Some highlights from 2024

 The City of Rensselaer completed two big projects this past year, the Brick Street Project and the new water tower near I-65. There were more pictures on this blog of construction of the Brick Street Project than of any other subject. Related, the Fire Department constructed a training tower and Filson Park was largely finished.

Some other ribbon cuttings this past year included Plevna, Building Trades as SJC, the HYPER Center at Brookside Park, the Water Tower mural, the new EMS building, Ayda's new outdoor dining room, the new location for the Clinic of Family Medicine, the new location for Franciscan Working Well, the new location of the Good Samaritan Food Pantry, La Trinidad Bakery, and a revived greenhouse at SJC.

Some other business openings included Brick Street Ice Cream and the Wine Room. A Mexican Grocery opened on Washington Street and closed several months later. Gutwein Seeds moved. Janet's Kitchen closed after the death of an owner and also closing was A& B Auto Care. A couple of businesses that last year's highlights post mentioned as opening, First Hometown Mortgages and Not Your Typical Wingz, are gone. Also closing was the Jasper County Recovery House.

The primary and general elections gave us some new County officials, including a new judge, new auditor, two new commissioners, and a new councilman. The Carpenter Wind Farm got its final regulatory approval and should be starting construction early in 2025.

The High School has a new concession stand for the baseball field. SJC opened classes for CDL training and began hosting a branch of the Indiana Ag and Technical School. Mural week focused on Remington, but Cameron Moberg painted one in downtown Rensselaer. Rein Bontreger did one visible from the bowstring arch bridge and another on the pool house at Brookside Park.

(This summary was compiled with a quick scan through past posts. Undoubtedly I have omitted some things that should be included. You can add in the comments anything you think should be included.)

The picture below was taken on December 5 after several very cold days. We will see a lot more river ice in January.

Approaching mid November 2024

 The Wine Room

There is a new business in Rensselaer, The Wine Room. It is located in the old REMC building, now named Toplink Business Center. The Wine Room occupies the corner of the building next to Kellner and Cullen and is quite large.

A closer look at the Christmas-Tree manikin from the picture above.

A view of the other half of the room.

It is a very pleasant space and I think it would be a good space for some kinds of events and parties. I am not the target audience, but I will be watching to see how the business develops.

The owner of the business also owns Erica's Boutique on Front Street. 

A year ago there was a ribbon cutting for Hometown Mortgage in this building. It no longer is listed on the window sign so I think it has abandoned this office. Hometown Mortgage is located in DeMotte and the Rensselaer office was a satellite office.

Across the street, what was ASG Staffing has a new name, Verstela.

City meetings

On Tuesday afternoon the Rensselaer Board of Public Works had its shortest meeting that I can remember. It lasted two minutes. The only item on the agenda was a vote to affirm a sewer bond anticipation note agreement. I am not sure what this does but the City's financial advisor, Baker Tilly, wanted it done.

After a long wait, it was time for the City Council meeting. There had been mention at the previous meeting that this meeting might be streamed over the Internet, but the equipment was not yet in place. The first item was a presentation of and vote on a rate ordinance and bond ordinance for the upcoming sewer project. There are two parts to this project that is mandated by the State, a upgrade to and expansion of the sewer plant that is estimated to cost $19 million and a combined sewer overflow project that will have an estimated initial cost of $9 million. The State Revolving Fund (SRF) will finance the first of those with a 20-year interest-free loan but the second will have to be financed with a bond that will pay interest. To pay back this debt, the utility will need to raise rates and the City will raise them in three steps. Currently a customer using 4000 gallons of water a month has a sewage bill of about $56. The rate ordinance will raise that to $73 in 2025, to $90 in 2026, and to $102 in 2027. Without the interest-free loan from the SRF, the bill in 2026 would be $108. The City will try to get as many bids as possible for this work in hopes of getting lower prices but there are few contractors who do this type of work. There will be a public hearing on December 9 on the rate ordinance. The Council suspended the rules to allow the bond ordinance to be passed at this meeting.

