Mid-April musings

We are already finishing up the second week in April. Tempus fugit.

The new motel/hotel at the Remington exit has its exterior complete. It will open late summer or early fall.

On Tuesday I attended the Marion Township Board meeting because I saw in the legal notices that there would be a public hearing on establishing a Cumulative Fire Fund. I was not surprised to find that I was the only one attending the public hearing. (See here for an account of the previous Board meeting I attended.) The Marion Township trustee has three main concerns: the fire department, the Township cemetery (Crockett), and poor relief.  Most of the vehicles that the Rensselaer Fire Department operates were purchased by Marion Township and they have Marion Township written on their sides. A new fire truck can cost $600,000. Marion Township does not have the money to pay for new trucks, so it buys used. It recently purchased a truck from western Illinois for less than one third of what a new truck would cost. There are two trucks still in service that have problems with their frames. Mileage is not what kills these trucks. It is age and rust, and the rust is often from road salt.

The current trustee is Dain Hayworth who replaced the late John Amsler. Mr Hayworth had asked the City if he could move his office to the new Fire Station and I was surprised that he was still in the old offices. He can move the office at any time but there are some issues about storing documents that are supposed to be secure according to privacy regulations.

The reason for the public hearing was to create the Cumulative Fire Fund and increase the property tax from $.0114  to $.033 per $100 of assessed valuation. This will not affect those residing within Rensselaer City limits; we get services from the City and pay taxes to it. The increase in taxes will increase the amount that the Township collects for the fire equipment from $14,000 per year to $42,000 a year.

Some magnolia trees are blooming and others will be blooming next week. As reminder that we are still in spring and not summer, there was light frost on the grass early this (Saturday) morning.

 I noticed sections of track are now stored north of the CSX tracks and south of the Prompt Ambulance office. The sections contained switches. I do not know where they will be installed.

 The old bottling plant/laundry at the corner of Clark and Cullen has been boarded up. It was mentioned in a discussion at a March City Council meeting as a building that was in unsatisfactory condition.

The old Martin's Restaurant a block north of this that was remodeled to be a Mexican restaurant still has not opened though the remodeling seems to have been finished nine months ago. Another building that has remained empty is the old Monnett School building that the City sold in 2017. The announced plan was to make it into a child care facility.

Campaign signs in yards mean that primary elections are coming up in May. I cannot find a link to a County or City site that has official information about candidates. I do not know of any contested races on the Democratic ticket. On the Republican side Councilman Scott Barton is not running for re-election (he is running for mayor) and two candidates are vying for his Councilman-at-Large seat: Russ Overton and Jeff Rayburn. The other contested race is for Ward Two where incumbent Rick Odle has two opponents, Noelle Weishaar and Rick Williams. There is an event on April 23 where you will be able to hear these candidates. (See sidebar.)

A very long time ago

Earlier this week I was invited to view some prehistoric earthworks located on a private property in Jasper County. They are on a sand ridge that until recently was overgrown with trees and underbrush. The owner of the property has spent many years collecting Indian artifacts and his knowledge of the prehistoric residents of our area was key to his recognizing the significance of what was on his property.

If I had walked alone through his property, I might have noticed that the landscape was unusual, with a number of circular pits and small mounds. It is very unlikely that I would have thought that these features could have been made many centuries ago. Below is a picture I took but it is impossible to capture the patterns that are visible when a person is actually there.

Indiana has other, similar prehistoric earthworks. Perhaps the best known is Mounds State Park near Anderson. (See also here.) The largest earthworks structure there is bigger than any that are on the Jasper County property, but it has a similar shape and design. It is round and on one side the lip of the circle is lower than the rest of the lip. There is a raised platform in the center. This kind of structure seems to be called a henge. There are at least six of them at the Jasper County site. They were probably built by people of the Adena culture more than 2000 years ago.

The owner of the property has shown them to archaeologists from Purdue and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Both were impressed and said that this is an important archeological site. One of the archaeologists would like to survey and map it with specialized equipment, but that equipment was loaned out and not currently available. Good maps would make interpretation of the site much easier. Even though the site has not been disturbed by farming, many centuries of erosion have blurred the features. One must use imagination to picture what was here when the site was in use.

What archeologists know about the people who made these structures is very limited. The tools and artifacts that were left by the inhabitants of Indiana 2000 years ago were considerably different from the tools and artifacts of the inhabitants of Indiana when Columbus stumbled on the Americas. Think of how little we would know of the Greeks and Romans if they had not left written records. Tools and other artifacts are not good substitutes for written records.

