Windows, parks, and more

The Fendig Gallery has a new exhibit, "Through the Window". It is the annual show in which members of the Prairie Arts Council exhibit works that follow a theme. This year the theme is windows, so most of the work highlights windows.

 Below is the strangest piece on display. It has a window.

 I like the bright yellows in this one.

The exhibit runs to September 27. The gallery is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon till 4:00. The opening reception is Friday.

Work preparing the site for Autumn Trace, the assisted/independent living apartments, continues. I was surprised as how much progress they made in just a few days.

 They are trucking out the black top soil and have trucked in sandy soil for the foundation.

 Little Cousin Jasper Festival happens this weekend. Volunteers have been busy this past week setting up the electrical wiring and outlets.

 The stage and bleachers are ready. I hope the weather cooperates.

 I have noticed that for the past couple weeks the quarry has been pumping water. Below is a picture from a few days before they began pumping.

 The picture below is several days old but you can see that the water is several feet lower. The pumping has increased river flow through Rensselaer.

I think the point of the pumping is to keep open the option of future quarrying.

I skipped the Drainage Board on Tuesday because nothing struck me as especially interesting on the agenda. (The agenda is posted near the door to the Commissioners Room in the Court House. I cannot find it on-line.) Instead I went for a Walk with A Doc in Brookside Park. The event has participants walk a mile through Weston Cemetery. Before the walk there is a short presentation by a medical professional. This weeks topic was congestive heart failure. It is like diabetes—it cannot be cured but can be managed. The walks continue through Oct 12 and start at noon. The attendance on Tuesday was quite low but the heat and the humidity were very high.

I see from Facebook that CDC Resources is opening its fitness center to the public. They are having an open house on Monday, Sept 24 from 10:00 am until 1:00 pm. The cost will be $10 per month. The Monticello office has a fitness center but it is only open to the elderly members of the public. There seems to be no restriction on the Rensselaer Center. If you are interested or want to learn more, go to the open house.

Finally, the Rensselaer Park Board met on Monday evening. The Board would like the soccer program to be under Park sponsorship, especially since they are planning to spend a lot of money improving the fields. Work should begin on the fields as soon as the fall soccer season is finished.

The first project of the Parks for People campaign, however, will be the dog park on Bunkum Road. It is relatively cheap and simple. It may open this fall. When it does open, it will open with a free period. Eventually dog owners will be expected to purchase a pass.

Of the $1,200,000 raised by the Parks for People  campaign, $700,000 is cash and $500,000 is pledges. The organizers are working to get as many in-kind donations as possible--work or items donated so they do not have to make a cash outlay for them.

There are a couple of Park programs coming up. The first is Scare Crow Trail. Here is an entry form. The other is the Fall Fest on Oct 18, which last year had big attendance.

September starts and assessed valuations

September has arrived and crops are maturing in the fields around Rensselaer. Below is a picture of a soybean field near Rensselaer. I have only seen a few fields that have already been harvested, but many combines will soon be out in the fields.

 The County Commissioners held their September meeting on Tuesday morning, delayed a day because of the Labor Day holiday. The most interesting item on the agenda was a presentation of NIPSCO assessed valuation, but more on that later. The first item was a presentation from JA Benefits about the possibility of Jasper County joining with other counties to manage their health insurance plans. Bigger groups have less volatility in expenses from year to year and that both smooths year-to-year payment and slightly reduces the yearly cost. No action was taken and any changes will require a lot of planning and discussion.

The Commissioners heard from a lady involved with a group concerned with childhood cancer in northwest Indiana. She read a proclamation establishing a childhood cancer awareness month and they approved the proclamation and the awareness month.

Several people on the agenda did not show up and it threw the schedule off. There was a discussion of how local traffic will detour around the closed section of US 231 north of Rensselaer where it crosses the Iroquois River. The official detour uses I-65.

