December and winter arrive.

Winter

Winter fully arrived during the week of Thanksgiving. There were a series of days in which the temperature stayed below freezing. One result was that the fountain in Filson Park froze.

The dedication of the park is scheduled for Friday after the Christmas Parade. Will warmer weather on Wednesday bring down some of that ice?

Travels

I spent the weekend of Thanksgiving visiting family south of Indianapolis. The new section of Interstate 69 has been open for several months, and where we exited, we encountered three roundabouts within a couple hundred yards. That area loves roundabouts. I am still uncomfortable with them because I have not driven enough of them (and maybe because it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks).

I also do not like driving some of the roads there because when housing moved out, the county authorities did not realize that they needed to widen roads. So there are many busy roads that have two lanes with no room for shoulders or sidewalks because the utility poles (often on both sides of the road) are about 18 inches from the pavement. Some of the newer developments seem to have learned from past mistakes and are leaving more room for the roads and also putting in sidewalks.

A few family members decided that it would be fun to go to a professional basketball game during our stay. They did not go to a Pacer's game. They went to the other men's professional team in Indianapolis, the Indiana Mad Ants. The team was originally located in Fort Wayne. The G league is a developmental league for the NBA. I had never heard of this team or league. There seem to be plenty of seating available at its games.

In both going and returning I was reminded that I-65 really needs to be three lanes each direction for its whole length.

Commissioners meeting

I could not attend the Commissioners meeting in person on Monday because I was still not back in Rensselaer. I attended via Zoom. The meeting was in the CourtHouse and it would have been fun to attend one more meeting there. (The Sparling meeting room is being renovated, with the column in the middle of the room slated for removal.) I also prefer attending in person because Zoom does not capture everything. Sound from the Commissioners was good, but some of the speakers in the audience were hard or impossible to hear. Some of my audio problems were on my end; my earphones did not work well with my device.

A couple of buried cable requests, both from NIPSCO, were approved. The Sheriff had contracts for 2024 and 2025 approved. He was too far from the microphone for me to hear what he had to say. The contracts also need Council approval. He had some surplus property with little or no value and the Commissioners gave him permission to dispose of it. They also approved filling a vacant dispatcher position.

The Commissioners approved an agreement with Illiana Heating & Air for the north annex They approved a laser light display for the Court House that Main Street Rensselaer is planning. Sharon Colee's snow removal plan for the Fase Center was approved and she was allowed to pursue getting DeMotte water service for the Fase Center. She wants the Commissioners to do a walk through of the Rensselaer Center to show them the maintenance issues. The building is about 35 years old.

Jatin Patel has resigned from the Jasper County Tourism Commission and the Commissioners appointed Randy Rottler from Carpenter Creek Cellars to replace him. (Mr Patel's insights from the hotel industry will be missed.) The Commissioners approved a couple of conference requests and a GUTS agreement that I think was for lock-box services. They appointed Susie Howard to the Wheatfield Plan Commission Board, filling the remainder of a term of someone who retired. This position is for someone from Wheatfield's buffer zone. 

There was a short discussion of progress being made in the new public defender office. There are still details to be worked out. The Commissioners approved changes to the Unified Development Ordinance that had been recommended by the Jasper County Plan Commission. They approved a contract to inventory capital assets, had a discussion about a SAFE grant, trying to decide whether to be part of a multi-county proposal or going alone. The matter should be decided at the December 23 meeting. Snow plow quotes were opened and all were accepted, with Mr DeYoung abstaining.

There were several public comments. A woman who in the past voiced concerns about chemicals eroding from windmill blades gave some updated research. Someone had questions about the County agreement with Remington regarding the Remington EMS building. There were concerns about vandalism with the newly-installed lighted stop signs in the northern part of the County.

I do not know if there was a Drainage Board meeting following the Commissioners meeting. There was a Rensselaer Redevelopment meeting Monday afternoon that I was too tired to attend. The agenda did not look very interesting.

More painted windows

Continuing the showing of windows that the Rensselaer Chamber has been painting, the one below is from Kentland Bank. I wonder if this counts as one window or two. The Chamber says it has painted 90 windows and I would like to find as many as I can.

