Office space

On Saturday I was downtown trying to find the last window paintings when I received an invitation to look inside the former County Annex/REMC building to see how the remodeling was proceeding. The building is large, with 11,000 square feet. The County decided to sell it when it considered the cost of replacing the heating and cooling systems and had the opportunity to purchase the former PNC Bank building.

Four brothers who bought the building are doing most of the remodeling. Two work in construction. The remodeling of the southestern part of the building is furthest along and it will be a co-working space, offering short-term rentals. Below is a conference room that will be available for meetings.

Most of the rest of the co-working space is along a hallway. 

Here is one of the almost finished offices.

And another office. There are two restrooms along the hallway.

There is also this partially completed kitchen.

At the back of the building with its own entrance is an office for a company called Loink. It sells hard-to-find items for surveyors, engineers, architechts, and contractors. The website is here and you can see that it has the address of this office. Perhaps I will be able to learn a lot more when the building has its ribbon cutting.

The northwestern part of the building is a maze. This part of the building will be for long-term offices and retail. The remodeling here will not be finished until tenants are found. Then the space will be remodeled to suit their needs. I was surprised to find the remains of an old court room in this part of the building. I do not remember how many years ago it was, but for a few years Jasper County had three courts, and the third court was here. Since then this former court room has been subdivided into several rooms.

The building has two boiler rooms. One is shown below.

One of the rooms has a large vault. 

Sometime in the next few months the co-working part of the building will be opened and after that a ribbon cutting is planned. I look forward to seeing how much has changed by then.

Plan Commission and BZA meetings

The Rensselaer Plan Commission met Monday evening. Their first action was to appoint one of their members as the Commission's representative on the BZA. Dave Webb was chosen.

Their first cause was a rezone from A1 to A2 for a parcel of a large property in Union Township. The owners want to split off the house from the agricultural land and with an A1 zoning they would need to split off ten acres but with an A2 zoning only two. The Commission approved and sent the matter to the Commissioners for final approval. 

The second item on their agenda was to approve a two-lot subdivision in Keener Township. The 4.5 acre property had a house built in the 1940. In the 1970s a new house was built and the old house was converted to a workshop. Recently the owners decided to convert the workshop back into a house for one of their fathers. After a lot of work was done, they discovered that this would violate zoning and were trying to get into compliance with the ordinance. They received approval for the two-lot subdivision but then they needed a couple variances approved at the BZA meeting that followed, one variance for lot width and another for lot size. These were also approved. Before the Plan Commission meeting adjourned, it heard from some people who are interested in bike/walking trails in the northern part of the County. They would like to be able to get grants to help fund trails, but they need some acknowledgement of trails in County documents. 

The second item for the BZA meeting that followed was a variance for a rear-yard setback. The owners had recently purchased a six-acre property with an existing foundation that they would like to use. It was installed about ten years ago but the house was never built. Unfortunately, a corner of the foundation is only 15 feet from the property line, not the required 30 feet. The neighboring land is farmland and the farm owner had no problem with building on the foundation. The variance was approved.

County Council meeting

The Jasper County Council had a short meeting on Tuesday evening. It began with the Council appointing one of its members, Eric Kidwell, to a new council, the Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council. It will consist of several persons involved in law enforcement and the judiciary and needs a member of the County Council. It then approved two additional appropriations that had been discussed at the previous Council meeting. One was for new server equipment for the County and the other was for the Tourism capital projects fund.

They approved a transfer associated with the new EMS building and then approved nine amendments to the salary ordinance. These had apparently been approved at the previous meeting but for some reason were not correct. One of the council members expressed gratitude for all that Brian Overstreet had contributed in his years with the Extension Office.

Other things

A contractor has been busy the past week or two installing a sewer along West Washington Street. Last week they were installing something north of the road. I asked the flagman what it was and he did not know.

The Airport is advertising for an assistant airport manager.

Trees are starting to leaf out and the redbud trees are blooming. However, we did have a frost a couple mornings this week.

Below is a picture of the quarry taken Wednesday. You may be able to see the very top of the roof of a small building that was evident in earlier pictures, such as the one from last July.

The Catholic Church in Remington will re-open soon and when it does, the Catholic Church at Goodland will be closed and the parish will be merged with the Remington parish. Over the years the parish in Goodland has shrunk and is no longer financially viable. 

Window paintings, part 4

The window painting in the downtown is finished. One of the last paintings is also one of the best. It is on the First Merchants Bank.

City Hall has some flowers.

