Odds and ends, April 28 2014

I had to drive to Monticello today and was surprised by how strong the wind was. Below is a view of the road in White County.

 A lot of people had fun at the Little 500 race at SJC on Saturday. On of the entertainments for kids was a merry-go-round that was powered by the kids pushing and pulling on a bar.

 I forgot to include this picture in my last post on the culvert adjacent to Brookside Park. It was taken on Thursday.

 There was minimal work on Friday, but on Saturday morning the crane lowered all the sections of the culvert into the creek bed. I arrived shortly after they had finished that task.

 By the end of the day the earthen dam above the culvert had been removed and water was flowing through the culvert.

Although I did not see the crane place the culvert sections, I did see it leave. When it drives on the highway, it rests its boom on a separate trailer, and below it is lifting that trailer onto the road. The driver then made sure everything was secure and drove off.

I feel sorry for the truck drivers who keep coming up to the the barricades and are surprised that the road is closed. The highway signage is very poor. Today as I was returning from Monticello, I saw the detour signs all along SR 16. At the intersection of SR 16 and US 231, there was a sign that was easy to miss if you were watching traffic that said that to get on I-65 you had to go south. If you continued north, you kept seeing the detour signs. As you approach SR 114, you see the sign below. Isn't it reasonable to assume that you can continue west on 114? There are no barricades until you get to the culvert.

 There is not much to see at the Dollar General site except that workers were putting in forms for sidewalks. I think sidewalks are wonderful, but unless they hook up with other sidewalks going west and especially east, they will not be of much use.

At the City Council meeting on Monday, there was discussion of what trees the city has removed this spring. Several had been removed along Vine to prepare for a new sewer line (I think it is storm sewer). I do not see any that had been removed along Vine itself, but the little grove of trees west of Vine is now gone, so those may be the trees that the city has removed. There are lots of drainage tiles waiting to be installed.

A few more meetings

The city council met for its second meeting of the month on Monday and had a busy agenda. It gave the mayor permission to sign a contract leasing Staddon Field for the summer for $1 and it approved expenditure  of about $13,000 to chemically clean water well #6, which is not pumping as much as it should. If the cleaning does not work, the company, Peerless Midwest will pull the pump and clean it.

The council then approved a bunch of tax abatements that had been recommended by the Tax Abatement Compliance Meeting on April 25. I did not understand what this was about, but the motion was approved for Chief Industries, ConAgra, Donaldson's, American Melt Blown, and Genova.

A few minor matters were then discussed and approved before a presentation of plans for a new fire station were presented. The plans are for a six bay station that will house all eleven vehicles that the department now has. (The current building only has four bays.) There will be an office area on the east end, and part of this area will have both a basement for storage and an upstairs. Below are some pictures showing the plans. If you want to know more, there will be a public hearing on this on May 12.

 Main floor:

 Second floor and basement:

 Office area on main floor:

The new fire station will be next to the Kirby Risk building on Clark Street (SR 114). The projected cost is $3.3 million to $3.6 million.

In other business and announcements, the city wants to extend the road that leads to Fountain Stone Theater, Taco Bell has broken ground by the Interstate, the Memorial Day ceremonies will be on Saturday, and on Wednesday at 10:00 the first steering committee meeting on the future of the old Monnett School building will be held at the building.

The meeting ended just before 7:00, so I had time to go to the Court House to attend two more meetings. The first was a short Board of Zoning Appeals meeting, which granted and made permanent a variance that been renewable. The business was firearms sales on a limited basis from the basement of a residence.

Following that the Planning Commission met to consider five items. The first was for a change of zoning from A1 to A4 so a person could sell seed corn. The person wanted his entire 20 acre lot rezoned, but the commission wanted to limit the rezoning to a smaller part. The issue was tabled to the next meeting on May 22. The second and third items were skipped because the people bringing the proposals had not finished all the steps that they needed to take. The more interesting of the two is for a farm implement dealership on the corner of SRs 14 and 49 that will focus on the sale of dairy equipment. The final rezoning request was to allow a separation of land into two parcels, a smaller one that contained a house and a larger one that is wooded that the family wanted to retain and not change. It was passed. Whatever passes the Planning Commission still must go to the Commissions for their approval. (One Commissioner and on Council member sit on the Planning Commission.)

The last item was a discussion of new fees for building permits and building inspections. This has been discussed at some previous county meetings I have attended, and the rationale was that the fees should pay for the work done for the building inspection. Since larger buildings take more time, they should pay a higher fee, which they do not at present. (If your building is less than 200 square feet, you do not need a permit.) The discussion veered off to a discussion of whether electrical upgrades should require a permit and an inspection, which at present they do not. The consensus seemed to be that this was a good idea. No one mentioned that more cost would give people less incentive to upgrade wiring and that more regulation would give people more incentive to do the work themselves rather than hire a contractor or electrician who would know what he is doing.

