County Council--early and short

Tuesday's County Council meeting was a week early this month (because of the fair) and unusually short. They transferred some funds and approved a tax abatement for Monsanto that had not been approved in a previous meeting because the paper work had been misplaced. 

There was no move to change the county income tax. The budget hearings will start next month, with the Sheriff's department taken up at the regular meeting (the 15th, I believe). There will be an all-day budget meeting the 17th and Aug 23 will be a day for discussing cuts.

In March there was a special joint meeting of the Council and the Commissioners to hear a presentation from Umbaugh. As a result of that meeting, the County hired Umbaugh to do some planning and the results are now coming in. The County faces a declining property tax base because farm values are declining (after an unusual run-up to very high levels) and also because NIPSCO will be retiring a couple units at its Wheatfield plant. Umbaugh will make a presentation to the Commissioners at the August 7 meeting and will give a similar presentation to the Council at its August meeting. Rein Bontreger suggested that Council members try to attend the first presentation to help them get ready for the second. 

As the meeting ended, the owner of Movie Madness in DeMotte addressed the Council about library purchases of videos. He said that the Francesville Library regularly purchased from him because his prices were lower than they could get elsewhere and he wondered why the Jasper County Library did not also take advantage of the lower prices he offered. He said that he had reached out to the Library but had not gotten any response. The Council members suggested that he  contact the head librarian and see if that would work better.

Yesterday I took a short road trip. As I was leaving town, I noticed that the new O'Reilly store was being stocked. The stockpile of windmill pieces just over the White/Jasper county line was gone, and new windmills were going up north of US 24 just to the east of Wolcott.

Our wet weather (but thankfully not as wet as some parts of Illinois and Indiana) has been frog-friendly. I found two tree frogs, a little frog that can change color to blend in to its surroundings, hanging about in my backyard.

City Council meeting and an update on Endless Treasures

Monday night's City Council meeting lasted over an hour, long for a City Council meeting.

At the beginning of the meeting, the mayor read a statement commending Kenny Haun for his long service in the fire department and announced that as of August 1 Haun would be retiring as fire chief. His replacement will be Robert Graves.

Both the gas tracker for July and the electric tracker for the next quarter will show slight increases. A bid of $20,121.86 for spill containment for the Watt Substation was accepted. There was a transfer of funds in the police department budget to allow purchase of new radio console. After purchase, a grant will reimburse the department so the funds can be transferred back. The Council approved an amendment to a bond ordinance that will allow the refinancing of a bond issue of 2011 when bonds for the Watt Substation are offered.

Then it was time for the main event, two fundraisers working on the Parks for People project. They began with an introduction. They are hired by the Blacker Trust and previously worked on the fundraising for the hospital addition. They work in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. They said that the leadership structure for the fundraising has been established and that there is still a need to pull different factions together. The goal is to raise $1.5 million. The oversight committee, which it seems will have a lot of say in how the funds are spent, will consist of Mayor Wood, Dr Jack Drone and/or his wife Jana Drone, Ed Dumas, Mike Manis, and Dave Schrum. The fundraising will rely partly on payroll deductions. The first group to be approached will be City employees, and the Council passed a resolution allowing the pay roll deductions for this purpose. They said that pledges are not binding agreements, that amounts pledged or given will be confidential, as will participation, The project plans are not quite finalized but may be for next Monday's Park Board meeting, which will be held at 6:00 in the City Council Chambers (City Hall). (If you are interested in knowing what is going on, this might be a fun meeting to attend.)

The money raised will be given to the Jasper Foundation. Because it is a non-profit organization, gifts to it will be tax deductible. Councilman Barton grilled them about the role of the Park Board, wanting a yes or no answer if the Park Board would set the priorities for spending and they hedged their answers. They did not realize initially that he sits on the Park Board. Councilman Hollerman asked it we really need $1 million for parks and was told that Rensselaer's parks facilities are poor compared to those in other communities.

Then it was back to more ordinary Council business. The Council approved spending $26,718 for 18 fire hydrants. They will be purchased with City funds but then some one will reimburse the City--I did not understand who or why. Rick Odle moved to give the Park Board authority to name a park or so something to commemorate the late Thomas Effinger for his long service to the parks. The only parks they cannot rename are Milroy, Potawotomie, and Brookside.

 Several days ago I stopped by to take some pictures of the newly opened Endless Treasures. I have been sitting on them because other items seemed more pressing to write about.

I do not like the design of the letters--the S is too wide. However, that may be intentional, referring to the meandering layout of the store.

 The first two pictures are taken from about the same point as two pictures in the post before the store opened.

 I did not get a picture of hallway shown in the next picture of the previous post on the store because someone was working in the area. The room below is in the same area.

 This next picture corresponds to the last picture in the pre-opening post. This space seems to be all Bloomtique, which was planning to open in a little store on Washington next to Gutwein Seeds. I do not know if it ever did. But now it is part of Endless Treasures.

 A lot of the shelves look like they are not yet fully stocked. The picture below shows a booth that is an exception.

 Below is a room off the main room, full of decorative items.

Who knows what you might find in a store like this?

The long wait to learn the future of Strack and Van Til is over. The families that originally owned the chain have bought them back. The will remain Strack and Van Til. See here or here.