The Rensselaer Urban Forest Council gave a report on what it has been doing. Since 2008 it has planted 987 trees. However, 1070 trees have been removed. Not stated is that many of them were ash trees that were killed or damaged by the emerald ash borer.

The Council had a second reading of an ordinance to close the Scott Street railroad crossing and then passed the ordinance with Mr Armold voting against. The gas tracker for November will be a small decrease in rates. The City supply bids for gasoline and diesel were awarded to Keystone Cooperative, the successor to Ceres Solutions. The Council approved two public relations requests, one for the retirement of two City employees and the other for an employee Christmas party.

Rensselaer received a Community Crossings grant of $733,623 to improve roads. The Mayor would like to apply for a grant to build a trail from Rensselaer to the Interstate. The Council approved the application. The Rensselaer City budget has been approved by the State. The Fire Department 1996 pumper is down again and there is no estimate yet on what it will cost to fix it. The City continues to gradually replace lead service lines. The City received reimbursement for some CDL training of employees. If the weather cooperates, a new mural will be started on the LaRue pool bath house.

Other meetings

The Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning was canceled because it would lack a quorum. (I could have gone to the Alcohol Review Board meeting instead but I forgot that it meets at the same time the Tourism Commission meets.) There was nothing exciting on the agenda. Members who missed the June presentation on Placer.ai were invited to view the demo video on Zoom. You can see what Placer.ai does in a June post.

The Airport Authority met Tuesday evening but the Rensselaer City Council meeting conflicted because they moved their meeting due to Veterans' Day.

Odds and ends

The local races in Election 2024 were rather uninteresting. The only County races that were contested were the three at-large County Council seats and the Republican candidates easily won those. There will be a number of new County officials come 2025 (two new commissioners, a new council member, a new auditor, and a new judge), but they were mostly determined in the Republican primary, which had quite a few contested races. 

On Friday I drove to Monticello and was delayed in Monon by a train that stopped across the tracks. While I waited, I took a picture of a new mural that Monon has. It is by a local artist, Romulo Diaz. who seems to be a tattoo artist.

The White County paper has an article about the mural and also the other murals in Monon. There is a big mural by Cameron Moberg that is on a north-facing wall that I tried to photograph once but the light was bad. Here is a decent picture of it.

On Monday a Veterans' Day Ceremony was held at Weston Cemetery.

Veterans' Day was established to commemorate the end of WWI with an armistice beginning on November 11 at 11:00 in 1918. Memorial Day was established to commemorate those who died in the Civil War. Veterans' Day honors all vets; Memorial Day honors those who died in service.

Windows downtown are being painted again this year with Christmas decorations. These first two are on Brick Street Ice Cream.

City Hall

The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce office.

And finally the start of one on Gallina Insurance

Start of August pictures 2024

Downtown changes

On Monday workers were paving the end of Van Rensselaer Street adjacent to the highway.

After the asphalt was deposited, it was smoothed. I am not sure why, but a section of bricks was taken up from those that had been laid last week.

The area and the corresponding area of Harrisson and SR 114 need a finishing layer.

On Thursday workers were sweeping sand into the cracks of the bricks.

 

The workers had finished the bricks up to the alley.

Meanwhile on Thursday the remaining sidewalk by Filson Park had been removed and City workers seemed to be working on a water line.

Work on the exterior of Earth Magic, which was partially funded by a façade grant, is finished.

Here is a close-up of the sign.

The door to the future Brick Street Ice Cream store was open on Thursday, so I took a picture of the inside. I heard from a source who should know that it will be opening very soon.

US 231 bridge work

South of Rensselaer work has begun on the bridge over the Wasson Ditch just south of Houston's subdivision. As a result US 231 is closed at Mount Calvary Road. Below you can see the surface of the bridge.

The asphalt on the approaches to the bridge have been milled.

