A meeting not Zoomed

We are finally getting some needed rain. Now the grass can start growing again.

The United Way of White County recently received a grant of $400,000 from the Lilly Endowment for not-for-profit organizations in White, Jasper, and Pulaski Counties that have been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown:

"The purpose of the Community Relief Fund collected in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic is to distribute dollars as quickly as practicable to address the short term and long-term needs of local communities suffering the physical, social, and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic by supporting service agencies and programs in their quest to continue assistance during the pandemic."

"The United Way is accepting applications that will be evaluated by a committee. Special attention will be given to agencies that:
• Ensure sustainability of our regional social service network
• Reduce gaps in services, particularly for healthcare and mental health access
• Increase services offered via alternative or virtual delivery
• Increase the # of individuals who access services for basic needs
• Increase the # of individuals participating in healthy food access/nutrition programs
• Increase the # of children enrolled in childcare or education/engagement programs
• Increase the # of volunteers engaged in addressing community needs
• Increase the # of social sector jobs retained through organizational financial supports"

I cannot find a lot about this on the news, but here is a short and concise summary.

The Rensselaer City Council met on Monday afternoon for its second June meeting. The meeting was not via Zoom but was live, in City Hall. The tables that line the back of the room for various department superintendents had been supplemented by another row so that the superintendents could be spaced further apart. I was the only member of the public attending.

The Council approved closing the alley west of Washington between Front and VanRensselaer during mural week. They noted that there would be a need for some City vehicles to have access to the alley for garbage pickup and perhaps other purposes. The meeting was then closed for a public hearing on additional appropriations for the Building Department, the Police Department, and for street repair and construction. There were no public comments so the regular meeting was reconvened and the additional appropriations were approved. The Council then approved transfers to the rainy day fund and within the mayor's budget.

The electric tracker for the quarter will reflect a one dollar decrease per thousand kilowatt hours. Two members of the Police Department were honored with ten-year and twenty-year service awards. (The Republican should have pictures.) Shortly before the recent demonstration at the Court House, the County asked the City to close a block of Harrison Street for the evening. That was approved with a poll and that poll was then ratified by a vote at this meeting.

A request for $1500 for the third annual employee picnic was approved as was a request for $300 for a meal for officers working Cruise Night on July 11. The meal is a tradition and usually financed by donations from restaurants, but this year the Police Department did not want to ask the restaurants for help given how the pandemic has affected their businesses.

A change in State law prohibits members of the City Council from sitting on the City BZA and Plan Commission. Currently there are two members on each board. The Council approved Jeff Rayburn and Jason Armold to finish the terms of the Council members on the Plan Commission and Rob Dobson and Jason Armold to finish the terms on the BZA.

The Council approved deferring the sewer assessment for businesses near I-65 for three more months because they have been financially impacted by the shutdown. The Council discussed meeting times going forward. The 4:00 time is more convenient for City Superintendents but the 6:00 is more convenient for citizens who work. The Council instructed its attorney to prepare a resolution to amend the 1951 resolution under which the Council operates to have the meetings at 6:00.

The new dispatcher began working for the Police Department last week. The City Pool may open on Thursday. The City Coordinator will be preparing for moving forward with a grant for Community Crossings, due at the end of July. The Mayor is investigating a grant opportunity that may be used for redoing the brick streets on two sides of the Court House. The meeting adjourned at 4:34.

Some pictures. Last week a frame was going up for a new storage building on Mattheson.

Walls are up on a house in the Blacker development on Vine Street. It is sponsored by Fuller Center.

Last week crews were working on SR 114 west of US 231. Below concrete is being poured at the corner of Grace and Cullen.

Cullen by the Court House was being ripped up.

I though it was interesting that you could see the old brick street below the asphalt.

I asked a construction worker why they were doing this digging. He said that it was a truck route and needed a deeper base.

On Friday the new asphalt was in place.

Notice that the sides of the road have been milled. The rest of the road from the Interstate will also be milled and then repaved. This section was milled early so the asphalt could be made level with the milled street and there would be no need to mill the newly laid asphalt.

Concrete is also being poured at Brookside Park.

Below are the new sidewalks made from the concrete.

After the meeting Police Officer McAleer asked me if I had ever heard of Harrison Dodd. The name did not ring a bell, but when he described the incident, I recalled I had seen something about it when researching the Sparling family. It might make a good post. Here is Dodd's wikipedia entry; it mentions Rensselaer. (Rensselaer came close to being a Civil War battlefield!)

