Murals day three

On Friday work continued on the downtown murals. The lady on the alley wall of eMbers building seems to be nearing completion. It is a wonderful work in a place that people do not normally see.

 The same is true of the face on the other side of the parking area.

 A new work was started on Friday on the northwest side of the alley. Below is what it looked like about noon.

 In the evening it had more color but it still is not clear what the artist envisions as the final product.

 The lady doing the cone flowers worked all day on her mural. Here she was working at the top around noon.

The evening light makes it pop. However, the artist says that the final product will look much different from what is here. She said that she expects to work two more days.

The Rensselaer sign on the side of the Rensselaer Republican building is starting to fill in but again it is not clear what the final product will look like.

A lot of people are wandering through the alley checking out the work. Most are impressed.

There are also some new local works.

 The spaceman with the balloon seems to be finished.

Tomorrow with Cruise Night the alley should be full of people checking out what has been finished. Also, the Visit Rensselaer Facebook page says that on Tuesday at 5:30 pm the public will have a chance to contribute to the mural across from Potawatomi Park.

At the last County Council meeting there was mention of increased construction activity in the northern part of the County. I checked with the head Planning and Development to see if she had been issuing a lot of building permits and she said that she had not. However, she does not issue permits for towns and cities or their buffer areas (which extend two miles from the town limits). She contacted the town manager in DeMotte who issues permits and got this back: "91 permits so far this year.  14 dwellings and 1 commercial since January.  24 total permits issues just last month."

Murals Day Four is here.

Murals, day two

Work continued on the downtown murals on the Fourth of July. I did not see any changes to the murals on the wall by the river but the artist doing the male face in the alley was busy.

As was the artist on the alley wall of eMbers.

Early in the morning on Thursday one could see that the flowers on the Gutwein Seed building were purple coneflowers.

By the evening a lot of the flowers had been filled in. This mural will probably be the most visible of the various murals being done.

Below the artist is adding detail. The purple for the petals is being apply with a paint gun, not spray cans.

Late in the day the word "Rensselaer" began to appear on the Rensselaer Republican building. I am awed by the Cameron's ability to draw the letters freehand.

The mural project has a shoestring budget and there is now an appeal to the public to raise some additional dollars so the project can do more. You can find the appeal with a way to donate here. If you like what these artists are doing for Rensselaer, if you think that this project is a significant improvement to our community, give some money and we will get more fantastic murals.

In addition to the professional muralists, some local citizens have added touches to the alley. This picture invites two people to stand on either side of the plus sign.

There are now monsters in the alley.

One of the monsters is on a manhole cover.

A local art teacher did this tree.

The sketch below looks like a space boy hold a balloon.

At the last Commissioners meeting the director of JCEDO said he might have some good news to share in the upcoming weeks. This week one bit of good news was released. A company called Inteplast has purchased the large building just to the east of the Interstate as you pass by the lake with the campground at the US 24 Remington exit. The company plans invest $20 million to add manufacturing capability to the plant and expects to employ between 60 and 70 people when fully operational in 2020.

Murals day three is here.

Murals on the 4th of July

The mural artists arrived this week and on Wednesday began transforming some of the walls in Rensselaer. The picture below was taken midday on Wednesday. A couple hours earlier the wall was still its original gray. 
In the evening the artists were busy working and had already finished a lot. If you get a chance, stop by and watch them work—it is fascinating to watch them.  They probably will not be working during the heat of the day.

This team of artists is only in Rensselaer because Lafayette hired them to do murals. We are piggybacking on what Lafayette is doing.

When I left on Wednesday evening, this butterfly was not on the wall. The picture was taken Thursday morning.

A sandhill crane is a very appropriate bird for this wall along the river.

The artist who is doing this grasshopper is also doing the side of the building facing the parking lot at the intersection of Washington and Van Rensselaer.

The bear is on the wall along the river. Some of the artists work from pictures. I took this photo because it contained the picture from which the artist worked.

 This face is in the alley.

 Facing it is this incomplete mural. It is on the eMbers building.

 This photo was taken on Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning the artist was working on it.