Kids' Night at the Farmers' Market

The Tuesday Night Farmers' Market hosted Kids Night and there were a lot of kids who enjoyed the various booths. I think the firemen had at least as much fun as the kids with their water-balloon-launching stations.

Kid got to practice putting out an electric fire with a real firehose.

The ladies at the Alliance Bank table said that they wanted their pictures on this blog so here they are.

Just some of the crowd.

The Airport had a drone but it could not fly. One of the propellers had a damaged tip.

A lot of booths were giving away things, but none as much as Franciscan Health. Look at the boxes behind their two tents. 

Some of the booths had games for kids, such as the ring toss of the Rensselaer Care Center.

Coming soon

The next art exhibit at the Fendig Gallery at the Carnegie Center will be a tribute to the late Doris Myers, who led a long and prolific career as an artist. Included in the exhibit will be many pictures that will be for sale. The opening public reception will be Sunday, August 11 from 1:00 to 4:00 CST.

When I stopped by many of the pictures were still waiting to be hung.

Odds & ends

The Homestead is planning to close their Remington restaurant to focus on their West Lafayette restaurant as well as on-line sales, catering, wholesale accounts, and fundraising accounts. See here for more info.

Also from Remington, Cameron Moberg has finished his Remington murals. 

On Friday Teen Mission Jasper County had its annual Community Day at Brookside Park. There were a lot of give aways and games for kids.

In late-July post I had pictures from a SJC groundbreaking, the Plevna ribbon cutting, and the water-tower mural ribboncutting. This week's Rensselaer Republican has more details about these events than I had.

End of July pictures

Two new murals

While at the Art-in-the-Alley festival on Saturday I noticed work on a mural.

It was being painted by Ryan Preston and Cameron Moberg.

It was replacing a mural that had severely deteriorated. I mentioned that the wall did not hold paint and they said it was because of the water coming off the roof. Below is what the back of the building looked like in April. Notice the new mural keeps one bit of the old mural, the "I'm OK" bubble.

The mural in its prime can be seen here.

Rein Bontreger's mural on the back of Unwind Massage seems to be complete because he has signed it.

More County Fair pictures

In a post last week I had some pictures from the County Fair. Here are more.

This exhibit had pig races. A couple of my granddaughters watched a race and thought they were amusing.

I have always liked Ferris wheels.

This is a picture of one of the two funny little people who were roaming around the Fair.

A view toward the barns from outside the Commercial Building.

ConAgra was giving away popcorn.

One of the booths that was scheduled for the Commercial building but did not show was for the Tri-County Bible school. I asked one of the people at the Tri-County Bible Church booth about it and was told the plan is to open in the Fall of 2025 in the Core Building at SJC.

EDP Renewables, which plans to start construction of a wind farm in Carpenter Township in 2025, was giving away a variety of items. The cow stuffed animals were a big hit with my young granddaughters.

Bob's Bumpy Barrels were back again this year.

On Friday evening 4-Hers were taking their goats to the livestock auction.

Below is a picture of what the Fair Board would like to build, an enclosed show arena.

Here is a video of the steam engine in action.

It had a belt connected to a large saw that was cutting planks from logs.

The Fair ended on Saturday night with fireworks. A video is here.

Art in The Alley

The annual Art in The Alley was the first event to be held in the almost completed Filson Park. The fountain was operating and as far as I know, no one waded in. This year the event overlapped the last day of the Fair, which probably hurt attendance.

One of the scheduled events was an improv performance by members of the Carnegie Players.

Unscheduled was a few minutes of dance by a local line-dance group.

While I was there, the biplane and helicopter rides that the Airport had were almost constantly in the air.

Miscellaneous pictures

Bricks are being placed on Van Rensseler. It will take a while to finish this part of the project.

On one of my trips to the Fair, I saw a deer in a soybean field.

Last Thursday workers were beginning to install batting cages near Staddon Field.