Two windows from SuperCuts in the College Mall.

Arni's a bit north of Strack.

M&W Insurance.

The law office of Samantha Joslyn.

Jasper County Abstract office.

The dental office of Jordan Balvich

Estel George's State Farm Insurance office.

The next two are windows of the Deerwood Group on North McKinley.

The doors of the Knights of Columbus hall.

Finally

Awaiting sunrise on a winter morning

A first taste of winter

Winter

On Thursday the 21st Rensselaer woke up to the first snow of the season. 

I expected it to be gone by the afternoon, but I was wrong. We got more snow in the afternoon, enough to have local schools dismiss students early and lots of events were canceled. The temps warmed overnight so almost all of the snow was gone by the next afternoon. Then on Thursday evening the City had a large water main break and had to shut down the water system. As a result, a boil order was issued and City schools had an e-learning day on Friday.

The forecast for the week after Thanksgiving features real winter weather, with highs below freezing and lows in the teens. Real winter is coming.

Rensselaer City Council meeting

At the November 25, 2024 meeting of the Rensselaer City Council, Michelle Lagestee, representing the Jasper County Trails Club, gave Council members a handout. She complimented Rensselaer for being very walkable and said that Jasper County has been registered with the DNR for trail development. She noted that Jasper County does not have abandoned rail right-of-way to develop as trails, which some counties have. She and the Trail Club are working with the Mayor's office to get funding for a trail from Brookside Park to the Fairgrounds and possibly the Interstate. 

The Council opened a public hearing to discuss vacating an unnamed street and also a portion of Prairie Street. Adjoining landowners requested that the hearing be postponed until the December 9th meeting, and it was. Returning to the agenda, the Council approved several transfers of funds, most of which were to provide matching funding for the Community Crossings grant. The Superintendent of the Gas Department, Carol Lockridge, is retiring at the beginning of 2025 and the Council approved Todd Wilson as her replacement.

The Council approved signing two items, a HWC Engineering Contract for a ADA Transition Plan and Title VI Update and a USDA-RD 2025 Proposed Budget Statement. It also approved a contract with Peerless Midwest for a Wellhead Protection Plan 5-Year Update Proposal. That contract was for $14,750. 

The Water Department had received two bids for a new truck to use by the water treatment plant. The Council approved the Gutwein Motor bid of $62,119. The truck will be ready in April.

The leaf vac was out of service for four days but is now working again. There was a discussion of the City obtaining a system to broadcast emergency information, such as last week's water-main break and resulting boil order. There was a suggestion to see if the City might piggyback on the Sheriff''s system. The Council approved hiring an outside representative for some building department issue.

The Christmas lights are up in the downtown and on Tuesday the Electric Department will finish installing the street lights in Filson Park. 95% of the design work is finished for the crossing of I-65 by the water, sewer, and gas lines. Contractors are finishing up a few loose ends on the Brick Street Project and the Water Tower Project. The Park Department is working on getting a master plan started. After the Christmas Parade on December 7 there will be activities in Both Filson and Potawatomi Parks and there may be a dedication ceremony for Filson Park.

The various offices in City Hall are competing for the best decorated office.

As promised in the City Council meeting, the Electric Department was installing street lights for Filson Park on Tuesday.

Odds and ends

On Monday a crew was busy taking down several large trees in Weston Cemetery. The northwest corner of Section D will look different.

The outer shell of the building trades house at SJC is finished. 

Someone on Facebook noticed new windows on the building next to the new Clinic of Family Medicine and the post lead to an interesting series of comments. 

It looks to me that the old windows, which were probably in very bad shape, were removed and these decorated windows are temporary until new windows can be installed.

The Christmas lights are up in the downtown. 

The Cobre mural, one of the most impressive murals that Rensselaer has, is showing its age. 

There have been crews installing cable for the past few weeks. On Tuesday they were by the First Merchants drive up.