The Commissioners heard from the Director of Planning and Development about a motion to declare a moratorium on wind turbine construction that the Plan Commission passed at its last meeting. Since there was no advertising of that item for this meeting, they could not act on it. Someone noted that the Plan Commission needed more structure in trying to revise the ordinance.

A representative of the Zaremba group requested a driveway access to a county road adjacent to Wheatfield. The group is planning a new Dollar General Store for Wheatfield. The land that they are considering is just outside the town limits and they will want it annexed so they can connect to Wheatfield sewer. The Commissioners approved the request with a couple of conditions that will become irrelevant if the annexation goes through.

Community Corrections has a retiring matron who prepares meals. The Commissioners approved replacing her with a corrections officer that will give them more flexibility in work done.

The Assessor, Dawn Hoffman, gave a short presentation of what will happen to the assessed valuation of NIPSCO when they close two of the four generators that they have at the Schahfer Plant. The slide shows the projected assessed valuations for the next several years. The reason this matters for the county is that currently about 20% of property taxes that the County collects comes from NIPSCO. With the projected reduction of the assessed valuation, that percentage will drop to 10%, which means that other property owners will have their tax rates increased. Only some of what you pay in property taxes goes to the county and that part is projected to go up by about 9%. Some of what is collected goes to the school district, and those living in the KV school district will have that part of their taxes increase by 15%.

The biggest impact will be on those who live in Kankakee Township.

As the meeting neared an end, there was a discussion among the few remaining people about what could be done to offset this loss. Because the NIPSCO plant has by far the largest assessed valuation, there is no one change that can offset that loss. However, NIPSCO has sought proposals for renewable energy and both wind farm operators and solar farm developers  are looking at the County. I have heard from two County officials that there are vague plans for a huge complex of solar panels in the Wheatfield area. Apparently there are some land contracts being negotiated.

The Sheriff had a pension advisor with him when his time to speak arrived. The Sheriff's Department, like other sheriff departments in the Indiana, has a separate pension plan, not the plan for other county employees. The plan was set up in the late 1980s and currently a deputy becomes vested at ten years of service. The size of his pension increases for each additional year of service until twenty years, and then there is no more increase. The Sheriff argues that this creates an incentive for deputies to leave when they reach 20 years and that the result is an increase in training costs. He would like the pension to have a 26 or 32 year limit. (32 is the highest allowed by state law.) This whole issue must be decided by the County Council rather than the Commissioners, but the Sheriff was explaining his position to the Commissioners as a courtesy. He also asked for and was granted permission to fill a vacancy.

After a short break, the discussion turned to the difficulty in filing the paper work for the Cross Roads grants. The county is still working on the paperwork for the 2016 grants.

The picture below is in the hallway near the Commissioners' Room in the Court House. It shows the first Jasper/Newton County Court House. You can learn more about it on the Weston Cemetery Walk on September 22 because it has connections to one of the featured persons for that event.

Empty

Several years ago I did some posts on empty or for-rent buildings. I have noticed quite a few empty buildings lately, so decided to catalog what is empty in downtown and the College Mall.

A recent entry on the list is the old PNC bank building. The bank closed the local office.

There are a couple of empty spots in the old Horton building. Balloons Galore and More moved two blocks further east.

 Further north on Washington the old gas station remains empty. The last tenant was Paul's Garage, which moved about mile north on McKinley.

 I expected the little building across the street to be empty because it has been for years. I was surprised to see a new sign in front. Hydro vac and jetting services seems to be involved in cleaning storm sewers. I do not know anything about this new business.

 Here is the little building. It was built as a gas station, I believe. I remember its glory days as an ice cream shop.

 The front part of the building with Turning Point Surveying has been empty for several years.

 A couple doors down the space that was Unique Finds is empty. The building recently changed owners. Unique Finds moved back to a smaller location across the alley from Moonshiners.

 On Van Rensselaer Street Gallina Insurance moved a over a space, vacating its previous location. I think a massage therapist was in the space that Gallina now occupies.

 The Police Department has moved to the what was the fire station. The City has not announced any plans for this space.

