Finally, some pictures

After two posts without pictures (Sorry about that), I finally found some pictures. The first shows construction on the Comfort Suites at the SR 114/I-65 intersection.

 When I was at the ceremonial groundbreaking a few weeks ago, I overheard mention that the land had a covenant on it that limited what could be built on it. The covenant had another ten years to go but did not forbid a motel.

Closer to town, progress continues on the new fire station. Below is the view from the east end.

 And this second picture shows the west end, the end in which the vehicles will be housed.

This weekend is the weekend of the Fall Festival at the Fairgrounds. It opens Friday at 4:00.

Budget meetings continued

On Wednesday morning I arrived at the County Council meeting about twenty minutes after it began as the Superior Court judge was finishing his presentation. The Recorder had a short presentation. She was followed by the public defender who noted that the state now mandates that family law cases have counsel, so the case load of public defenders has increased. However, the county gets 40% of the salary back from the state, so it is only a 60% unfunded mandate.

The Clerk of Court talked about the 64 voting machines that the county has. She would like to have them updated with new software, motherboard, and color screen. The cost would be about $90,000 and should extend the life of the machines another ten years. Weed Control said that it had been a bad year--the flooding was bad for crops but good for weeds. The weeds they try to control include marijuana, Palmer weed (which is spreading), ragweed, and Canadian thistle.

The Highway Department has a new road grinder and the head of the department explained how it could improve the base of the road if a layer of stone were put on the road before grinding. The grinder would push the stone on top down, improving the base of the road. Two layers of chip and seal would then surface the road at about half the cost of blacktopping it. Asked about county bridges, he said that Jasper County bridges are in better shape than the bridges in most other Indiana counties.

Kendall Culp presented the Commissioner's budget, which includes many different accounts. One reduction that he was very happy to report was the annual subsidy to the county hospital. With its acquisition by Franciscan Alliance, an expenditure of over $100,000 will not be in the 2016 budget. He warned that the 2017 budget may have a big increase. The county has very generous health-care benefits, something that helps retain employees. Under Obamacare they are considered generous enough to qualify for the so-called Cadillac Tax, which will cost the County about $400,000. (Checking the Internet, we may have an extra year--it apparently does not take effect until 2018.)

Included in the Commissioner's budget was money for Jasper County Community Services. The head of that agency made a presentation and a request for more funding. She noted that the organization now has three senior citizen centers with a new one opened in Remington. They have 19 employees (6 full-time and 13 part-time) and provide about 19,000 meals a year. Following were short presentations by the Community Corrections, the Coroner (55 bodies through the morgue so far this year), and the Treasurer's Office. Judge Potter presented budget requests for the Circuit Court and probation. Probation officers' salaries are set by the state. There either have been or there are projected to be more than 100 child abuse and neglect cases this year, up significantly from last year. Many of them are connected to drug use.

The morning concluded with Veterans Affairs and the Surveyor's office. Part of DeMotte has been classified as a flood plain, increasing costs for those affected. The town of DeMotte and the Surveyor are trying to change the drainage so that that classification can be changed to not in the flood plain.

The Council quit for the morning and went to lunch. They had more to hear in the afternoon, but I had had enough for one day and went home to take a nap.

Starting the budget hearings

The County Council met Tuesday night. Before the budget hearings began at 7:30, Sheriff Risner requested an appropriation of $75K to pay the jail's utility bills the rest of the year. Monthly bills average about $16,000. He noted that the jail has been having problems with humidity and that EMCOR is trying to correct the problems. He also noted that his liaison with EMCOR, Kurt Stevens, passed away on Sunday. I have not found an obituary but I did find a note on his blog about his death. The request was approved.