Cameron is working on a mural in Remington this week. Next week he and others will be in Rensselaer.  Below are links to the artists schedule to work on murals in Rensselaer. Most were taken from the Rensselaer Republican.

https://www.rickywatts.com/

https://www.maxsansing.com/

http://www.bamcatart.com/

https://www.instagram.com/no_vwlz/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/pawnpaint/

https://www.instagram.com/mister_toledo/

https://www.instagram.com/Alex_ann_allen/

https://www.fasm.net/

https://www.instagram.com/mandoghandpaw/

https://www.instagram.com/beautyfromlight/

http://ellestreetart.com/WALLS

https://www.instagram.com/metabyte_/

http://www.camer1.com/

Odds and ends from the middle of June

We have been dry lately. The heavy rains in mid May flooded the field east of Weston Cemetery. Earlier this week that lake dried up. I expected to see lots of dead tadpoles but instead there were thousands of tiny fish. Maybe the tadpoles were able to develop and leave.

The Weston Cemetery walk, Memories Alive at Weston Cemetery, will have a new format this year. There will be two performances. The first in the morning will be in the park shelter and involve no walking. Anyone who cannot or does not want to walk the roughly half mile course should attend this performance. There will be no golf carts this year. They were by far the largest expense for the event, eating up most of the ticket revenue. The afternoon performance will have the same format as in previous years. This year the graves visited will be in the section west of the creek and the route will be as long as if you walk the loop in that section.

Of course, if you are a real fan, you could buy tickets to both performances.

Highway 114 is open again but paving work is not finished. Last week the crew was digging up some sections of the old roadbed and putting down new paving.

The picture below shows work by the Fairgrounds.

The picture below shows work at the intersection of Cullen and Grace. The workers were cutting out sections of the pavement.

The work with sidewalks seems to be finished.

On Monday evening the Jasper County BZA met with two items on the agenda. One was a repeat from 2016, a special exception and variance for a travel center on the west side of the SR 10/I-65 intersection. These had been granted in 2016, but nothing was done by the developer. Now the developer wants to build it but needs to have the permissions renewed. Near the end of the meeting, it was decided that the variances, which were for the height of the sign and the number of signs on buildings, did not need to be renewed because the 2016 decision still stood, but the special exception did need to be renewed. Rather strangely, a travel center is not a permitted use for the land zoned commercial next to an interchange along the Interstate, something that a review of the ordinance might want to address. Anyway, the special exception was granted.

The plans are basically the same as those proposed in 2016. It will be a 20,000 square foot building with multiple businesses, including a small truck showroom and three restaurants. Dunkin Donuts is the likely occupant of one, another will be a fast-food chain, and the third will be some kind of sit-down restaurant.

The drainage plan for this project was approved at the June Drainage Board meeting.

The other item was for a variance from the lot-width requirement for putting a house on land zoned A1. The requirement is 400 feet. The applicant has a 10-acre lot that is long and thin with a 330 foot frontage. The variance was approved.

On Tuesday evening the Jasper County Council met with a very short agenda, a transfer of funds for the highway department. They spent the bulk of the meeting talking about what issues they should discuss at the July joint Council/Commissioners meeting. That meeting may be held at the Fairgrounds because there may not be enough room for spacing in the usual meeting room, the Commissioners Room on the second floor of the Court House. One item that almost certainly will be discussed is how to provide and fund emergency medical services to the County.

The Sheriff mentioned that the jail population remains in the 40s and that his budget was hit with $4000 of expenses for the recent demonstration/protest at the Court House.

We are only a few days away from the solstice and then days begin to get shorter.

Phase one is done

A ribbon cutting at Foundation Park on Wednesday marked the end of Phase One of the Parks for People campaign. Phase One included all the work that has been done at Foundation Park plus the new dog park on Bunkum Road. Phase Two is the new ball fields at Brookside. There will be a Phase Three and perhaps a Phase Four.

The Board of Public Works and the City Council met in Zoom meetings on Monday afternoon, with the BPW having the longer agenda. The PPW approved fireworks for the Fair Board for the last day of the Fair, August 1. It also approved an invoice from Commonwealth Engineering for $6023.03 for engineering work that is now 54% completed. There is still a holdup in getting approval for the site of the new lift station. The Board also approved a legal services agreement that is related to the revenue bonds for the sewer project.

The only item on the Council's agenda was a gas tracker increase of 1.5¢ per hundred cubic feet. The Mayor announced that the June 22 meeting will be an in-person meeting at City Hall at 4:00 in the afternoon. There was a request from a person organizing a protest rally/march on Thursday to close Van Rensselaer Street in front of City Hall. It was rejected unanimously but parking along the Court-House side will be banned on Thursday. The gas-line tapping into the Trunkline main is beginning. (The Commissioners approved the the route of the pipeline along County Roads at their July meeting.) While SR 114 is closed this week, the City will be working on water-main items.