The owner of the land has not dug for any Indian artifacts, but he has used a metal detector to search the site for items left by early European settlers. He has found many nails, mostly from horse shoes, bullets, shell casings, and even part of a gun. Below is about one half of the metal artifacts he has found.

Judging from the tremendous number of Indian artifacts that have been found in Jasper County, this area had substantial populations before European settlement. Further, this area was probably inhabited since the glaciers retreated from Indiana at the end of the last Ice Age about 15,000 years ago. For information about Indian tribes in Indiana when European settlement occurred, see here.

Over the years I have had a number of posts about Indian artifacts (the best one is here and for others search the blog for "Indian artifacts") and I have bemoaned the fact that there is not more recognition of the people who lived here for thousands of years before European settlement. The owner of this site would like to find a way to give some public access to these earthworks. Perhaps it can eventually become something that will give recognition to our area's prehistory.

Dueling 500s

At the beginning of every Rensselaer City Council meeting, the Mayor asks for public comments. At Monday's meeting, the public comment took up half the meeting.

There are two different visions of how to continue the SJC Little 500 Race. The Alumni Association plans a Little 500 event at the Fairgrounds on May 18. Another group, and no name was give to it but it has at least two people who were active in racing and organizing Little 500 races, would like to do a Little 500 cart race on June 29. The location they want is a loop off Drexel Parkway using St. Gasper Drive. The route would go past the Autumn Trace building, Cooperative School Services, and Fountain Stone Theater. This route would require that Drexel Drive be closed to normal traffic, and it was this request that caused concern from various members of the Council. Eventually the Council tabled this item to the next meeting, requesting that those proposing the event get signed letters from all the businesses that might be affected stating that they were OK with the road closing.

The gas tracker for April will be a small fraction of a cent increase per hundred cubic feet. The Council passed the meter-deposit ordinance that had been discussed at the previous meeting. Four quotes were obtained for tree removal and the low bid of $48,800 for 84 trees from Practical Tree Service was approved. The Council approved hiring Peerless for $23,365 to clean Well #6. It has an expected capacity of 800 cubic feet a minute but is currently producing only 600 gallons per minute. During the cleaning, the well will be shut down and water will come from Wells 7 and 8.

The City was awarded a CCMG grant of over $900,000 for street improvements. Its matching portion of the grant will be $311,226. The Council approved hiring First Group Engineering for an amount not to exceed $93,600 for their services in doing the work funded by the grant.

The Council approved spending $2600 for the Pipeline Awareness Open House on May 3. The City has a State grant that will reimburse the City for this expenditure, but this grant payment is made after the event, not before. The City had received two bids to remodel a part of the old Police Station (that connects to City Hall) for the Clerk-Treasurer office. It accepted the low bit of $3124.01 from Contour Construction and also a bid of $374 from DeMotte Carpet for flooring.

The Council approved an appointment to the Park Board and advertising for an upcoming appointment to the Rensselaer School Board. There was concern about parking on Weston Street by St. Augustine's. When cars park on both sides of the street, it becomes a one-way street. The Police Chief will investigate. The Hoosier State train will cease operations at the end of June because the state subsidy will cease. It operates four days a week. The Cardinal (which comes from the East Coast) three days a week will continue service. (The Republican has more here.)

The Council approved use of streets for the May 18 Chloë K 5K Run for Autism. It starts and ends at the County Fairgrounds and turns around at Brookside Park using Bunkum Road.

The American Flag Raising project has met its fund-raising goal and the Police Department is working on testing applicants for its openings.

Here is a picture of more spring flowers.

Busy end of the week

On Friday the Jasper County Tourism Board met for its April meeting. It heard requests for funds from two festivals/events, the Little Cousin Jasper Festival and the new Taste of Jasper County event.  (The second event was misidentified a month ago as Taste of Rensselaer. It is Taste of Jasper County. My apologies.)

The theme for Little Cousin Jasper this year is "Believe in Magic." The main entertainment will be a magician who will put on his magic show several times. The Board told the festival representatives that the Board wants to cut back on funding festivals and events because that funding has not had the impact that was anticipated. Instead the Board would like to increase funding of capital improvements. The Board approved a grant that was 75% of the requested amount and warned that next year the grant would probably be less. They also suggested that the Festival work harder to getting sponsorships. The Tourism Board itself would like to move from grants to sponsorships.