The next item was a new application package for tax abatement that was prepared by Kevin Kelly of the JCEDO. It was praised by a couple councilmen and passed. Then because there was time, the council asked Mr Kelly to speak about what has been happening in economic development. He said that he was working on the annual report. There are two large expansions of agribusinesses underway, the Max L barrow farm and the Bos Dairy plus a variety of smaller business expansions or starts. He noted that the Comfort Suites will increase hotel/motel rooms in the county from 231 to over 300. With still some time before the start of the public hearing for the budget, Councilman Price said that Franciscan Alliance seems open to the idea of doing some testing locally for county employees that currently must be done in Lafayette, that the metal-theft bill sponsored by Representative Gutwein will have high priority in the next session, and that the attorney for the commissioners is working on an ordinance establishing a violations bureau, a simpler way to enforce ordinances.

At 7:30 the public hearing for the 2016 budget began and Sheriff Risner spent the next 50 minutes explaining his budget requests. The Sheriff's budget is one of the largest and most complicated of the budgets the council reviews and it may be the largest. He is requesting pay increases of 7% for most of his employees. He stated that when a new deputy is hired, it takes about a year and an estimated $97,000 to get the new deputy fully trained and ready to do his or her duties. Turnover is very expensive. His department is currently short five officers, though at least two of those have been hired and are currently in the training process. Some changes he will be dealing with in the next year is a state mandate that Indiana residents held in jail for thirty days or more be enrolled in Medicaid and given mental health insurance. He noted that almost all of the roughly 60 prisoners at the jail have either problems with substance abuse or mental health issues. People often vent their frustrations about weather or road closings on the communications officers, who of course can do nothing about these sorts of problems. The jail is short-staffed according to an evaluation by the state and he requested four new hires to bring it up to state recommendations, though I am pretty sure that he knows he will be lucky to get one or two new hires put into the budget. The jail usually runs with three corrections officers on duty and there are usually three deputies patrolling the 550 square miles of the county.

The public hearings on the budget will continue most of the day on Wednesday beginning at 8:30.

Pictures from Sunday

On Sunday morning I biked out Sparling Avenue and noticed that the SJC football players were having a practice. Perhaps they were out early to avoid the heat and humidity that came later in the day. I also noticed the bench that the Youth Center had obtained for collecting 400 pounds of bottle caps. (I believe that if another group wants a similar bench, they can get it by collecting another 400 pounds.)

The reason I was out on a bike was that I wanted to check out the newly paved Gasper Drive that I had noticed late on Saturday. It looks great. It was still stone on Thursday morning.

 There is still some work that has to be done to clean up things. I hope that work includes filling in around the fire hydrant.

 It has been a while since I posted a picture of the quarry. The water has risen a lot since the end of May.

 The holding lot has more stone on it. Someone who knows about the quarry told me that the stone was for road work on US 231 and SR 16. He also said that the closing of the quarry might not be final. There was a chance that it might be reopened.  If it ever is,  it will take a long time to pump out all the water.

 On the topic of water, Sunday was the final day that the LaRue Pool was open. The heat and humidity brought out a lot of people, though by the time I took this picture, about an hour before closing, most had left.

 The new roof on the First Christian Church is almost finished.

That is about it except to note that the railroad crossing on Cullen Street remains closed.

All dried up (updated)

Lake Weston dried up this past week. This summer must have been one of its longest stays if not the longest. It formed with the heavy rains in June so it lasted over two months. The rain we got last night was too late and too little to keep water in it.

 It is always interesting to see what was in the water. There were hundreds of dead fish, including some larger bullheads or catfish. Most of them were smaller and I do not know what kind (though I suspect it may be a river carpsucker).

The herons probably had full meals as the water receded--there are many bird tracks and also some animal tracks in the mud. I suspect that the water produced lots of frogs and toads--I have seen quite a few in the area. It also produced a lot of mosquitoes--I was swarmed as I took these pictures.

In other news, the estimates for the repair of the bridge over Wildcat Creek near Lafayette is four to six weeks. Prepare a route home if you are traveling past Lafayette to the south.

Update: Not long after I posted this a storm blew up in Newton County and reached over to give Rensselaer a heavy downpour, probably the most rain we have had in a month. The runoff temporally put some water into Lake Weston, suggesting that the water table in that particular location was still not very far below the surface. This picture was taken Saturday in the late afternoon.