I think I have them all but would not be surprised if I missed one or two.

A busy few days

BPW

The Rensselaer Board of Public Works met Monday afternoon and approved paying a number of invoices. There were four connected to the new main-lift-station-and-unsewered-areas project:  Thieneman Construction pay invoice #11 for $239,808.50, Commonwealth Engineering for $27,668.25, Baker Tilly Municipal Advisors for $19,884, and Bose McKinney & Evans for $5000. The last two were connected to arranging financing. The construction on the lift station is nearing completion and testing and training are beginning.

There were several other payments to Commonwealth. They received $6362 for design work on the waterworks improvement project and $28381.35 for work on preparing a wastewater asset management plan that is needed to apply for a SRF loan. Finally they received $5158.78 for design work for chemical phosphorus and removal improvements. This is to meet new requirements for phosphorus removal from wastewater treatment.

The final item on the agenda was approval of a fireworks application for the last day of the County Fair, July 22.

City Council meeting

The Board of Public Works meeting lasted about ten minutes. The City Council meeting that followed lasted twice as long. First up was an amendment to the salary ordinance that reflected the changes made recently to policies and procedures. (There were some bonuses added for length of service.) The Council approved three transfers of funds. The gas tracker for April will reflect a 5¢ decrease per hundred cubic feet.

An employee of the Gas Department was honored for 30 years of service. As he left the meeting, most of the audience that included six of his grandchildren also left. The Council approved giving $500 to the Little Cousin Jasper organization for their scholarship fund. It also approved closing half a block of Front Street on Thursdays from 5:00 to 7:30 for a mini-car show, Cylinders and Snacks. The weekly event will begin on May 25 and last until September 28. An item on the agenda about water and wastewater field data collection was tabled. The Council acknowledged receipt of the 2022 TIF management report.

Two Family medical leave requests were approved. The Council approved a request for up to $150 for flowers in planters in front of the Police Department and $700 for snacks and a Friday meal for those working cleanup week. The Council is taking applications for an upcoming vacancy on the Rensselaer School Board. The Police Department has begun tagging vehicles that appear inoperable. April 22 is electronics recycling day. Expect a groundbreaking soon for the new water tower. Planning and preparatory work is progressing on the brick-street project.

Jasper County Tourism Board meeting

The Jasper County Tourism Board had a long and interesting meeting on Tuesday morning. The receipts from the innskeepers tax were down slightly from last year. The buildings and artists for mural week (July 24-28) are locked in. An unnamed local artist would like to participate and the Board said the matter should be left to the group that is organizing mural week. The farm-trail brochure is ready to print and there was a discussion of how many to print and where they can be distributed. There was another discussion about commissioning videos to highlight County attractions.

There were five funding requests on the agenda. First up was a request from Main Street Rensselaer for $20,000 to help cover the increasing costs of developing Filson Park. The park will have a shelter and an amphitheater and will focus on art. The Prairie Arts Council is working on finding sculptures for the park. The Filson family has donated $385,000 but since the initial plans the construction costs have risen. The Board does not have enough in its capital-improvements budget to grant the requested amount so will need to go back to the County Council for an additional appropriation or transfer. The Board also wanted more details on how this park will bring in tourists. The item was tabled.

The DeMotte Chamber of Commerce asked the Board to become a sponsor at the $5000 level for the Touch of Dutch Festival, which will be held on August 12. The Touch of Dutch may be the County's biggest festival, drawing about 7000 people, many from other counties. It features a parade, car show, fireworks, many vendors, some performances and lots of activities. This year's theme will be "The Fabulous Fifties." The festival also tries to have activities that require community involvement. This year it will have a Dutch baking contest. The Festival would like to update its signage this year. The Board approved the sponsorship, which comes with a booth entry that the Tourism director says she will man.

The Prairie Arts Council (PAC) requested $5000 for its Arts in The Alley event on July 28. This is meant as a family-friendly event so will not have a beer tent. It will take place in Filson Park (no discussion of whether construction will be a problem). New this year and what prompted the funding request will be a mural-artists contest. It will feature Indiana muralists each painting an eight-foot square of plywood. When they are finished, they will be judged and prizes awarded. The PAC will keep the finished murals and they will be displayed at places yet to be determined. This contest was the idea of Cameron Moberg who will help organize it. The funding request was approved.