The Taste of Jasper County event is planned for June 8 and is intended in part to raise funds for the Safe Halloween event at the Fairgrounds this Fall. The idea behind the event is that people do not know about food options in other parts of the County—Rensselaer residents do not know the restaurants in the Demotte area and DeMotte area residents do not know the food options to their south. The goal is to have ten restaurants set up in the City Parking lot at Front and Washington and showcase what they can do. They will be encouraged to offer some $1.00 sample bites in addition to regular menu items, though their menu will be highly restricted because of space. There will be musical entertainment for the later afternoon and evening, and after the event Embers will have a band. June 8 was selected because it was the date that Remington's Water Tower Days would have occurred if it had not been canceled for this year. (They had too many problems getting volunteers to help.) The Board agreed to sponsor at a slightly less amount than was requested.

Listening to comments before and after the meeting, I learned that the new motel at the Remington exit (I-65/US24) is scheduled to open in September, though if weather cooperates it might be open in August. There are outside companies exploring this intersection as a place to locate because it has a better utility infrastructure than the other I-65 interchanges in the County. It has full water and sewage, NIPSCO has a large gas pipeline in the area, and there are three electric utilities close by.  We will see if any of the interest results in announcements in 2019.

The Jasper County Historical Society sent out its April newsletter and it had a couple of fascinating pieces about the orphanage that was located on land that later became Saint Joseph's College. The Chronology of Fr Robbins said that the the Diocese of Fort Wayne purchased the 933 acre George Spitler farm in 1867 for the orphanage and that the first orphans arrived in 1868. The boy orphans were moved in 1876 to a new orphanage in Lafayette and the girl orphans were moved in 1887 to a orphanage in Fort Wayne. The Indian School opened in 1888.

The Historical Society received papers from Saint Joseph's College that adds some detail. The Historical Society has an index of 145 names associated with the orphanage. They were obtained from the papers that they received and also from the 1870 and 1880 Censuses.

The orphans were mainly children of immigrants residing in Fort Wayne. Of the 53 boys at the orphanage when the Lafayette home opened, 35 were Irish and 8 German. 32 were half orphan with still one parent alive.  The George Spitler home, which had housed the first orphans, burned in 1888. The orphanage was staffed by the Sisters of Mercy. Several of them had served as nurses in the Civil War. In 1886 one of the Sisters began to visit Welbern Wartena before he was hung for murder. Her visits convinced him to be baptized before his execution.

If you would like more information, contact JCHSmuseum at gmail.com.

On Friday I received a revised copy of proposed wind ordinance that the Jasper County Plan Commission will consider on April 15. There are a couple small changes and one huge change. The small changes increase setbacks to non-participating land owners and roads. The huge change moves the line that separates the part of the County in which wind turbines are allowed from the part where they are not allowed. That line is currently Division Road. The new line is twelve miles south, at CR 1200S. That means that Carpenter Township and some of Jordan Township are the only parts of the County in which commercial wind turbines will be allowed. In 88% of the County they are banned. The justification for the extension of the no-turbine area seems to be the MOA (Military Operations Area). There is strong opposition to wind turbines in Barkley and Milroy Townships and that opposition probably made any wind farms there impossible. Hence banning them there will make the citizens happy and will have no effect on what gets built. In contrast, there is considerable support for turbines in the southwest part of the County and that seems to be the only area in which there is enough support to allow them to be built. It will be interesting to see if the wind turbine opponents celebrate this as a victory (which for them it is) or if they will be bitter and angry that there is not a complete ban.

(I have noticed that I have a tendency to put the most interesting things in a post at the end. I do not understand why I do this, but you should be aware of this tendency of mine.)

Autumn Trace has put more pictures on Facebook.

On Saturday morning the Family Fun Fair was held at the Fire Station. A helicopter was one of the attractions.

A remote controlled ATV also attracted interest.

The children who came had the opportunity to get a lot of free books and other stuff.

April is here

We had snow on the last day of March. It would be nice if that is the last snow of the season.

I noticed a couple of amusing April Fools Day posts. Embers announced that there was not enough for kids to do so they were opening a Chuck E. Cheese in their carriage house and Fair Oaks Farms announced their upcoming Llama Adventure at Fair Oaks Farms.

The County Commissioners met for their April meeting on the Monday, the 1st. After approving a buried cable permit on the Jasper-White County line, they opened bids for remodeling the former PNC building. Changes need to be made to make it ADA compliant. There were two bids, one from Titan and the other from Hamstra. The bids were given to Councilman Andrew Andree, who has been overseeing remodeling efforts in County buildings, for review. Later in the meeting he returned and recommended that the Hamstra bid be accepted. With the first alternative included, it was $6700 lower than the Titan bid and it included a larger elevator. Work will probably not start until late summer.

