Veterans Day

It is Veterans Day so there will be no mail delivery today. The annual ceremony at Weston Cemetery featured the choir from Rensselaer Central High School. There seemed to be fewer people than usual but that may be because it was cold and very windy. Mayor Wood gave the main address and Marsha Smith-Wood did the invocation.

On Thursday I drove over to Monon for a meeting and stopped to take a picture of the completed Hanging Grove School memorial. The granite block on the left reads, "Hanging Grove School 1922-1966 Honored 2015"

When I drove this route two weeks ago, about half the crop was harvested. On Thursday almost all was harvested.

The weather forecast says we will get our first real frost tonight.

The voting results for Jasper County can be found on the county website, or here. There were no contested county races. Before the election there was concern in the media about how Donald Trump would handle the results. He seems to be doing quite well, unlike a few people in big cities who, in the denial and anger stages of grieving, are protesting and rioting. Many pundits and most polls were certain Clinton would win, but not an artificial intelligence system. CNBC reported on its predictions on October 28. It makes you wonder if the people at Google, Facebook, and Twitter had deep-mined their data and were aware that Trump would win or that the election would be very close.

The Chamber of Commerce has moved from Drexel Drive to the Chamberlin Building on Kellner and Weston. I wanted to take a picture of the inside but was discouraged from doing so because it was somewhat in disarray from a board meeting earlier in the day. The inside looks much better than the exterior of the the rather drab building.

A friend of mine sent me a picture of this 22-pound carp he caught in the Iroquois River. I am not sure what he does with them.

Laying the giant pipes that were unloaded just to the east of Weston Cemetery has begun.

Finally, the annual report of the Jasper Foundation gave some information about how to avoid taxes if you donate to non-profit organizations and also are required to take mandatory distributions from a retirement account. A little background information may be helpful. Many people have avoided taxes by contributing to IRAs, 401(k) and 403(b) plans. When funds are withdrawn from these accounts, they are taxed, and when a person reaches the age of 70½, the government requires that a certain percentage be withdrawn each year, the mandatory distribution. These distributions count as income and are taxed (which means that the high-tax years of a person's life may be after retirement). However, the PATH Act of 2015 made permanent the provision of some previous years that allowed people to have some or all of the mandatory distribution from an IRA (but not a 401(k) or 403(b) account) be given to a qualified charity and not count as taxable income. And if you have funds in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan, you probably can roll them over to an IRA so you can make contributions from it and avoid taxes.

This is of interest to both older people and non-profit organizations and both should investigate to see if they can benefit from this change in tax rules. See here and here for a start.

Meetings, Nov 7, 2016

The Commissioners meeting on Monday morning was more interesting than the short agenda suggested it would be. After some routine preliminaries, there was a discussion of a road (I think it is 250E) that crosses through NIPSCO property and that the county had agreed to vacate with the agreement that NIPSCO would finance a new road to take its place (at 300E). NIPSCO has built a gate and either will soon or has already closed the road to the public. NIPSCO claims a liability issue. The County had assumed the road would remain open until the replacement was completed. NIPSCO may or may not have worked out agreements with several groups that rely on the road.

The commissioners approved an agreement pending review by legal council that the County Recorder had with a company to have documents from large title companies submitted electronically. After a discussion of the need for building repairs at Community Corrections and reviewing two bids that could not be compared because both were partial, the Commissioners suggested that a third party review the situation and prepare a new bid form. After a Bicentennial recap by one of the torch bearers, the Commissioners heard more about bids for changes or repairs, this time from the County Coroner for the County Annex east of DeMotte.

The presentation by the Sheriff had three major items. The good news was that the jail passed its annual inspection and he gave the report to the Commissioners as required by state law. The average census of the jail is in the low to mid 80s. Several inmates are being held for level six felonies; the state now requires that they be housed in the county jails, and though it reimburses the counties for about $35 per day, the actual cost is closer to $56.

The second item was a discussion of River Bend Hospital, which is a psychiatric hospital that the state has assigned the county to use. A recent incident with a prisoner who was suicidal caused great frustration and there was no clear alternative.

Finally, the Sheriff said that over the weekend an unnamed Indiana county had been subject to a cyberattack, a case of ransomware. The county had brought in security experts but it was not clear that they would be able to unlock the systems or files. The Commissioners agreed that a meeting should be held to discuss how Jasper County can protect itself from a similar attack. Those who would attend would be those who have a responsibility to insure that the computer systems are secure.

Several routine or minor issues followed. The final item that was of interest was a comment from a member of the public. His wife and dog had been attacked by another dog. The attacking dog had attacked seven other people before this attack, and it was finally declared a dangerous dog and euthanized. The question the citizen raised is why a dog that had repeatedly attacked people in Rensselaer was not put down earlier and why the owner of such a dog can largely escape the consequences of his dog's behavior. (Apparently the dog owner was fined $100 by the City of Rensselaer.) There was no clear answers to the questions.

After a few other items, the Commissioners took a recess and then reconvened in executive session.