When Indiana celebrated its bicentennial, some planters were installed at the entrances to the Courthouse and the Tourism Commission paid for the flowers planted in them. The flowers were changed with the seasons and since that time the bills have been sent to Tourism. In the past few months the Tourism Commission said that they did not like this automatic payment and requested that this be treated as any other funding request. So at this meeting they received a funding request for caring for the planters. The number of planters has increased because someone added four more planters at the Courthouse and planters have been added at the prosecutor's annex for security purposes. However, one of the judges wants the four most recent Courthouse planters removed because they are at the entrance used for prisoners and they may be a security concern. The estimate for caring for all of these planters was almost $10,000. After discussion, the Board said that it did not think this was something that promoted tourism so they refused the request.

The last funding request was for $1000 from the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce to support Daffodil Days, which will be the same day as Dandelion Days at the Fairgrounds. There were questions about how much tourism this would promote and a discussion of the need to have guidelines about what is needed to qualify as promoting tourism. The Board approved a grant of $500. The meeting lasted almost two hours.

Airport Authority Board meeting

The Airport Authority Board meeting Tuesday evening lasted about as long as the Tourism Board meeting. The meeting began with public participation and attending were two people from American Crop Care (ACC). One was attending in person and the other via Zoom. In February ACC had expressed interest in basing operations at the Jasper County Airport and renting hangar space. The airport manager and engineer had pieced together a possible contract but ACC found it unsatisfactory. At this meeting they pointed out items that would not work for them. Many involved insurance requirements. This discussion lasted about an hour. ACC will give a summary of changes that they think are needed and perhaps some kind of agreement can be salvaged.

In other business, the Airport will have $477,000 available for hangars in 2024. Currently some planes that would like to rent cannot fit in existing hangars. There was also a discussion about land acquisition and disposition. The Board voted that it does not want a gun range near the airport, a proposal that surfaced a couple years ago and apparently has re-emerged. The Crown Vic courtesy car that was in the County auction sold for $700. There are three applicants for a summer internship, two college students and one local high school student. The Board told the manager to choose the person with whom she can best work. The Airport may soon advertise for an assistant manager. Finally, the Board approved the airport manager purchasing a laptop and equipment not to exceed $2000.

Chamber meeting at SJC

The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce met at Saint Joseph College Wednesday at noon and heard a presentation of what course offerings are available at the College. Central are six certificate programs in the health sciences that range in length from five to fifteen weeks. There are specialized medical jobs that require these certificates. More information about them is available here. The College is working on meeting the requirements to offer QMA and EMT certificates. The College also offers a CPR certificate that is a one-day training and can be done at an employer's site. A new certificate program is the veterinary assistant program.

The College offers four associate degree programs in partnership with the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas: General Business, General Studies, Cybersecurity, and Network Technology. These are completely on-line and the courses are taught by the St. Thomas faculty. Offered in association with ZSchool are some continuing education certificates.

The new Core Coworking Center is getting some use. The College has a brochure offering its facilities as a conference center. It lists as available facilities the Core Building, the apartments, and Lake Banet.

If you want to visit the campus, there will be an art show on May 20 from 11:00 until 2:00 featuring local high-school artists. The college has recently added an instagram account in addition to its existing Facebook page. Their latest newsletter is here.

I was hoping there might be some information about future plans, but that was not to be.

A ribbon cutting

The new State Farm Insurance office had a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday afternoon. The owner, Dave Long, has a State Farm office in DeMotte and is opening in Rensselaer because agent Cynthia Basham is retiring and he is taking over her clients. He chose the location in the old Charlie Roberts building because it is highly visible.

Other things

The Rensselaer Republican has more information on bp's proposal to sequester CO2.

Early voting for the municipal primary can be done at the Courthouse on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 am to noon and 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm. If you wait until election day (May 2), you will have to go to the Fairgrounds to vote.

The Easter Bunny came to Rensselaer on Saturday for the annual Easter Egg hunt in Brookside Park.

Kids were divided into five age groups. The parents helped the youngest, but some of the four year olds were quite quick in picking up eggs.

The older kids cleaned up their fields in less than a minute.

Downtown Rensselaer has a new business. The Facebook page is here.

Over the weekend I visited the construction site of the new ambulance building. It appeared that the site was ready to have floors poured.

The excavators on Wood Road are gone and soon work will begin on the north part of Mattheson.

Spring seems to really be here. We have had some warm days, magnolias and dandelions are blooming, and I found growth in my yard that I have never connected to Spring, mushrooms.

The Jasper County Historical Society has a new webpage.