 Back on Washington St., the old office of Landmark Realty is empty.

 Across the street one of the renovated halves of what had been Lafayette Bank and Trust space remains empty. Lafayette Bank and Trust used this space when its building was renovated and then moved out. The part of the space that is used is occupied by WIC and Northwest Indiana Community Action. WIC had been in the old Sears building and NICA had been in the old Nesbitt building.

 With the additions of Embers and Fenwick Brewing, the south section of this block has been renewed and filled.

On Front Street the building that housed Stunt Dawg remains empty. Stunt Dawg closed.

Unwind Massage Therapy is in the rear of this building but the two spaces in front are empty. One former occupant moved into the remodeled Lafayette Bank building and the other, Birthright, moved to the corner of Grace and College. The building at Grace and College was the Impact (Welfare) office, which moved to the north end of the Strack and Van Til building.

The old Long's Gift building has a new tenant, Thee Dragonfly, a flea market. It has attracted some of the vendors that were in the Greene's Antique Mall.

There are vacant spaces in the old downtown Sears building. TV Cable was bought by NITCO and they moved to the former Blockbuster building. The WIC office moved to the Lafayette Bank Building. There is also an empty space by the door.

A little space with only an exterior door is also empty. It briefly held a company selling wireless plans.

The space next to 5/3 Bank where Farm Credit used to be is still vacant. Farm Credit moved to a new building on Drexel Drive.

There are five empty spaces in the College Mall. The space that was occupied by Help at Home is vacant. Help at Home moved further south in the Mall and now occupies a much bigger space.

The former Sears store has been empty for several years. In the past few years a seasonal fireworks store has occupied the space for a month or so before July 4th. This year it did not.

Fastenal and American Rental moved a year or two ago and the spaces that they occupied remain empty. Fastenal is on Drexel Drive and American Rental moved north of Strack and Van Til.

 Finally, nothing has moved into the old Devon's space.

 A lot of what was once retail space in both downtown and the College Mall is now occupied by businesses or agencies providing services. Is the decline in retail due to people going to Lafayette to buy things, or is it another effect of the Internet and the ease of buying things there?

Let's close on a positive note. The actual groundbreaking for the proposed assisted living units east of Walmart has taken place.

Groundbreaking in Barkley Township

One of the few perks of being a blogger is that occasionally I get invited to an interesting event. Thursday was one such day. I attended the ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Premier BioSource facility that will raise swine for medical research.

This blog has reported some of the regulatory meetings that approved the plans needed for this facility. Most of the details of the project are in a post from January 24, 2018 with less here and here. The name of the owning company of this facility has changed. In the January meetings the owner was S&S Farms. However, that name is already used by an Indiana company, so the new name is Premier BioSource. The contractor for the buildings is Summit Livestock Facilities, and their name was on most of the signage at the groundbreaking. They are a sister company to FBI builders in Remington and design and build CAFOs throughout the county. I talked to one person with the company and he told me that they were currently building a CAFO in Arizona.

The Premier BioSource pig farm will be located in Barkley Township two or three miles directly west of the little community of Gifford. As one enters the site on a long gravel/stone road, one passes two large silos. In the past this property raised cattle and there are still structures from that past. They look old and run-down. The construction site is on a sand ridge and there is no obvious evidence that it was ever cultivated. The site is surrounded by trees and once it is built, it is unlikely that anyone who travels the adjacent roads will realize that there is a large hog farm nearby.

There were many cars already there when I arrived. Most of the people invited were associated with a related enterprise, but various public officials also attended. A tent had been erected so the audience could sit to hear several speakers and next to it food was being prepared for a lunch after the ceremony.

Here is a picture of the sign on the fence in the picture above.

People milled around and talked a while before they were directed to the seating. Jon Hoek, who is the general manager of Premier BioSource, spoke first. He introduced various members of the audience who were in some way or another associated the project, including several people from companies that use research animals. He noted that the facility is expected to employ 21 people when all the stages are finished and hourly wages will range from $15 to $25. The employees will be in transportation, animal care, and farm management. This facility will serve the eastern half of the country; the existing S&S Farm in California serves the West. He also noted that air will be filtered both going in going out of the facility.

