At the fair

The 2016 edition of the Jasper County Fair has arrived. On Sunday evening  the fairground received only light sprinkles of rain but those paying attention saw a beautiful rainbow as the rain retreated to the east.

 I was impressed with the decoration of the Jasper County buffalo. There was a lot of thought given to what should be on it and those painting it did a great job.

 One side featured some of the most recognizable landmarks of the county.

 The decoration was a collaborative effort.

 The Sunday free stage featured the band Nightshift.

 Also on Sunday, the Volunteer Fair sponsored by the Jasper Foundation occupied the Commercial Building.

 Earlier on Sunday I wanted to see what progress was being made on the National Gypsum addition. Nothing was above ground, though it seemed stone had been spread in preparation for a concrete slab. However, there was activity on the skeleton of the big building at the state highway department. This building usually has what appears to be a fabric or plastic exterior. There were workers doing something to the frame, but I could not tell what it was.

We got a lot of rain Sunday night and Monday morning. My rain gage had over three inches, though that included some from Sunday morning.

The rain flooded one of the pits at the construction site of the storm water plant. It must have some storm sewers that dump into it. The second pit did not have the water.

It is a bit hard to see the water through the fence. The "No Trespassing" signs are new--they went up late last week.

A lot of new building materials were being delivered to the site on Monday morning, though some may not be usable until the pit is drained.

Odds and Ends, July 16, 2016

CTS Tire is having an open house this morning (Saturday). It was bigger than I expected, with part of Front Street closed off.

 It may be a bad day to need tire repairs.

 There was an Indy race car with "Do Not Touch" signs on it. However, you could drive a race car simulator. I tried it and found that I most definitely am not ready for the race circuit.

 The kids can enjoy a bounce house.

There are also drawings for a variety of things, from tires to tee shirts.

I saw a horde of middle school runners this week. Coach Yeager said that he has 43 kids in his summer running group.

I mentioned in an update to the last post that the bowling alley has reopened with the old ownership but new management.

If you like prairie restoration, there is a small one by the sewer treatment plant west of SJC.

Below you can see purple cone flower, rattlesnake master, and bergamot.

There was also some yellow coneflower and poison ivy. I think this flower is rosinweed.

There is a picnic bench next to restoration. Some of the people will get a view of the flowers.

Those on the other side will see the sewage plant and its nicely maintained lawn.

The corn is tasseling and looking very good.

Back on the SJC campus, on Thursday I passed by when some of the rooms in Gallagher Hall had no outside wall.

The view on Friday showed three steps in the renovation process.

There is a lot of work being done in other parts of the campus to get ready for the school year.

I learned this week that Rock the Arts will have an official pizza.

The patio along the street now has benches.

Work starts early at the construction site of the storm water treatment plant along Lincoln Street. On Thursday rebar and forms had been put in place in the eastern pit.

Concrete was poured on Friday morning using the apparatus below. I missed the actual pour but probably would not have been able to see much without getting in the way of workers.

Jackhammering in the western pit continues. The large excavator is completely below ground level.

The County Fair officially opens today (Saturday) but much fair activity has already happened. On Friday the dog judging was done--the dogs do not mix well with some of the other animals so they get a special day. The non-livestock 4-H projects have been judged, and the Fair Queen has been selected and crowned. 

At the fair, the Volunteer Fair will be on Sunday from 4:00 to 7:00 in the Commercial Building and there will be a free health on Monday morning.

A tale of two meetings (updated)

On Tuesday (7-12-2016) the Alcohol Review Board held its monthly meeting in the Council Room of Rensselaer's City Hall. (It meets pretty much every month on the second Tuesday at 10:00 am.) Only two members of the Board were present--apparently a couple of others were missing. There were three renewals with no issues and they were immediately approved. The renewal for Wagon Wheel had a violation--they had had a NASCAR race board, which involves some kind of gambling. They had been cited, paid a fine, and removed the item. Their renewal was approved. The last item on their agenda was a liquor license for Mount Hood Pizza and Grill. No one from Mount Hood was present so the item was continued to the next meeting.

In the evening the County Council met. The first item was an additional appropriation for highways. This was needed to provide the matching funds for state grants for improving county roads. This is the first year of the program and it may become a permanent program funded by the gas tax. The state has two pools of $50 million, one for large counties and the other for smaller counties with populations less than 50,000. There are 64 counties in the group including Jasper County and about 250 governmental units (counties, cities, and towns) that can apply for grants. Some units do not have the money needed for matching and others do not want to jump through the hoops needed to apply for the money. Jasper County has a lot of money for matching because we pay a very high local income tax and the state has for several years been putting some of it into a stabilization fund. This year much of that money was refunded to the counties, but unlike most refunds, it came with restrictions on how it could be spent.

It is estimated that only about 10% of governmental units from the small counties will make grant applications, so Jasper County officials have been aggressively working to get as much money as they can this year when the competition will probably be a lot less than in future years.

Judge Ahler attended but was not on the agenda. He gave the Council a heads up on his employment situation. His court recorder had resigned to become the clerk-treasurer of Remington, so his court had only two employees. He said that the three had been doing the work of four but with the loss of experience he will be seeking to an extra employee next year. He is advertising for a new court recorder but said that the skill set needed is not easy to find.

There were also an appropriation for overtime in the Sheriff's department and several transfers of funds.