Gasoline prices have been above $2.00 for a couple of weeks. I wonder if we will ever see $1.699 again in Rensselaer.

Mural alley from Front to Van Rensselaer was paved on Tuesday. Early in the morning a layer of tar was sprayed.

A few hours later the paving machine came through the alley.

On Monday the CSX crew erected the second crossing gate structure on Jefferson Street. Neither the Cullen or Jefferson Street gate is working yet.

The Brookside Pool now has water in it. It is scheduled to open on the 17th. No season passes, just day rates; $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for those under 14.

Finally, this blog reached a milestone of sorts this past week when its page-view counter went over 1,500,000. I am not sure exactly how that is measured, but it sounds good.

The trend, however, does not look good, though it may reflect a change in the way that Facebook prioritizes what people see and a falling off of shares on Facebook. The peak is for December, 2017 and I do not know why it was so high. None of the 12 posts that month had especially large page views.

June happenings

As a result of last week's primary election, there will be two new members of the County Council in 2021. Newcomers Jeff DeYoung and Brian Moore joined incumbent Brett Risner as the three top vote-getters. Andrew Andree came in fourth, eight votes behind Brian Moore. (Mr Andree has served beyond the call of his office over the past couple years. He has supervised the renovations in the Court House and to the former PNC Bank building.) In the only other contested local race, Kim Grow won the nomination for Recorder. She is currently the auditor but is term-limited in that office. Complete County results are here.

 Last week much of Rensselaer (all of Rensselaer's NITCO customers) were without Internet and TV Cable when a truck knocked down a cable on Sparling Avenue. I think it was the cable that crosses the road at the Banet substation. Perhaps NITCO should consider putting it under the road instead of over it.

Newton County will not have a County Fair in 2020, nor with there be an Indiana State Fair. However, the Jasper County Fair is still on, though it will have some restrictions and changes. Animals being judged will not spend the week at the Fair but will be brought in the day of judging and taken away the same day.

This week SR 114 from the old town boundary to the Interstate will be closed. The signage was ready to put up last week.

The Genova plant changed ownership on May 29. The new owner is listed as KSR Legacy Investments Corporation on the County's GIS site. I still cannot find much on-line, though there was a recent article in the Paducah (KY) Sun. The article says the the new owner will continue manufacture under the Genova name.

Also on the east side, dirt is being moved to the south of the Eger Substation. I suspect it will be more storage units.

Last week the warning track was being put down for the new Blacker Fields. The concrete work seems to have been completed.

The Tourism Commission met Friday in a Zoom meeting. It approved a $200 sponsorship for the Weston Cemetery Walk scheduled for September 19 and a grant of $3000 to Rensselaer MainStreet for OktoberFest. OktoberFest is the only fundraiser for MainStreet and they used the proceeds for various projects. Things they are considering include a path from Potawatomie Park to the rest rooms in Iroquois Park (many people do not realize how close they are), signage for the Rensselaer Art Walk, and concrete chairs and tables that can be used for playing chess in the parks.

The Tourism Office has taken delivery of new trifold brochures advertising the County but with the lockdown and concern about transmission of the virus, it is not clear when or how they will be distributed. SouthShore is working on revising the tourism website and the local office is working on  webpages/brochure highlighting the County's nature preserves.

The Jasper Jaunt bike ride, scheduled for August, will now probably take place either in the fall or next spring. The next Tourism Commission meeting will be on July 10.

Last week one of the new crossing gates was installed on the Jefferson Street rail crossing. Perhaps this week the other will be installed.

Tulip trees are blooming, though you might not have noticed because most of the flowers are high overhead.

SJC may have to start mowing its roads soon.

Finally, the May unemployment report surprised some forecasters with a large employment gain. Looking at the graph in the report, I was amazed at how large the job loss was in April—over 20 million jobs lost.

Long meetings

June is already here and with it a new round of monthly meetings. The Commissioners met Monday with another Zoom meeting that lasted much longer than its short agenda promised. There were two buried cable requests, the first for fiber that would serve the Bailey's Corner area. It looked like a fairly big project and would likely be followed by extensions from the roughly six miles of cable proposed in this application. The sticking point came with the request to knife or plow some of the route. Knifing or plowing is the cheapest way to lay cable but if the plow hits another cable or a drainage tile, there is no evidence of that until problems appear later. This is what happened when a fiber optic cable was installed along SR-114 east of town a few years ago and the company that installed the cable was reluctant to fix the problems it caused. Since then the Commissioners have wanted all fiber to be trenched or bored.The person presenting the case said that in the future they may want to connect a few houses that require a mile of cable and the only way that will be economical is if the cable is plowed. The Commissioners delayed acting on the request until they can inspect the route so it will be back on the agenda for the July 6 meeting.