Several years ago I asked about the expression that corn should be "knee high by the Fourth of July" because it always seemed to be much higher than that. You can see the responses here.  This year it is hard to find corn that is knee high. I found some along Melville.

 Below is corn along Matheson. It is ankle high.

 The corn in this field along Wood Road is even smaller and the pond shows the reason that planting has been so late this year.

Perhaps the hot weather will help it catch up. The City power plant seems to be generating almost every afternoon and the water in the swimming pool is no longer cold. If the heat continues, it might soon be uncomfortably warm.

Have a nice 4th.

Murals Day Two is here.

Meetings and quilting

The ribbon cutting at the new dog park overlapped the start of the July Drainage Board meeting. There was one item on the agenda that I found intriguing, "Rensselaer Care Center–Drainage Issues. I was afraid that the meeting might be finished by the time I arrived but it was still on the first agenda item, a public hearing for reconstructing the Zacher Tile. The Board approved the reconstruction with amendments.

It seems that the Rensselaer Care Center has no drainage for its parking lot and as a result, it often floods with heavy rain. The Center is planning to redo the parking lot and is adding some drainage. The City of Rensselaer suggested that they review their plans with the County Drainage Board. The plan includes a detention pond and an outlet to the river that will cross the property of CenturyLink. The one suggested from the surveyor's office was that they put a flap on the outlet to the river to prevent back flow. The plan was approved.

I left the meeting during a long discussion of the Kankakee River maintenance assessment. The state or federal government has made a large grant to reduce flooding of the Kankakee and the various counties affected will need to provide a 20% match to the funds. There will be public hearing held in the northern part of the County in the future. Since Rensselaer is not in the watershed and will not be affected, I left before the discussion finished.

In the evening the Rensselaer Park Board met and there was much discussion about park improvements, both completed and upcoming. The grand opening of the dog park had occurred earlier in the day and it was discussed. To use the park, a person must register a dog and the form for that can be found here.

The Parks for People committee was scheduled to meet on Tuesday and discuss plans for the ball fields in Brookside Park. The work will be bid out to a variety of contractors. 

The Monnett soccer fields did not get seeded this spring because of weather–the same weather problems that delayed planting by farmers also delayed work on the soccer fields. Weeds have grown up and they will be treated with herbicide. The fields will be seeded in August. The walking trails at Monnett will be paved when Town and Country Paving is able to fit the project into their schedule. After that there are a number of other improvements that will be able to move forward.

The 70th anniversary bash at the pool was a success. An anonymous donor would like to have a plaque for Jimmy McFall installed at the pool. (It was his drowning death in 1946 that motivated the community to build the swimming pool in Brookside Park.) The Board approved the idea. There will be theme days at the pool in July. Sometime during the month there will be a swim with a movie night. Next week there will be a camp out in the park for families with kids. 

Sometime this summer the Parks should get its own web page. Until then, you can find information about park programs on the Park's Facebook page here.

The next Park Board meeting will be on August 5 at 6:00.

A new exhibit opened at the Carnegie Center on Tuesday featuring the Carnegie Quilters who have been meeting for 25 years.  Below are pictures of a few of the quilts on display.

The show runs until August 15. The gallery is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon until 4:00 and on Saturday from noon until 2:00.

The Rensselaer Summer Swim Team finished its season on Saturday with a win at the conference finals.

I noticed that despite our very frequent rain and storms, the water east of Weston Cemetery has finally dried up. Taking a look at the mud, it contained a sizable population of small fish, which means that fish from the river were able to get in and lay eggs. I did not see tadpole corpses. Perhaps they had enough time to develop into frogs, toads, and salamanders.

Despite the very wet spring, mosquitos have not yet been a serious problem this year. However, in the past week the Japanese beetles have emerged and are busy destroying leaves of fruit trees.

On Wednesday work began on murals downtown. We should end up with a beautiful alley.

Halfway thru 2019

We are halfway through the year. My calendar says July 2 is the 183rd day of the year and there are 182 days left.

We had a busy weekend. On Friday SR 114 was reopened to traffic, about a month late. The delay was due to the wet weather. On Sunday the last train of the Hoosier State Amtrak line stopped in Rensselaer. Rensselaer will now only have the three trains of the Cardinal line each week. The warm weather has brought large crowds to the swimming pool.