The next speaker was Indiana's Lt Governor, Suzanne Crouch. She touted Indiana's record as a good place for agriculture and agricultural business. She hoped that this facility would aid in making Indiana a center of biomedical research.

 Kendall Culp, Jasper County Commissioner and VP of the Indiana Farm Bureau, spoke next. He noted that he had opted to attend an event at a hog farm rather than attend a Trump rally in Evansville. He briefly discussed the past of the property and was one of the speakers who noted that this facility was raising animals that could one day save human lives, quite different from what other hog farms do. He also reminded the audience and the Lt Governor that Jasper County is Indiana's top agricultural producer.

The final speaker was Mark Bousema, the president of Premier BioSource. He gave brief history of how a boy from Iowa who moved to California ended up with a hog farm in Indiana. His father was not a farmer but sold shoes. He met his future wife at Dordt College in Iowa. She was from California and they moved there after college. His wife's family had a dairy farm with a few pigs, and an unexpected sow pregnancy changed his life. The litter had some runts that Mark and his wife raised. Some died, but three lived and he discovered that he liked pigs. He began to raise them on the side and eventually joined up with S&S Farms (which is named after its founders, Tom and Carl Salayer). The desire to better serve the eastern US eventually led him to Indiana and Jasper County.

After the speeches, it was time for the ceremonial groundbreaking. Thirteen people got shovels.

 Here is the moment when they tossed a shovel full of dirt into the air.

 After the groundbreaking, I got a chance to take a better picture of the Lt Governor. Here she is talking to Jon Hoek.

 Then the Lt Governor got into a mini excavator and a man helped her dig a scoop of dirt.

 I asked if I could get closer to the actual construction work that was a hundred yards or so from where the ceremony was taking place and was told it was OK.

People stayed around and talked as well as enjoyed some pulled pork sandwiches. I met several people. One worked for the Indiana Department of Agriculture. She told me that unlike many state departments of agriculture, Indiana's Department of Agriculture is not involved in regulation. Rather they try to promote agriculture. I asked if she had noticed an increase of NIMBYism. She said that she had and that a lot of it was based on misconceptions of how modern agriculture works.

Here is the press release from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and an article from InsideIndianaBusiness.com.

In a couple of related items, the large Remington elevator has closed. It was old and apparently did not meet modern practices well. The Rensselaer Republican recently had an article about the closing. On the way north I noticed that as one approaches the bridge over the Iroquois river on US 231 there are signs that announce that on or after September 4 the road will be closed. That will disrupt travel for some people.

Two meetings, but mostly wind turbines

A demonstration of recording software took up about half of Monday's City Council meeting. The software (and hardware) is based on software from the same company that is used for court recording and for police interviews/interrogations. It comes with many options, including the option of live-streaming meetings. No decision about the product was made at the meeting.

The Chief of Police wanted to change some job titles. I did not understand the whole thing, which involved a promotion, but the matter will be discussed at the next Board of Public Works meeting and will come back to the Council in two weeks.

There was a discussion of planning for a future water well. The most promising sites are south of the City and the Mayor would like to secure a parcel of property for future use. The land the City is interested in is currently owned by SJC and is south and west of the existing well, close to Lake Banet if I understood the discussion. The reason for moving on this now is that the future of the SJC lands is uncertain. It seems reasonable to assume that if SJC and Farm Credit agree on a debt settlement, SJC may lose the farm land it currently owns. One interesting tidbit from the discussion: the City helped the people planning the assisted living units planned by Fountain Stone negotiate the purchase of the property from SJC.

(An aside: How did SJC come to own the land it has? That is one of many things that will be revealed on the Weston Cemetery Walk on September 22.)

There is now an excavator on the site of the proposed assisted-living apartments and lots of little flags in the field.

The Police Department is planing a open house for the new police station on September 12 at 1:30.