The old Dollar Tree store, which is now empty, has had its lights on for about a month. When I first noticed the lights, I thought maybe something new was going into the space. Now I think someone just forgot to turn the lights off.

More decorated windows

The window painters have been busy and have finished most or all of what they are planning to do downtown. Now they will paint windows of Chamber members that are not downtown. However, the cold weather may stop them. When it gets too cold, the paint freezes.

The next two are on the windows of the Rensselaer Republican.

Jordan Balvich Dentistry.

The picture says it all.

The State Farm office on the corner of Washington and Cullen.

Rule's Auto Care.

Sblendid.

CI Insurance.

The next two are on the Clinic of Family Medicine.

Earth Magic.

First Merchants Bank.

Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Windmills and windows

Monday evening's meetings

The Jasper County Plan Commission and BZA usually meet starting at 7:00. The start was moved up to 6:00 on Monday, probably in anticipation of a long BZA meeting. I decided I should get there a bit early, but when I got there the seating was almost filled and there were some people standing at the back of the room.


The Plan Commission met first and was a short meeting. The first cause was approval of a 2-lot replat in Keener Township. The lot has a house on it and the owner would like to build a second house on the other part of the lot. Other lots in the area are similar. The request was approved and this one does not need to go to the Commissioners for final approval. The second item was amending the UDO with some changes in language. It had been discussed in the October meeting. It will go to the Commissioners with the recommendation for approval.

There was a short delay until 6:15 when the BZA meeting started. There was only one item on the agenda, a special exception for the location of 33 utility grade wind turbines (UWTs) with 2 alternative sites. The total project of the Carpenter Wind Farm will have 45 UTWs but twelve of them are in the Remington exclusion zone and they had been approved by the Remington government boards. The project will be built by EDP Resources, which was repeatedly referred to as EDPR, and will be owned and managed by them. NIPSCO has agreed to purchase the power generated. All will be constructed on land zoned A1, The presentation by EDP stressed the economic benefits of the project. Over the lifetime of the project there will be $70 million paid to landowners and $32 million in taxes, about half going to the Tri-County School system. In addition the project will make an economic development payment of about $6 million to the County. There will be about 150-200 jobs during construction and some permanent jobs because EDP plans to construct an operations and maintenance office in Carpenter Township. 

The presentation had a map showing the land that EDP had contracted for windmills, service items, or setbacks. The box in the lower left shows the area under the jurisdiction of the Town of Remington. The little circles show where windmills will be placed.

The Board members had some questions about tile damage and maintenance. I was surprised that most of the comments from the public were in favor of the project. Three union representatives mentioned how many of their members lived in Jasper County and might end up working on the construction. The head of the Remington Redevelopment Commission said that the City of Remington was in favor of the project. Again, the stress was on the economic benefits from the project. In contrast, a woman living near Remington said she just wanted to live a simple life that did not include windmills. I was very impressed by the EDP presentation. They clearly had done their homework, understood where the opposition to the project was coming from, and tried to disarm those arguments before they could be raised.

The Board then had to vote on several findings of facts. Those given by EDP were long and the Board did not want some of what was in them to be what the Board endorsed. Eventually they got together and edited out some sentences and paragraphs from the EDP copy and approved the edited findings. With the findings of acts approved, the special exception was approved. This was the final regulatory approval needed before construction can begin.

Scott Walstra, chair of the BZA, was elected to the County Council in the November election. He ended the meeting by announcing his resignation from the BZA. 

The next meeting will be on December 16 if there is an agenda.

After the meeting I had a couple of questions. I wondered if the $6 million economic development payment was contingent on getting a tax abatement and learned that the abatement had been approved in 2022. I also wondered about the legal notice shown below from page B8 in the November 14, 2024 issue of the Rensselaer Republican. I was told that it will be used to track overhead airplanes and will turn on the red warning lights on the turbines when a plane is overhead. Otherwise the lights will be off.

