February's County Council Meeting

I missed the Monday City Council meeting--I was out of town. From the report in the Rensselaer Republican, it seemed to be an interesting one.

I did get to the County Council Meeting on Tuesday night. It was pretty routine. The Council made some additional small appropriations. Some of them were correcting mistakes that people had made when submitting their budgets, such as the one that involved IT equipment for the extension office. The Animal Control director wanted permission to use donated funds for microchipping animals that the shelter adopted out, saying that other counties were doing this and that it would keep their population lower because they would be able to quickly identify who owned the animal if it ended back in the shelter. The Circuit Court recorder is retiring and the judge wanted to hire the replacement before the actual retirement so that the replacement would get trained by the retiring recorder. Pretty exciting stuff.

The Council approved an inter-fund loan that I did not understand. Apparently it is something done every year. There were some amendments to the Jasper County Salary Ordinance that corrected three salaries of county personnel. The Sheriff gave the Council his annual report, the same report that he had given the Commissioners earlier this month. A member of the Council asked about the upgrade to the 911 system. It will likely be installed in late April or early May and will require that the system be down for a while. While it is down, 911 calls will be routed through a neighboring county, which is what happens if there are any technical difficulties. State regulations say a county can only have two PSAPS (pronounced Pee Saps, an acronym for Public Safety Access Points). Jasper County has one and two satellite sites, the Rensselaer and DeMotte police departments. There is vagueness in the state regulations and there is the possibility that at some time the state will decide that one PSAP with two satellites should count as three PSAPs. County officials are kept on a short leash by state officials.

Kevin Kelley gave a report on the Tourism Commission. Included in was a list of county motels. Rensselaer has three, Economy Inn with 31 rooms, Holiday Inn Express with 69, and Knights Inn with 30 rooms. Remington has two, Sunset Inn with 50 rooms and Super 8 with 47. There are also camp grounds, the hotel at Fountain Park, the White House Inn, and Saint Joseph's College, all of which are part of the Jasper County Lodging Industry.

For 2014 the Innkeeper's Tax (a 5% levy on lodging) raised $137, 457.26. The Tourism Commission had total expenses of $66,228.53, so the Tourism Fund increased during the year. The Commission gave funds (from $2400 to $8400) to the five big festivals, Water Tower Days, Touch of Dutch, Sandhill Crane Festival, Fall Festival, and Little Cousin Jasper Festival. It also gave money to nine other events or groups, things like the Remington Ride, Rock the Arts, and Rensselaer Oktoberfest.

A person from the South Shore Convention and Visitor's Authority gave the Council a handout that highlighted what they had done to promote tourism in the County. They host a website for Jasper County tourism at www.discoverjaspercounty.com and designed a logo for the Tourism Commission, which can be seen at the link.

In March the Tourism Commission will be reviewing applications for funding for 2015. This year they will want more information than last year, including a look at the financials of the various events and festivals.

The County Surveyor addressed the Council saying that he needs a bit more money to do what he thinks is necessary. The head of the Council warned him that funds are tight and the state had trimmed the budget that they had submitted. (The state approves county budgets.) He was advised to get on the agenda if he wants any changes.

County Commissioner Kendall Culp was at the meeting and gave a brief rundown of several things that the Commissioners are doing. They had just given the Airport manager their proposal for the transfer of property to the Airport and there were still a few areas that might have to be smoothed out. They were also working with NIPSCO on relocating the county road that cuts through their property in Kankakee Township.

The Airport manager gave a report on highlights of the past year. He said that the Airport is a gateway to the county. He also mentioned that Excel Air, the maintenance company at the Airport, employs six people.

In the public comment section, Thomas Mathis from Wheatfield addressed the Council about the need for setbacks for manure lagoons. He was interrupted by one of the Council members who said that this was not a matter for the Council, which is limited to budgetary items.

The meeting then adjourned. As I left I noticed that the tree in the hallway had been redecorated to make it a Saint Patrick's Day Tree.

State of the downtown

The weather has been cold and nasty and I have been hunkered down, not getting out a lot. However, after the Lenten Luncheon on Ash Wednesday I took a look at what was vacant as I meandered down Washington Street.

The former gas station on the corner of Washington and Weston is again empty. It most recently was an auto repair shop called Bentlys.

Across the highway another former gas station has been empty for a year or two or three. The last business in there was Elk Investments.

 Most of the first floor of the old Horton Building is empty. Most recently the larger space was a day care.

The bakery has been for sale for quite a while but it is open for business. There is a sign in the window saying that there is office space for rent upstairs.

 The space next to Lafayette National Bank has been vacant ever since the bank finished its renovations. It is for sale.

The H&R Block store is in peak season. The small building next to it has been vacant for some time. A year or two ago I was expecting it to open as something because work was being done inside.

On the other side of the street, two buildings are empty, the former Bub's BBQ and the former doctor's office next to it.