The meeting ended at about 7:00 and I hurried out to the Fairgrounds to see what would happen at the Plan Commission meeting. The BZA meeting had finished and I think the Plan Commission had discussed a couple of rezone requests before I got there, but I was in time for the main event, a public hearing/discussion of revisions to the wind farm ordinance. The hearing began with a presentation by Gerritt DeVries showing why he does not like wind farms, at least not in Jasper County. When it was finished two or three Board members noted that they had nothing to do with the presentation.

When the floor was open to public comments, almost all of the people speaking were opposed to having wind turbines in Jasper County. Several speakers said they just did not like the looks of turbines. One speaker said that he would rather see his taxes go up than to see wind turbines spreading across the County. Another noted that wind turbines had adverse effects on livestock. Apparently there are sound frequencies that we do not hear but which can affect animals. There was one speaker in favor of wind turbines, a young lady from the Sierra Club who argued that coal was the thing we should fear and that wind energy was good because it reduced our need for coal. She got little support from the audience.

Mr. DeVries listed some options for the Commission, one of which was to simply ban wind turbines. The audience favored that option. Mr. DeVries waited for someone to make that motion, but no one did. So he reluctantly turned to proposed changes, which he displayed on a screen for the audience.

I was surprised at how little discussion there was on the proposed changes. The Commission went through them, but not in the way that I expected. I thought that someone should have moved the entire package and then they could have moved to amend as they proceeded through. Instead as they discussed the items, some changes were made when a member or two suggested a change and no one challenged it. As they approached the end, a man from the audience objected to the way the whole meeting was being run and the Chairman pushed back. However, two members of the Board agreed with the complaint.

In the end the Commission voted to table the matter until the next meeting so they could see exactly what they were voting on.

In retrospect the Commission approached the matter backwards. They started with an amended copy of the ordinance but there were no justifications for the changes that had been suggested. It would have been better to start with just the changes and their justification and decided which of the changes they wanted to incorporate into the final document. They should have been asking questions such as: What interests of neighbors need to be protected? Should setbacks be to property lines, or to structures, or both property lines and structures and why? What is the appropriate setback to non-participating neighbors and why? Since wind turbines seem to affect livestock, what should the setbacks be for livestock operations? Should they only be for CAFOs or should smaller operations also be considered? Should the setbacks be the same for cattle as for pigs or for chickens? If setbacks are set correctly, should there be a need for other protections, such as from noise or flicker? How much protection should be granted wildlife and why? What is the justification for protecting (or restricting) participants as some of the proposals did? Much of what was changed in the  proposals and in the changes to the proposals seemed arbitrary with no justification.

At least two people mentioned a poll in which more than 80% of the people opposed wind farms and suggested that that poll represented the general public. Any sample that does not have some way of randomly selecting respondents is worthless for drawing conclusions about the population. (If the opposition to wind turbines is as widespread as the opponents say it is, no wind farm will ever be built because the wind companies will not be able to find enough participants to form the blocks of land that they need.)

In a previous post I had wondered why setbacks were proposed to property lines of participating land owners. At the meeting the justification for this was that a future landowner might not want a wind turbine as a neighbor. That is a strange position for a group that claims to support property rights. Any future buyer will take into account whatever legal restrictions are on the land and pay accordingly. If the windmills do decrease property values, the person who signed the participation agreement will bear the costs when he sells.

Perhaps the most depressing moment came at the end when the Commission passed a recommendation for a moratorium on construction of wind turbines. No one mentioned that the moratorium was meaningless. Do the members of this regulatory body not understand the steps that are needed to get wind turbines built? Before any dirt is moved, the Commission itself would have to recommend that the area be classified as a wind-turbine overlay district. Jasper County has no Wind Farm overlay districts and until it declares one, no wind turbines can be built. The builder would also need permission of the County Commissioners to use the roads and there would probably be a need for drainage board approval. There are undoubtedly a variety of state regulatory hurdles that must be leapt as well.