Joint Commissioners/Council meeting

The second Joint Commissioners/Council meeting of the year took place before the Council meeting on Tuesday evening. The first item on the agenda was a presentation by David Myers, Wheatfield Township Trustee, and Nick DeKryger of a proposed splash pad for northern Jasper County. Wheatfield Township owns a five acre parcel on SR 10 west of the KV High School that it plans to use for a future fire station. A number of DeMotte Rotarians have been planning a splash pad for the area and decided that this location would be an ideal location. It would be able to serve the whole population of the northern townships and it was big enough for both a park and a fire station.


The proposed splash pad is estimated to cost $2 million. They had prepared a pamphlet  that broke the cost into categories, and there are costs for infrastructure because there is none on the lot at present. They argue that the splash pad would improve the quality of life for the area and would be good for the community and the economy. They said that a splash pad is a low-maintenance amenity (at least compared to a pool) and that it would be free as the splash pad in Remington is. Fundraising for the project has just begun and they would like the County to contribute $500,000. If that happens, it will likely be from economic development funds that the Dunns Bridge II project has paid to the County. These funds have no restrictions on how they are used.

There was a brief discussion of the public defenders' office, which is supposed to begin operating at the beginning of the year. Apparently a head of the office has been selected but that information is not yet public. Still undecided is where the office will be located.

The Council has a moratorium on tax abatements for industrial solar and battery storage and Commissioner Bontreger wanted to know what the Council was thinking. The moratorium is being presented by Councilman Misch and he said he largely copied it from Wells County. There were suggestions that the same result could be obtained by tweaking the scorecard that had been developed several years ago to help businesses and the Council determine abatements. 

County Council meeting

The County Council had a bunch of additional appropriations that it passed. Most were technical bookkeeping. The County hires firms to supervise construction of a solar farm and a wind farm. The companies building these projects have agreed to cover the costs of this supervision. They pay the County, and for the County to then pay the supervising companies, the money must be appropriated.

The Sheriff had a number of salary changes, most due to people changing positions. They will be put into the salary ordinance in the December meeting and additional appropriations needed will be done in January. He mentioned that his department did not get the COPS grant it had applied for. Other places have more serious crime problems.

The Commissioners had approved a new position for the Health Department to help with the increasing number of Spanish-speaking people the Department sees. The Council approved a salary up to $49k depending on experience. 

The agenda had an item "Non-Exempt VS Exempt Status for County Employees. Whatever it was was made moot by a court case in Texas. The Council reappointed a person whose four-year appointment to the Remington Library to another four-year term.


There were two people nominated to fill Scott Walstra's position on the BZA. Scott Walker won on a 4-2 vote.

The Council then had a discussion of the moratorium mentioned in the joint meeting. The purpose of the moratorium was to send a message that the County does not welcome new solar investment. The attorney for the Council said that it would be better to have this done with a resolution rather than an ordinance, which was what Mr Misch was proposing. The main argument for it was that the Council members who had campaigned this year found widespread opposition from the public to additional solar farms. A motion to have the Council attorney draft a resolution passed with two nay votes.

The Council passed three changes to the 2024 salary ordinance. Jacob Taulman said that his search for a third deputy prosecutor had found a candidate with extensive experience and that he would be hiring her at the top of the amount the Council had allowed for this position. She will be part-time for four months so she can finish up her private cases. 

The meeting ended with an inconclusive discussion of where the EMS program should go next.

On the way to these meetings I took the picture below, showing the bare trees at twilight reflected in the River. It looked more impressive than what the picture captures.

New pool mural

At its last meeting the Park Board approved a new mural on the pool house at LaRue Pool. Last Saturday I caught Rein Bontreger working on it.

By Monday the mural was finished. Below is the left side of the mural.

And here is the right side.

More Christmas window art

Below are more pictures of window art. The first two show windows of Uptown Girls Styling Salon.

The next two are windows of Fenwick's Brewing.

Two windows of Cup of Joy.

Some windows of buildings that have multiple offices.

Express Employment.

Three paintings on the Beaver Law Office.

Unique Finds.

Four windows of Sorrel and Rye Mercantile.

Artists at work on DeMotte Carpet.

Two windows of the Lori James' office.

A window of First Merchants.

The window paintings are not finished so expect pictures of more in the future.