The windows downtown are decorated with a spring motif. The artist is the same lady who did the winter paintings and they were commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce as part of the Daffodil Days promotion. Here is the third installment of pictures. (I am told there are still more paintings to come.)

The fire of 1870

 In 1870 downtown Rensselaer had a big fire that fortunately was contained. Below is the account of the fire from the Rensselaer Union of December 15, 1870, page 2.

On page 3 were updates. (The paper was a weekly, so there was time for updates in the same issue.)

Nothing came from the efforts to organize a hook and ladder company. It was not the first time that the community had recognized a need to protect against fire. Below is a notice from The Renssealer Gazette, December 7, 1859 page 5:

It was not until 1888 that the a fire department was finally organized. (The Rensselaer Republican, April 5, 1888, page 5.)

Sometimes you need the right people to get things done. One of the people who worked to get the department organized was E. D. Rhoades, mentioned in this bit from The Rensselaer Republican, March 29, 1888 page 1:

Rhoades was featured in last year's Cemetery Walk.

In 1870 gasoline was a byproduct of producing kerosine and had few uses and was often just burned at the refineries. I was surprised to see it mentioned. It had limited use as a solvent and for clearning. 

All of the above were found on the Hoosier State Chronicles. It takes a while to figure out how to best use the search on the site, but the site makes it possible to find things in Rensselaer's past that otherwise would be imposssible to find.

April showers and a bp open house

The bp event

On Tuesday bp (formerly British Petroleum) hosted an open house at eMbers to discuss their plans for carbon capture and storage (CCS) that involves Jasper County. I had seen a flyer for the meeting that said it started at 5:00, but at the Drainage Board meeting on Monday I learned that there was an earlier meeting at 3:30 for public officials. Commissioner Bontreger told me I should attend, so I did.

Entering eMbers, I was struck by how many people from bp (all wearing identical white shirts) were there. I estimate that there were 20 to 30 of them, and they came not just from northern Indiana but from all over the country. After I talked to a few of them and picked up their literature, the company started a presentation. 

CCS involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions, transporting them to an appropriate place, and injecting them deep into the earth. Jasper County is connected to this project because we (and neighboring counties) have a unique geology that is suitable for storing CO2. (This had been explained at the December Commissioners meeting.) There is a layer of porous rock deep below us. It is too shallow in the far north of Indiana, and it slopes downward toward the south, eventually becoming too deep to use. That layer is overlaid with non-porous layers of rock, so whatever is put into it should stay there. 

Second, there is a dense cluster of businesses that produce CO2 to our north. Chief among them is the bp refinery at Whiting, the largest in the midwest and the largest refinery that bp owns. Third, the State of Indiana has passed legislation that is friendly to this project. The two Commissioners who were attending were not appreciative of this legislation because it limits what local governments can do.

From their discussions with local officials, bp knows that they need to explain how this project can benefit the residents of Jasper County. They suggested that there would be jobs, though almost all of those jobs would be temporary, existing only during the construction phase. They also explained the timeline. They are at the very beginning. They need to do the geologic study and secure permits. The earliest that a shovel will hit the ground is 2030. For 20 years after construction is completed, liquified carbon dioxide will be pumped into the ground. At that point storage will stop and for the next ten years the site will be monitored to make sure there is no leakage or contamination of water above the storage layer. After that bp will withdraw and the State of Indiana will be responsible for whatever is left.

There were questions of what the benefits to the company are from this project. There are tax benefits and subsidies for companies that capture carbon. The bp people suggested that there is a market for "low-carbon fuels", fuels that are identical to other fuels but which are produced with fewer CO2 emissions. (This reminded me of the market for organic foods, foods identical to non-organic foods but produced differently. The economic concept for this is "price discrimination.") There was nebulosity in the longer-term benefits; perhaps bp is anticipating additional government regulations. After the presentation one of the local officials suggested that bp might make money selling carbon credits. I know there is a market for this but do not know how it works. (Selling carbon credits may also be a reason that several local dairies have spent a lot of money on a pipeline to inject methane produced from cow manure into the natural gas trunkline.)

After the presentation I talked to one of pb's geologists. He told me that the porous layer already has water in it and this water is what keeps the CO2 from moving. It will spread out for a few miles, so presumably the landowners near the injection site will need to be paid. He also said that the water would absorb some of the CO2. I joked that it could then be pumped back up as soda water. He said that that would not happen because the water down there is three times as salty as seawater. I also asked about the very long time before construction starts and he said that this is normal in the energy industry.

