)

There were many more entries than those shown above. My camera malfunctioned before Santa came by to end the parade.

City meetings

There was a very short Board of Public Works meeting Monday afternoon. It approved a pay request from Commonwealth Engineers for $6740 for work on the water-tower project. There remain several items on the water towers that have unfixed problems.

The City Council meeting that followed had two public hearings. The first was about the sewer-rate increase. A person from Baker Tilly explained that the City is under an unfunded mandate to fix problems with its combined sewer system by 2028. The fix will be expensive but the first part will be financed with a $19 million loan at a zero interest rate and the second part will be financed with about a $9 million loan with a below-market rate. The pay off these loans, sewage rates, which are determined by how much water a household uses, will rise 30% next year, another 23% the year after, and a final 13% the next year. One member of the public asked if the rates could be phased in over four or five years rather than three and he was told that the State wants the full rate in place when payments start, so three is the maximum.  Below is a handout provided at the meeting showing how Rensselaer rates will compare to other communities. We go from quite low to very high.

(How much water do you use? I am no where near the 4000 gallons a month level.)

The second public hearing was on a petition to abandon parts of Prairie Street and unnamed road that are north of the large Presidio warehouse on Merritt Street. Some of these streets seem to have been previously vacated but no one could find a record of the vacation. Presidio would like the streets vacated to improve truck flow for the renters of space in the warehouse. One adjoining property owner objected and said he wanted some of the land if the streets were vacated. 

Two bids were opened for Community Crossings paving grant, one from Milestone for $1,169,000 and the other from Town & Country Paving for $1,077,498. They were given to a consultant and a person from the Street Department to review for a recommendation.

The Council then passed the sewer-rate increase. Next on the agenda was an ordinance on the collecting and writing off debt owed to the City. The Council suspended rules so it could be passed with one reading, which was done. There were several transfers of funds passed, and the gas tracker for December will be a one-half cent increase per 100 cubic feet of usage. There was a discussion of replacing clocking in with time cards to using a software system. The Council voted to have the clerk/treasurer pursue the matter. On Thursday and Friday the front entrance to City Hall will be closed for upgrades to the doors to make them ADA compliant.

The two people examining the paving bids returned with a recommendation that Town & Country be awarded the bid. However, they recommended that the work proposed for Milroy Avenue be postponed to bring the project down to the budget even though that will result in a somewhat smaller grant from the State. The Council accepted their recommendation.

The Street Department said it would like to switch mapping vendors, but other departments were happy with the status quo. No action was taken.

Odds & ends

Wreaths Across America Day will be Saturday, December 14. Opening ceremonies will be at 10:00 at the Jasper County Fairgrounds.

On Monday Rensselaer School Corporation schools canceled classes because the computer network was down. Things have changed a lot since I went to school. We had no computers, much less a computer network.

Sblended has announced that it is closing. Dec 22 will be their last day.  The owner says, "There will be another business taking over in the building where we are located now, I think it’s going to make an incredible addition to the lovely Rensselaer Community and I hope that you all will love and support it."

The organ that was in the Ritz Theater has been moved to the building that the Carnegie Players recently purchased and will renovate. The picture below was provided.

The Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for December 10 was canceled because a quorum could not be assembled. It will be rescheduled.

The Airport Authority Commission meeting scheduled for December 10 has been moved to December 19 and the December 30 meeting canceled.

The Carnegie Players production of Saving Christmas is scheduled for the 12th, 13th, and 14th.

The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce has its annual meeting with civic awards on Tuesday (Dec 10) evening. Update: the Presidents Award went to Denise Espino, the artist who designed and painted the Christmas windows.

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.

A ribbon cutting and four more meetings

Ribbon Cutting for the Brick Streets

On Thursday morning a ribbon cutting was held for the Brick Streets Project.

Before the scissors came out, there were several speakers who thanked the many people who contributed to this project, which was years in the making. Among speakers was Mayor Phillips, former Mayor Wood, Congressman Baird, a representative for Senator Braun, State Senator Niemeyer, State Represenative Kendall Culp, and representatives from Kimley Horn, KIRPC, and EDA.

There was a surprisingly large crowd.

After the event, people could eat donuts. They left a lot, which were then served at the Customer Appreciation Lunch in City Hall from 11:00 until 1:00. The attendance there, at least when I went, was quite small.

Redevelopment Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met Monday evening. After approving minutes and five claims, it approved a declaratory resolution that does three things. It enlarges the Drexel/Fairgrounds Economic Development Area, it establishes the Van Elementary Residential Allocation Area, and it amends and restates the Drexel/Fairgrounds Economic Development Area. This is part of the process to create a residential TIF area to develop the area north of the Van Rensselaer School. It is also only a start to a process. The matter now goes to the Plan Commission, then the City Council, and finally back to the Redevelopment Commission.