The Drainage Board had a long agenda but had nothing that was of general public interest. It discussed what might be done for several tiles, approved some drainage plans, and opened bids for five projects. The difference between high bids and low bids on those projects was often a factor of two or three.

The meeting lasted over past two o'clock and when it was over I noticed that the long lines for early voting had mostly disappeared. So I asked it I could vote and was told that signing up to vote had ceased at noon. The people still voting had waited for over two hours to vote.

Speaking of voting, today is election day. Are there people who decide for whom they will vote based on the signs in front of the polling place? If there are, should they be voting?

By the way, none of the Jasper County voting machines is connected to the Internet.

(edited to clarify a sentence)

Fall pictures and more

The chipper that worked its way through the city brush pile on Matheson Street a couple weeks ago left a huge pile of wood chips. Last week trucks were hauling them away. I am not sure exactly where they were deposited, but I saw the trucks heading out toward the sewage treatment plant west of SJC. I believe the steam is from the heat generated from fermentation in the pile and it rises as the excavator strips away the surface layers.

 Below is the excavator filling a truck. There were many truckloads taken out.

 The maples are impressive though many may be past their prime. Our neighborhood has been raining leaves for several days.

 This picture was taken on the last Saturday of October.

 Here is the scene a week later on the first Saturday of November. Beauty is fleeting.

 The sweet gum tree has beautiful fall leaves but it is not much planted. I suspect people do not like the seed pods.

 Work was being done to the back wall of the Horton Building last week.

 Progress continues on what was Jack's Uptown Service.

 There is now a roof on the new building at C&C Warehousing.

 CDC Resources has a new donation box at the College Mall. It is along the side entrance from Kannal Street.

These boxes are built by CDC Resources. See here for a bit more.

Mostly pictures

Despite not yet having a real frost--just a morning or two of patchy frost--the leaves may be approaching peak color. Below is a maple that was probably planted for its fall colors.

 The tulip trees are also near or at peak color.

 The City's leaf vacuum has been roaming the streets.

 Football season is over but there are still some downtown windows that have not been washed.

 I have not posted a picture of the quarry for some time. The water keeps creeping up the road. If you look carefully, you might see a lot of geese in the water. It is a safe place for them.

 Street paving seems to be finished but the crew filling cracks is out and about. There are a lot of cracks to fill.

 There is a lot of dirt being moved on North Elza in preparation for construction of an apartment building.

 Almost every day the old gas station next to eMbers is a little different.

 It is hard to see what progress is being made on the National Gypsum addition, but the dirt in front has been smoothed and grass mats have been placed to help get a lawn started.

 Not too far away a storage building for C&C Warehousing is taking shape. It appears to be twice the size of the original building, with bays on both sides.

 Work continues on the high rate treatment plant. There is still a lot of rebar on the street so there must be a lot left to do.

Ribbon cutting for the Rensselaer Solar Farm

The Rensselaer Solar Farm, which is owned by IMPA, the Indiana Municipal Power Agency, had its ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday. The solar farm has been in operation for over two years and was the first operational solar farm that IMPA completed.
The ceremony began with several speeches. The President and CEO of IMPA, Raj Rao, said that Rensselaer joined IMPA in 1983 and that the agency had learned a lot in building the Rensselaer Solar Farm. Also stepping up to the microphone were Doug Gutwein, Mayor Steve Wood, and an engineer for IMPA, Jack Alvey.

Then people, which included a middle school science class, assembled for the cutting of the ribbon. There were an lots of people taking pictures.

 The big moment of ribbon cutting.

 Then there was a quick tour of the facility, which involved almost no walking. Most of those who were on the tour were the middle school kids. They learned that the facility had 3188 panels and each supplied 305 watts per hour. On cloudy days the output is 20% or 30% of what it is on sunny days. IMPA currently has 14 operational solar parks and would like to have one in each community it serves.

 Below is a view of the panels that I will probably never see again. During the tour, the installation was shut down to reduce the chance of an accident.

 I asked about lawn care. The green strips are mowed and the area under the panels is treated with herbicide so it will not have to be mowed.  The IMPA representative giving the tour said that the panels used in the Rensselaer facility are still being manufactured and they are considerably cheaper today than they were two years ago, so the economics of these facilities is getting better.

One of the student asked why the facility could not generate power from moonlight and the tour guide struggled to come up with an unconvincing answer. (I think the correct answer is that the sun is 400,000 times brighter than the full moon.)

The power from every two rows of panels is collected in boxes in the center aisle of the facility.

 From there it goes to transformers at the front where the direct current of the panels is converted to alternating current for the power grid.

Listening in to a conversation after the tour, I learned that IMPA now has one tracking farm in which the panels move during the day to track the sun. However, they only track from east to west, on one axis, and do not adjust for the height of the sun above the horizon. That requires tracking on two axes, and is much more complicated. Also, if the Rensselaer facility were being built today, IMPA would build it to fully fill the site with panels and not leave the large empty area in front. As one of the speakers said, IMPA learned a lot when it constructed the Rensselaer facility and it has used what it learned on other solar farms that it has constructed.

There is a chance Rensselaer may get a second solar park. The idea is being discussed and explored.