A busy weekend part two

After I left the car show on Saturday, I headed for the Fly-In at the Airport. Along the way I checked out the fairgrounds, where preparations were being made for the fair. The first event, the crowning of the new fair queen has already taken place.

 The Jasper County Historical Society needs to do repair work on the log cabin. Some of the logs are rotting. Fair visitors will have the opportunity not only to watch repairs being made, but to help make them.

 The Fly-In did not seem as big this year as it has been in the past--perhaps because some of the potential vendors had visited during career day in May.

 However, Purdue, which had not been able to bring a plane to career day was there and letting kids sit in the plane and play with the controls. In the hangar behind the plane people were enjoying the pork chop dinner that goes with the event.

 This looked like it might have been the oldest plane there. It was tiny, with cramped quarters for a pilot and one passenger. The plane is made of fabric and then painted with a heavy paint that makes it feel like plastic. It has no electronics. When it gets close to big airports, the pilot is supposed to radio the airport and tell them where he is because the plane does not show up on radar.

 On Sunday I attended the soft opening of the Station at Embers. The idea of the soft opening is to allow a limited number of people to attend so that the staff can train, test food, and learn their jobs. The danger of just opening to everyone is that there may be a crowd too big to handle and thus the customers first experience will be a bad one.

I think the appearance of the place is great. The theme is industrial because this was once a service station.

 The restaurant has hired about ten people. The waitresses were very busy when we were there. All the cooking is done in the kiln or oven. The cooks are not experienced cooks, but it probably does not matter because cooking in the oven is unlike cooking in a normal kitchen. It also gives the food a different taste.

I am not a food critic (I have been told I do not have a palate and I cannot disagree), but I liked the pizza a lot. The menu had more items than I expected and the prices were reasonable. Below are pizza and Italian beef sandwich.

The bottle is for water--part of the ambiance.

There is another day (Tuesday) of the soft opening (you need a reservation to attend) and then there will be a day or two to make any changes necessary, and then the public opening happens.

A busy weekend part one

Saturday was JC Cruiser Car Show and Cruise Night, two popular summer events. I wandered over to the car show in the morning to see what was coming in. I wondered how this car handles speed bumps.

 There was a wide assortment of cars and I thought the event looked bigger than usual. On Facebook Visit Rensselaer wrote it had over 130 entries, the most ever.

 It had old cars and some very strange cars.

 There were some shirts that had the logo, "Make America Cruise Again." I do not know if these were those shirts or not.

 There were lots of trophies to be won.

 There were several food vendors. The one on the right was providing food for a fundraiser for the RCHS band.

 This little vehicle caught my attention. I could not remember seeing anything like it.

 It had its history on a board. It is a Crosley, made in Indiana. Here is the wikipedia entry on the car and the company. There were very few made.

 I had intended to come back later but I did some other things and was too tired in the afternoon to make the return visit. However, I did get out to see the Cruise. Below may be the oldest vehicle in the Cruise.

 Flags.

A nice contrast.

 Below is another old car. I saw the new County Fair Court and snapped a picture, but it was blurry. This year there are only three members. The Fair Queen also won Miss Congeniality.

 As I was heading south along College a large pack of motorcycles passed me.

A bit later I saw them at the Wagon Wheel.

 The whole parade route that I saw was full of spectators. It was a wonderful night to sit and watch cars and people.

 The Rotary Club had its food booth by the Kentland Bank.

 Not all of the old cars are in pristine condition.

Part two will look at some other things happening this past weekend.

This is Newton County Fair week.

Odds and ends July 7

There was a special meeting of the park board on Tuesday night. I had planned to go to the Airport Authority meeting, but decided to see what was special with the parks.

There is a group planning fundraising for park improvements. They want to draw up some final plans and that will cost $10K. They asked that the Park Corporation pay half. They also wanted approval of a five-person committee that could make decision. Both of these proposals were met with hostility by the Park Board. The feeling was that adequate plans could be obtained locally for much less and that the special committee was meant to bypass the Park Board.

A lot of the tension between the fundraising people and the Park Board people is over the issue of whether it is better to do a limited number of things but do them really well or to spread funds around to do more things, but settle for good-enough. The focus of the people spearheading the fundraising seems to be to do ball fields that will be the envy of other communities. The criticism of that is other projects will be unfunded.

It seems that the current plan still calls for the demolition of the JC Cruisers shelter to make room for ball field parking. All members of the Park Board think this is totally unacceptable and were concerned that it had not yet been removed from the plan. (The ball fields are planned for the area west of the tennis courts, land that currently has not special use.)

With the death of Tom Effinger, there is an opening on the board of the Park Corporation. I think the current members will fill it with someone they know, but if you are interested, now is the time to lobby them.

A fallen tree damaged the fence around the tennis court at Brookside and the Board approved spending to repair the fence.

On Friday the Tourism Commission met. It approved some funds to put a marker on the grave of Eleanor Atkinson and discussed a proposal from the Little Cousin Jasper Festival to fund the 9/11 Never Forget exhibit for 2018. A decision was postponed to the next meeting. They then had a long discussion on their budget, I think to prepare for the budget hearings of the County Council.

There was an auction for the remaining Strack and Van Til stores on the 6th but a Strack employee said that the results will not be revealed until the 10th.

The White House on Park Avenue will soon have a new coat of paint. It remains for sale.

Enjoy the Car Show, Fly-In, and Crusing happening on Saturday.