JCEDO reported on the façade grant program. Top Link and Earth Magic have completed their work and have been reimbursed 50% of their costs. Shanley Construction has completed its work but has not yet submitted the required paperwork for reimbursement. The latest grant has been awarded to the new owner of what is called the "Carriage House." (Old maps identify this as used for storage so I do not know the source of the Carriage-House name.)

Below you can see the two new porch columns of the Mr Shanley added to the Forsythe mansion. 

Park Board meeting

The Rensselaer Park Board also met on Monday evening and the meeting has so many people attending it was moved from the conference room at City Hall to the Council Chambers. This was the first meeting at which Heather Hall was present from the beginning as Park Superintendent.

Several guests were recognized and talked about their concerns. Soccer is still concerned about the grass where the old Monnett school was located. 230 kids signed up for the Fall program. Greg Whaley gave an update on the Miniature Train Proposal. A recent Redevelopment Commission meeting provided some money to have some architectural plans prepared, and these were distributed and discussed. No action was taken.

Mrs Hall asked if there were bylaws for either the Park Board or the Rensselaer Community Recreational Development Corporation. (Park Board meeting include both groups that have somewhat different members.) There will be a search for them.

Filson Park is at substantial completion. Left to finish are the street lights, concrete caps on the fountain and behind the stage, benches, and an arch over the entryway. Next week the Prairie Arts Council will install an art work and the bird that sits by eMbers will also be added. Rental prices for the shelter and the park have not yet been determined. There will be a ribbon cutting and various activities on October 24 from 4:00 until 7:30 on October 24.

Project underway or soon to be underway include some facilities upgrades. LaRue Pool may get a facelift and perhaps a slide. Mrs Hall would like to have the mural wrap around the whole building. A pickle ball league has been established. The old tennis courts at Brookside will be moved a bit to the east and converted to four pickle ball courts. This project has received a substantial donation from a Jackson family. The Board approved moving forward with this project and now it is in the lap of the City.  It may take some time to figure out the best uses for the old power plant. 

The softball tournament scheduled for this weekend at the Blacker Fields has been canceled. Not enough teams signed up.

Tourism Commission meeting

The Jasper County Tourism Commission met on Tuesday morning. It heard a presentation from a person from Travel Indiana, which publishes a quarterly tourism magazine. It prints 30,000 copies that are distributed across Indiana and also has a web site promoting tourism. The Commission is considering advertising in the magazine but no decision has been reached yet.

The Carnegie Players had a request for $25,000 to help renovate its building at 220 N Franklin Street. The building needs a new roof, new windows, and a ramp to make it handicapped accessible. At present the Carnegie Players do not have permanent home and whatever venue is available. One of their problems is rehearsal space. The best space in Rensselaer is the auditorium at the High School, but t is used by the high school for three plays a year, the new middle school theater group for one, and Fendig Theater in the summer. Rehearsal before a production can take two months, so there is not a lot of time left to share at the high school. The Carnegie Players' building can have at least two rehearsal sites and the Players are willing to share them with others in the community. It also wants to coordinate with other arts groups in scheduling so their events do not complete. A donor is matching donations for the roof. The Commission approved the entire ask of $25,000.

The Fountain Park Chautauqua asked for $5000 to bring Bruce Barker The Piano Man to the Chautauqua. They did not have a representative to present the case and answer questions. One Commission member suggested that the admission price of $5 was too low. The Commission approved $1500.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Airport Authority Board met Tuesday evening. They discussed a planned land swap that has a verbal agreement but the details need to be finalized. They also discussed plans for a new nine-unit hangar that will probably be built in 2025. They have been accumulating the funds for this for four years and it the hangar is not built soon some of those funds will go away. A lot of what the Airport does is determined by the rules and regulations of various Federal and State bodies. 

The old hangar building along the taxiway needs to come down but there are no plans yet of when and what will be done on that site. Fuel sales were very strong in September. There was discussion of various maintenance issues and of things not working properly. The meeting lasted a bit less than an hour.

New art exhibit

There is new exhibit at the Fendig Gallery, the Jasper County Art League's Annual Member Show. This year the theme is "Verse Made Visual."

The picture below is a painting, not a photograph.

You can never have too many pots.

If you follow local artists, you will know who did this basket.

The show runs until November 7.

Odds and ends

Below are a few more pictures from the Scarecrow Trail in Milroy Park. The first is from Fase-Kaluf.

There is no sign on this one, but I am pretty sure it is from the City's Electric Utility.

One of the ghosts from the Fendig Theater was taking a nap when I stopped by.

At the next City Council meeting there will be a public hearing about closing the Scott Street rail crossing.

There are four streets next to each other than have rail crossings, McKinley, Franklin, Webster, and Scott.. I am not sure why Scott was chosen for closing. The next street to the east that has a crossing is Melville, and that is three blocks away.

The maples are donning their fall colors.

Beneath this tree a little girls is swinging. Say "Hi" to her if you pass by. She will not answer you.

We may get a frost early next week.