I expect that this project will go forward if the geology is right despite any local opposition. The State and Federal governments seem to be aligning in favor of CO2 storage and will override whatever local opposition there is. The local officials will, however, try to make sure that the local community does see some benefits from the project.

The big storm on Friday

A line of storms came through Indiana on Friday with high winds and horizontal rain. An EF1 tornado started in Benton County, moved through the Remington area, and then exited the County into White County. It damaged or destroyed several wind turbines. Rensselaer escaped major damage, though some people lost power, at least briefly. The only big tree down that I found was in Brookside Park.

The rainy weather continued on Saturday and it and the wet grounds resulted in the postponement of the annual Easter egg hunt to April 8

On Saturday I checked out the sewer construction on John Deere Road between Owen Street and Mattheson Street. As I was getting ready to take the picture below, I was hit by windblown sleet. It hurt. 

The contractors are have two excavators digging to install the pipes. The one shown above started at Owen Street and is moving west. The one below started at the Mattheson end and is moving east.

April's Commissioners meeting

The County Commissioners met Monday morning with a long agenda of mundane items. A representative from their IT company said that two of the servers were near end of life and needed to be replaced. The new hardware should be good for five to nine years. The item will go to the Council for an appropriation. There were three buried cable requests, all approved. One was from BP for upgrades to its petroleum pipeline that runs through Jasper County.

A request to use the Courthouse gazebo was approved, with the comment from the County attorney that the parade ordinance, which applied here, probably should be updated. Community Corrections was given approval to apply for their annual grant. This year it will include funding for adding a new case manager and an electronic surveillance officer. They also received permission to fill a position vacant since December. The current census is 21 males, four females, and 20 on electronic monitoring.

The Farmers Market received permission to use the Courthouse parking lot this summer. The brick streets will be torn up and replaced. The Commissioners accepted a quote for repairing and finishing the floors of the Courthouse. They approved $15,000 to start the project and will approve more if they like the results. They also approved closing part of CR 400 E when the shooting range at the Jasper-Pulaski Reserve is open. The road is in the ricochet zone and closing the road seemed to be the best way to allow renovation of the range that meets requirements.

The Sheriff noted that the storm on Friday had hit the Remington area hard. He received permission to replace two openings at the jail. One officer quit without giving notice and the other is moving on to become a court bailiff. He would like to buy an X-ray machine to screen for drugs, which are being smuggled into the jail. He was asked about the license-plate readers that had been authorized last year. He said that the two installed at the i-65/SR 10 intersection have been operating for some time and he is happy with the results. The mobile units only recently arrived and they are in the process of training on them.

The Commissioners approved a number of contracts and conference requests. In previous meetings they had delayed approving a pest-control contract, and at this meeting decided to change vendors. Their health insurance agent recommended several changes to policies, most because of the lapsing of the pandemic emergency, and they approved them. They also approved three improvements to Highway Department buildings. The Auditor announced that a check from NextEra that they had been waiting for had arrived. The Commissioners approved $14,842 to replace the batteries of the sirens. The meeting was continued until April 17 at 8:00, if needed.

Drainage Board

The Jasper County Drainage Board met Monday afternoon. It opened two bids for spraying and accepted the lower bid of $163,337.71. The other bid was higher and wanted two years to complete the task. It is an annual task. It then accepted the surveyor's report on four ditches that are in the area of the Dunns Bridge solar projects (Hinshaw, Rasmussen #90, Sands #2603, and R.E. Davis #111) and set a date of June 29 for public hearings. All will be at the Fairgrounds because a large crowd is expected. They will begin at 9:00 for the Hinshaw, then proceed at 15 minute increments until 9:45 for the R.E. Davis.

Rensselaer Park Board meeting

The Rensselaer Park Board had a short meeting Monday evening. They have invested $7000 in idle funds in T-bills to get a better return. The tournaments at Blacker Fields are scheduled to begin in first weekend in May. The Parks 4 People meetings are finishing up. There was a discussion about the need for a new park headquarters; the current one in Iroquois Park floods when the river gets really high. I asked why there was digging in Foundation park next to the restrooms and learned that it will be the site of batting cages.

Window art

Here are more pictures of window art in downtown Rensselaer.

Miscellany

New windows were installed on Monday at the old REMC/County Annex on Cullen and Kellner.

Grass is turning green and a crop of campaign signs is sprouting in some of them.

The Briar Patch on Rutsen Street is closing but will be replaced with a similar store, the Sorrel & Rye Mercantile. 

The scaffolding is down at Sacred Heart Church in Remington