The Carnegie Players presented the Drowsy Chaperone late last week. The play is a musical comedy. The main character is called the Man in the Chair, and he is commenting about a record of a fictional musical from the 1920s that is re-enacted in his imagination and on the stage. The musical is only slightly exaggerated from the standard musical storyline. Many musicals have a wedding or two at the end, but this one has four. It was very funny.

The production was held in the lecture hall at the high school. It was well attended on Saturday and one of the actors told me the audience was bigger on Thursday and Friday.

 Below is a picture of most of the actors near the end of the play.

As we left the play, we saw the finale of the fireworks at the fairgrounds. I was surprised that they were visible from the high school. We also saw nature's fireworks in the form of lightning in clouds much further to the west and a bit south.

On Monday the Commissioners met for their July meeting. They approved four buried cable requests, two for gas line extensions for the City of Rensselaer on Amsler Road and Grace Street. They passed an ordinance raising the fee for property transfer from $5 to $10; this change had been mandated by a change in state law. They approved filling a vacancy in the Health Department for a part-time food inspector.

They heard a detailed report on the County's property insurance and approved the new policy, which will be 4% more expensive this year, mostly because the County has more property this year. A representative from Trane made a brief appearance to tell them that he will be back in August with a proposal for the jail. They next approved a copier and printer lease for the next 60 months.

A rather strange item on the agenda was the landowners wishing to speak in favor of the Dunns Bridge Solar project. Six of them spoke. They mentioned that it would provide a steady source of revenue for them, would be of great economic benefit to the county, and would be cleaner than NIPSCO's coal plant. A couple said that they were putting their least productive land into the program. However, the Commissioners at this point are not part of the decision making process. The issue is before the BZA, which had its public hearing in May and will vote on the project in its July 15th meeting. At the May meeting only three of the members of the BZA attended and only those three can vote in the July meeting. A majority of the Board must grant a special exception, so all three will have to vote in favor for the exception to pass. If it does not pass, the process can begin again.

Andrew Andree spoke to the Commissioners representing the DeMotte sewer and water district. He wanted to know what steps needed to be taken for the district to expand its services. There is a County soil and water commission but it has not met for several years and no one there quite remembered how it worked.

Stephen Eastridge of JCEDO reported that the task force formed to plan for the closure of the NIPSCO plant had met in private session during the past two months and would have something to present to the Commissioners and Council at the joint meeting of those bodies on July 16. (That joint meeting will begin at 5:30 and go until 7:30 with the regular Council meeting following.)  He also read a letter from the directors of JCEDO that pointed to the BZA and Plan Commission as being obstacles to growth in Jasper County. The letter was also sent to the Rensselaer Republican and can be viewed here on their website.

The meeting then went into recess until 10:00, which was the scheduled time for bid openings. When it reconvened, three bids were opened for paving in five subdivisions: Georgetown, Oak Heritage, Candlewood, Sherwood Forest, and Kelley Green. The bid ranged from $1,566,158.20 to $2,378,151.55 and after being reviewed by the consultants for the Highway Department, the Commissioners awarded the contract to the low bidder, Town and Country Paving. While they were waiting for the review, they heard an update on planning for bridge replacement and repair on two bridges in the northern part of the County. They approved the Sheriff's request to replace a full-time dispatcher; the department is currently down two in that position. They ended the meeting with a long discussion about rugs or mats and approved a contract for mat rental and cleaning.

After the meeting I stopped by the newly-reopened bakery. They had had a very busy morning and had sold out of some of their items, such as donuts.

In the afternoon the dog park had its grand opening and ribbon cutting.

The signage listed the major donors for the project

 as well as the rules for the park.

The Park has locked gates and only those who have registered dogs are given the combination. Registration for this year is free but there will be a charge starting in 2020.

Many people still do not know where the dog park is located. It is at 815 Bunkum Road. Going west on Bunkum, it is on the south side of the road once you pass the new addition to Weston Cemetery.

There were a couple more meetings on Monday but this post is already very long, so they will wait until the next post.