Mr Andree also gave an update on Court House improvements. The window work is finished and the new air handlers and boilers have been installed. He has used inmates from the County jail to insulate about half of the Court House attic, which had never had any insulation. He has also used inmate help in removing old law books, which have been digitized and therefore are no longer used, from the basement, filling two dumpsters. There is still some work on doors that needs to be done. He had praise for Honeywell, the overall contractor for the work on the Court House.

The scheduled time for a second bid opening had not arrived so the Commissioners heard the request from the Little Cousin Jasper Festival to use the Court House lawn for their Festival on September 6-8. The request was granted.

The second bid opening was for the Wheatfield Township fire station. They received three proposals and each about ten options of additions or subtractions. They were turned over to the Township trustee for her review. Hopefully the fourth time will be the charm; the previous bid rounds either received no bids or the bids were too large for their budget.

Sheriff Williamson needed signatures for a grant application to Walmart to support their drone program. He also mentioned two fees that he would like the County to approve. Other counties use them and he will have ordinances prepared for a future meeting. He did mention in this discussion that 80 to 90% of inmates coming in are addicted to either alcohol or drugs. The roof of the jail had a leak that was fixed by Trane; it might have been caused by their installation of insulation. He thinks that the cost of repairs by the Havel company are excessive and would like to consider a different maintenance company.

Sharon Colee of Community Services said that the Rensselaer Center has been having problems with their heating and cooling systems. They are original with the building that was built in 1992 and are probably at end of life. When the temperatures are not within limits set by regulations, the programs for Head Start or senior citizens must be shut down, which affects utilization, which affects funding. She had two quotes for replacement but the Commissioners had some questions. She said that she would get them answered but had not by the time I left. (There was an executive session at 10:30 and the Commissioners may have reconvened after that.)

The listed items being covered, the Commissioner turned to other matters. They noted that interviews are needed for a new Veteran's Service officer. They received notification  from Dan Perkins that he was leaving the Soil and Water Conservation office. (I talked to him about a month ago and asked what his plans were. He will devote full time to his specialty farming. For more, see his website at www.perkinsgoodearthfarm.com.) The County Highway engineer reported that the County had been awarded $978,076.91 for five projects by the Community Crossing Matching Grant program. (See here for awardees.) The Commissioners had to sign forms in blue ink. Apparently if everything is not done exactly right on the acceptance form, the whole grant can be rescinded. Rensselaer also did very well in this program, with a grant of $933,677.96, as did DeMotte with a grant of  $908,574.75.

After some routine business items, the Commissions recessed until their executive session.

In the afternoon I went to the drainage board meeting because I saw that there was an item about Talbert. I got there after the meeting had started and in the midst of a public hearing on an assessment for a watershed in the eastern part of the county involving the Upper Ryan, Lower Ryan, and Oliver ditches. There were some strong opinions expressed. What seemed notable about the end result is that the Board decided to assess the drainage at $2 per acre or $25 per lot, whichever is more. This is a change from past practice, raising the cost of small lot owners. It will be interesting to see if it carries forward in the future. The argument made by one of those attending was that people with houses on small lots put water into their neighbor's fields and they get a disproportionate amount of benefit from the drainage.

The Talbert item was for a 5600 square foot addition to their factory east of town. Presently they have no drainage plan but one was approved, with some modifications, at the meeting.

In the evening the Park Board met for a short meeting. William Wornhoff, who has been on the Board for many years and was a past president of the Board, sent a letter or resignation for health reasons. He had been the main advocate for a dog park and a new dog park is almost ready to open. The City Council will appoint a replacement.

Other things. Busy Bee has opened, another sign of Spring. The former Nesbitt law office that until recently housed Birthright has changed ownership. The new owner is Unwind Massage, LLC, which currently operates from the back of the building. I look forward to seeing what changes will be coming.

There are other changes downtown. The interior of the old Horton Building is being remodeled and as a dumpster testifies.

Serenity Health and Wellness, which was in the building, has moved to the space that was most recently County Bumpkin, across from R&M on Kellner.

Cliff Robinson has opened a office down the street in the old Sears Building across the hall from Dr Moyer.

Work is being done on the Rensselaer Family Dentistry building, which has a new owner and dentist, replacing Dr Sy. The workers are raising the entire building several inches.

Thee Dragonfly/Country Bumpkin store has reopened on Washington Street next to the Bakery.

 It is full of treasures.

Much of the material is from people who have rented space. I talked to one person who had previously had a booth at the Antique Mall which closed last year.

WLQI reports that the Hoosier State Amtrak route is unlikely to continue past the end of June. It stops in Rensselaer four days a week.