The second request was from the City of Rensselaer and was for a high-pressure six-inch gas main that will tap into the trunkline east of Rensselaer. It was approved with the condition that the line be six feet away from the end of any culvert. The Commissioners also waived the fee.

The Commissioners approved two rezoning requests that had been recommended by the Plan Commission.  Next they decided to keep County offices closed to the public through their July 6 meeting. There had been a meeting of County officials and EMS providers in late May to discuss how to move forward with EMS services. State law says that provision of EMS services is a County responsibility. In Jasper there are four different providers, three operated by townships and one private company, and all are subsidized. The Commissioners decided that they needed more information and that a round of bids might provide that information. They will seek bids for EMS services for the entire County that will be opened at the August meeting.

The Little Cousin Jasper committee requested use of the Court House gazebo for a yard sale on July 18 to raise funds. The Commissioners gave them permission to use the County parking lot.

The Recorder is losing both employees who work with microfilm and the Commissioners approved replacing one of them. RENARTWLK asked for permission to put a mural on the annex building that has mostly been vacated by moves to the former PNC Bank building. The Commissioners granted them permission to do the side facing the alley.

Community Crossing road grants will continue but with reduced funding. The next round will have $80 million rather than the previous $120 million. The loss of revenue from the gas tax will be less than originally feared.

The Commissioners approved the replacement of two dispatchers at the Sheriff's Department. The meeting was continued to June 15 if necessary.

The Drainage Board met immediately after the Commissioners' meeting on the same Zoom feed. The I-65 Chrome Shop in Remington wants to build a 60' by 40' addition and wanted to know what they had to do to get Drainage Board approval. They were told to hire a surveyor or engineer to examine their current drainage and see if it needed to be changed. Compass Travel Center had a drainage plan approved in 2016 for the SR-10 interchange but has not done any building. They were back with a slightly revised plan. They have purchased land to the south (giving them a total of 63 acres) have moved the proposed pond to that land. They expect to get started moving dirt fairly soon.

There was then a long discussion of whether a drainage tile for the new industrial park east of Remington should be a private or public drain. The meeting adjourned at about 11:30.

On Monday evening the Rensselaer Park Board met for another marathon meeting. There are seven teams signed up for adult softball so that season will go and there are about 160 kids signed up for baseball. Shelter rentals are down this year so revenue from them, usually about $3000, will be lower. Most of the meeting, however, was a long discussion of whether or not to open the pool.

Eventually the Board voted 6-1 to open the pool for the summer. The target starting date is June 19. Capacity will be limited to 100 (which it rarely reaches during a normal year), and there will be no seasonal passes. Instead everyone will pay a daily fee, which in the past was $4.00 but this summer will be $3.00 for kids under 14 and $5.00 for everyone else. Parents will not be allowed to just dump their kids but will have to bring them to the gate, where names and phone numbers will be collected.

The soccer program wanted its fee cut in half because its season was cut in half. The Board reduced the fee from $1500 to $1250.

On the last Friday of May, the Community Roundtable had another meeting and this one had a different focus. The meeting looked back at the lockdown experience and discussed what had been learned from it and how it would affect the future. One person said that communication channels had changed. The experiences people have had with working remotely may change office life and makes living in rural areas more attractive. There was a discussion of how Jasper County can grow. There are a lot of people who like rural living but want urban amenities. Jasper County has some. Among recent ones mentioned were the Remington splash pad, the winery, two coffee shops, a brewery, and wood-fired pizza. But it lacks many others.

There were a number of announcements made by the participants. The Little Coffee Shop on US 231 will be moving into the former Riley Law building this fall. There are now two Edward Jones offices in Rensselaer. The Extension Office has hired a replacement for Alice Smith and the new person will start June 8. The Airport had six applicants for their internship. There will be a ribbon cutting for the new Jasper-Newton Foundation Park on June 10. The Indiana Face Mask company has announced that it will be opening and hiring up to 14 people.

 Finally, a hummingbird got trapped between two panes of glass in my garage. I fished it out and for a while it just sat, so I took a picture. Immediately after, it flew away. I have never been so close to a hummingbird before. They are very small.