Gerrit DeVries highlighted some of what he and two other commissioners had learned at a recent conference. He pulled slides from a presentation that is on the Internet here. The whole structure of local income taxes is being changed. Jasper County has both CAGIT and CEDIT levies but not COIT levies. The various buckets are being altered as this picture from the presentation shows.

The State of Indiana has not done much to explain how the changes to county officials. I suspect that this year there will be no changes in the county income tax because the Council will want to see what is going to happen in the transition. (If you want to learn more, click through the whole presentation linked above--it has over 100 slides.)

There was a short discussion of the problem of drug addiction, especially heroin, which is cheap and very addicting. Much of the county jail population is the result of addiction not evil, violent people. There is a cycle of people being arrested, cleaned up, released, and then drifting back to drug use, resulting in arrest again. There is no easy solution. There was also brief mention of a recent Department of Labor regulation regarding overtime that may affect the county.

On the wall outside the Commissioners room were notices that Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals was meting Thursday at 9:00 am and that the Commissions had continued their July 5 meeting to July 19 at 8:30 am. (I wonder if they will be discussing roads.)

Leaving the meeting, we saw a rainbow in the eastern sky.

More picturesque were the clouds in the western sky.

Update: The PTABOA meeting for Thursday morning was canceled. Whatever case they were hearing was settled.
Cullen Street has been re-opened. The paving is finished but center lines still must be painted.
The parking lot at the County Jail has been resealed and repainted.
The Bowling Alley has re-opened. Old owners, new managers.

City Council July 11, 2016

Despite a very short agenda and some aborted attempts to adjourn early, the City Council meeting on Monday night lasted over half and hour.

The first item, which was not on the agenda, was closing a block of Weston Street for the Chesek Circus, which was being held an hour later. On the agenda was an increase of $.05 for the July gas tracker and a transfer of funds that allows payment for bonds related to the Melville Street project. There were questions about why this transfer was needed because it should have been properly budgeted, and the answer was that for reasons not understood the budgeted amounts were incorrect but that the City's financial advisor was investigating. The final item on the agenda were a couple of Weston Cemetery deeds.

Councilman Barton raised a question that had been brought to him about the eligibility of the most recent appointment the Council made to the Rensselaer Central School Board. There was some discussion noting that the School Board has often ignored requirements in the past and did not care. Apparently there is a committee of some sort trying to figure out what the legal requirements are for the school board. Eventually the Council decided to let the School Board sort the matter out.

The City has received permission from building owners along Washington Street to take out trees that are dying. There was some discussion of the request of a resident for a refund on her sewer bill. The sewer line was damaged when the city installed a storm sewer and the resident had hired Roto Rooter twice to fix her sewer, not knowing that the city had damaged the pipe. The Council agreed to reimburse her.

In noting that Clark Street was being milled today and that segment of SR 114 was closed, it was also noted that moving SR 231 a bit east at the Mt Calvary intersection was a 2018 project.

One more picture. One of the pits on Lincoln is being prepared for some concrete.

A busy Saturday

Saturday was an unusually busy day and to make it more busy, we had guests. In the morning we watched cars arriving at the JC Cruiser car show in Brookside Park. Their Facebook page said that they had 137 entries.

I did not stay very long because I wanted to see the ribbon cutting at You'll Never Guess at 10:00 am. Below you see the "ink" of their printing process.

The big moment.

The offices have been much changed since a couple weeks ago when I visited. I did not stay around after because there was another ribbon cutting that morning, at the airport for the new fuel farm. The ribbon cutting was part of the annual fly in.

I got to the airport earlier than I expected so I walked around and talked to people. I met the new manager of the airport, who is currently living in Kansas and will assume duties on August 1.

 I was happy that I did not have to buy aviation fuel for my car.

There were a great many people at this ribbon cutting because there were a lot of people who at one stage or another contributed to the project. (You can get a bigger version of the picture by clicking on it but it is not a great photo. The center of the picture is in focus but the edges are not.) Among public officials who were there I recognized Mayor Wood from Rensselaer, Gerrit DeVries from the Jasper County Council, Doug Gutwein, our State Representative, and Todd Rokita, our Congressman.

Not everyone snipped at the same time.

The medical evacuation helicopter left not too long after 11:00. I think they had a call.

My guests wanted to pick blueberries, so after the pork chop dinner at the airport, we drove north and picked several gallons of blueberries. On the way back, I stopped at the new location of Sydney Jacobs Auto LLC. I discovered that the company has been selling cars for several years from the old Schumacher Building but the signage there suggested a different name. The owner of the company is a fan of old Chrysler and Dodge cars, so it is appropriate that he has relocated to part of the former Chrysler-Dodge dealer building.

In the afternoon my young guests wanted to swim, so we did that. There were a number of events in town that we missed, including the The Farmers Market and the High School Band yard sale and dinner fund raisers.

In the evening we missed Cruise Night because we attended the Fendig Theaters production of The Wizard of Oz. I was reluctant to put a picture on the blog--there were so many really good photos posted on Facebook.

The play ran three nights and every performance was oversold. Perhaps a fourth night will soon be added--for many years there were only two nights. The costumes and the set were spectacular. (I was especially impressed with the apple-tree costumes.) Every community has some things for which it can be proud and I think the excellence of the Children's Summer Theater is one of those things for which we can be proud. (Summer Swim team is another.)

There were too many events happening on one day.