Digging--Updated

This is the time of the year for digging. I have begun digging in my garden. Farmers are in the field doing their version of digging. Steinke Funeral Home has been digging, planting shrubberies and trees.

 New trees are being planted at Potawotamie Park. On Friday (today) there will be an Arbor Day Celebration from 4:00 to 4:45 that will celebrate the new trees. These below were black alders, not to be confused with Black Adder.

 Speaking of trees, the magnolias are blooming, and some are past their prime. However, most trees still have not leafed out. I wonder if the harsh winter may have killed or damaged some of them.

The really interesting digging is taking place next to Brookside Park. On Tuesday the old culvert was removed.

A couple of hoses diverted the creek so the excavator could dig below the level of the creek.

 A couple truckloads of stone were then put in the hole to give it a smooth bottom.

On Thursday the sections of the new culvert arrived. The new culvert will be a lot bigger than the old one.

 Below is a good look at the water diversion.

 A large crane unloaded the trucks.

 As the trucks were being unloaded, the excavator was doing some final digging.

 A total of 12 sections of culvert were delivered by the end of the day on Thursday.  They are about ten feet by eight feet, but not all of them were equally wide.

In area news, Wolcott is getting a new water tower.

Update: A few days ago I saw a message from the Chamber of Commerce that Franciscan Alliance was going to open a Working Well office in Rensselaer. It will be in what was a dentists office directly across Grace Street from the hospital. Their goal is to have the office open in May, with a target date of May 12. Here is the press release.

I went out to see what the culvert replacement east of town looked like. The culvert there is much shorter than the one going in by Brookside Park. It also has only 7 segments, while there are 12 waiting to be installed in town.

The closing are not well marked. There are still lots of people driving up to the barricades and then being very surprised that the road is closed. From tire tracks you could see that a few people had driver around the closing, driving into the field.

Seeing the light

There was a new exhibit being hung at the Fendig Gallery on Wednesday and I stopped in to see what would be on display. I could not resist snapping a few photos.

 The display is called Seeing the Light and features 32 works by members of the Lubeznik Center's Area Artists Association of Michigan City. It will be on display through June 13.

 The reception for the artists will be held Friday, April 25, from 7;00 pm to 9:00 pm.

(I was having a little fun in my selection of pictures. I will do a more respectful selection after the exhibit is fully installed.)

The Prairie Arts Council will not have their Taste of Rensselaer event this summer. Instead they will be hosting a new event, Rock the Arts on July 26. It will be held in Potawotamie Park and will feature music, food, interactive art, beer garden, games, and art booth. More information will be posted here as it is made available.

What makes a mayor happy

I saw the announcement that there was an Earth Day celebration at City Hall on Tuesday and that a model of the Storm King hydrodynamic vortex separator that will be used in the storm water treatment plant would be on display. When I got there I saw that the model of the vortex separator was a lot larger than I expected.

 Before I entered the building, I took a quick picture of one of the eagles that decorates the building. I have meant to use those eagles in a post for years.

 Entering the council chambers, I was surprised at how many people were there and how well dressed they were. There were a lot of out of town officials, and when the program began, the mayor introduced them: representatives from Commonwealth Engineers, Inc, which is the designer of the sewer overflow treatment plant, from USDA Rural Development, IDEM, JCEDO, representatives from Congressman Rokita and Senator Donnelly, and more.

All communities that have combined sewer lines, and there are over 100 in Indiana, are required to  have a long term control plan to deal with overflow during heavy rains. How to finance a project that would meet court and IDEM requirements has been a major concern in some of the city council meetings during the past few years. The city made an application to the United States Department of Agriculture for funding, hoping to get a low interest loan. Getting that loan would have been cause for relief, but when the result came back as a $1.7 million loan with a 2.5% interest rate and a $5.2 million grant, it was cause for rejoicing. The mayor was a very happy man.  (Citizens of Rensselaer should also be very happy--the grant will keep sewer rates a lot lower than the otherwise would be.)

 The time line now is that project may be put out for bidding in October, with construction hopefully beginning in January of 2015 and completion December of 2015.

After the brief remarks by several people, the public was invited outside to hear about the vortex plant. It has no moving parts, but uses the flow of water coming from the combined sewer line to create a flow in which the solids will separate out. The solids will go back into the sewer line to be treated by the city's sewage plant, while the water will be treated chemically to kill bacteria and then released into the river. (That is a highly simplified summary--there was a lot more detail available from the engineers.)

 I asked a few questions, including if I could go up on the unit and see what it looked like from the top.

 Then it was time to go back inside for another cookie and check out the display of free mugs, pens, caps, koozies, hand disinfectants, playing cards, paper clip holders, bags, and pads of paper.

Maybe some of the items that were not claimed will be at the gas utility open house on May 2.