Jack's Uptown Service is for sale. The owner wants to retire. On the other side of Front Street, Stunt Dawg Studio has new owners as the old owners have retired. I stopped in to meet them and they told me that they would keep the business as it has been.

 In the alley behind Jack's Uptown Service is a new business, Filson Climate Control Self Storage. I had noticed the new door a few weeks ago but did not know what it was. This week I saw a flier announcing that it offered heated storage for those who do not want to store things in the several unheated storage facilities that Rensselaer has. The address is 215 West Kellner Blvd, Suite 19.

Halleck Exhibit at the Historical Society Museum

The current exhibit at the Jasper County Historical Society is devoted to the career of Charles Halleck. Although it is an exhibit about a man who was an important figure in politics from the middle of the twentieth century, it is not an exhibit that lends itself to interesting pictures.

Halleck Hall at Saint Joseph's College is named after Charles Halleck. On the the day of the dedication (or was it the groundbreaking?) Ike Eisenhower came to Rensselaer to participate in the ceremonies. This drawing is from that day.

 As the one of the top Republicans in the House of Representatives for many years, he interacted with most of the big names in Washington from the period. Dirkson was the senator from Illinois and the minority leader in the Senate.

 Below is a picture of a ticket stub for a celebration that was held in Rochester, Indiana.

The exhibit has informative cards that highlight some key events in this political career.

 When he was majority leader in the house, he was the number two Republican in the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House was number one. When the Republicans lost control of the house, he challenged the top Republican and became number one as the minority leader. In 1965 he was defeated as minority leader by Gerald Ford.

Though Halleck lived in Rensselaer for a dozen years after I came to town, I have no real memories of him. He is buried in Weston Cemetery and is one of two famous internments there. (I do not belileve that the other one who is listed is actually buried in Weston Cemetery.)

Highlights of his life and career can be found on Wikipedia.

22nd Annual Regional High School Art Exhibit

Pictures are up for the 22nd Annual Regional High School Exhibit in the lobby of the Core Building at SJC. (Here is a link to a post on the 21st Exhibit.) There are always interesting things on display when the high school students exhibit. Below is a creation that seems to have been an assignment in a Tri-County art class to create an interesting garbage can. 

 My granddaughters would love this pen and ink drawing from a North Newton student.

Two Different KV students did the top and bottom pictures. There is nothing to say whether they were supposed to complement each other as they do.

A Rensselaer Central student did this mixed media portrait.

This ceramic octopus made by a South Newton student must have taken quite a bit of time.

 Perhaps this charcoal drawing of a rabbit is inspired by the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. It was drawn by a West Central student.

There are a lot of interesting items on display. I did not see a poster for the exhibit, so I do not know when it ends.

As I was leaving SJC, I noticed that a portable boiler was hooked up outside of the power plant. SJC converted from coal to natural gas this fall and they had some problems making the switch. Perhaps they have not resolved them all yet. A few years ago I would have known the story about this, but now I get only bits and pieces of information about what is happening there.

I did see, however, that this weekend SJC will host the annual science fair for middle school and high school teams.

City Council Meeting 02-09-2015

The City Council met Monday night and I have delayed writing about it.  They approved the minutes of the last meeting and also of a special meeting of February 3--I do not know what that meeting was about.

The gas tracker for February will be a nine cents decrease per hundred cubic feet.

Much of the meeting was taken up with two presentations. The first was from the city's financial advisor who is preparing the bond offering to finance the new fire station. He said that the preliminary estimates are that construction costs will be about $3.3 million, but adding in a variety of other things such a payment for the various architects, engineers, financial advisors, etc., the total bond offering will be about $4.5 million. The bonds will be 25 year bonds that will be backed by the TIF revenues from Drexel Park, but with a backup of general tax revenue. He explained that to get an estimated interest rate of 3.3% the city will need to reduce risk to lenders, and if anything should happen to the TIF revenues, the lenders want to be sure that they will get their money back. Bids are expected to go out in March and the bonds may be sold in April.

The next presentation was a vendor who had been contacted by the police or fire department to present a proposal for a dispatch center. At present the city has one, at the police station, that also serves the fire department. That system is old and may not work as well when the fire station is moved a mile west. He was nebulous about cost, but said it would not exceed $300,000 even with all the bells and whistles. The bond guy, who had stayed for this presentation, said that it might be too late to include the item in the plans for the fire station.

The last item of importance was a discussion of remodeling the utility office to make it ADA and OSHA compliant. Only one remodeling bid had come in, from the Deerwood Group which is connected to Kem's Hardware, but more than one had been submitted for furniture and some heating-cooling work. After some confusion, the Council approved the remodeling, furniture, and one of the heating.cooling items. Councilman Barton abstained because he is employed by the Deerwood Group.

On Monday I noticed that construction had begun on a building at Cullen and Vine. A comment to an earlier blog post said that it would be a storage building.

This morning (Wednesday) the walls were up.

In other news, it appears that there will be no Community Garden this year. For the past two years it has been located behind Crossview Church north of town.