A parade and a lot more to start September

 Homecoming parade

The Rensselaer High School Homecoming Parade started at 7:00 on Wednesday night. The grand marshall was John Ahler, with the Rensselaer High School band close behind.

The FFA had a float.

Each of the classes had a float and they all threw candy to the kids, who were not really that interested in the parade itself.

This group also threw bags of popcorn.

The girls volleyball team had a float and threw a lot of candy.

The football players rode on fire trucks.

There will be another parade and more candy littering the street on Saturday at noon with the Little Cousin Jasper parade.

New stores

Earth Magic Body Potions opened on Tuesday and had a good crowd when I stopped in. They are in the tiny building that was the 231 coffee shop.

In addition to a variety of products that I do not understand, they serve coffee, tea, and some food. A self-professed coffee snob told me that the coffee was excellent. (I do not drink coffee so can not offer an opinion.)

In addition to coffee and tea, they offer a cooler full of sandwiches and other grab-and-go items and also a small salad bar.

Earth Magic will have a ribbon cutting on September 13 at 1:30.

The other new business that is opening this week is Cup of Joy in the space formerly occupied by Willow Switch. This is their second location; the first is in DeMotte.

Commissioners meeting

The Monday Commissioners meeting started at 8:30 instead of 8:15 because there was a public hearing for the Drainage Board at 8:15. The hearing was for the abandonment of more of a tile that had been partially abandoned a few years ago. There were no public comments and the abandonment was approved.

The agenda of the Commissioners meeting had nothing of great public interest. The Commissioners approved a couple of buried cable requests, one a simple bore under a road to connect to water and the other for fiber optic cable. They approved a request from the Recorder to move from local servers to a cloud site to help avoid a cyber attack. Two thirds of Indiana counties have already made this kind of move. The voting center for the Rensselaer municipal election will be at the Fairgrounds. No mention was made of the Fire Station. Main Street Rensselaer asked permission to use a bit of the Courthouse lawn for OktoberFest and it was granted. The Sheriff's Department needs to upgrade the 911 equipment and the lowest quote they found was $335,000 and the Commissioners approved the contract pending legal review. The Commissioners also approved replacing a deputy and a corrections officer. Bids were approved for flooring and painting in Community Corrections and waterproofing the Courthouse basement.

The Highway Department contracted out some of the snow removal in subdivisions last winter and wants to continue that contracting this year and the Commissioners approved the request. They approved hiring early for a person retiring so the new person will be able to train with the soon-to-be retiree. Someone had floated the idea to one of the Commissioners of finding a barn and moving it to the Fairgrounds as an event center. The Commissioners were favorable to exploring the ideal. The Wheatfield Fire Department wants to build a new fire station near the high school and is considering including a splash pad. Project Ribeye has not seen eye-to-eye with DeMotte and is considering locating in Porter County.

The people from BP were at the meeting to discuss their plans for seismic testing in Jasper County. They have been doing testing in Benton County and seem to have run into some kind of issue. They would like to continue on into Jasper County, but the road-use agreement needs to be approved or revised. After a bid of discussion, the Commissioners decided to have a special meeting on Tuesday at 8:30 am at the Highway Department. (The conference room in the Sparling Annex had been reserved for some other meeting at that time.) BP will host another open house in Jasper County, this one at the Connection Center in DeMotte at 4:30 on September 21.

Drainage Board meeting

The Drainage Board met after the Commissioners meeting. It approved a drainage plan for a company whose name I did not catch that is removing an old building and replacing it with a new building. 

The Dunn's Bridge Solar II project is giving daily updates to the Surveyor's office.

The issue that most concerned the Surveyor was a very old 260' corrugated pipe that connects two sections of a ditch. It is near CR 430E and CR 300N and small sinkholes are starting to develop over it. To replace the pipe would require about $50,000 in materials, and it would be cheaper to convert it to a ditch, but that would require encroachment on private property. It is not clear which agency should handle this, Surveyor or Highway Department. No action was taken.

Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission met Monday in the late afternoon. I stayed for about an hour and then left to attend the Park Board meeting. The main issue discussed while I was there was a request from the City for financing help for sewage work. The City must construct a building for phosphorus removal from sewage and also other improvements to the sewage plant. These are mandated by the State. It has found some several hundred thousand dollars to do this, but the cost is estimated at $1,669,700. It requested the Redevelopment Commission contribute $468,200 to the project and also lend $675,000 for up to five years. Apparently the financial markets are very unfavorable for borrowing at this time. There was a long discussion about the loan, with concerns that there might be other needs for funding in the next few years. Eventually the Commission passed both.

The next item on the agenda was the funding request from JCEDO for a façade grant program. This was discussed at the previous Commission meeting. I left as this discussion was beginning but I heard that the proposal was approved.

The Commission is still interested in buying and removing the R&M building. A grant proposal prepared by KIRPC to do an environmental study did not get approval and the Commission wondered if it should pay for a study without a grant. There was also mention that at the next meeting the Rensselaer Parks would be asking for money to help fund the summer programming done in the Parks.

Park Board meeting

The main item discussed at the Park Board was how to structure the provision of summer programming so it can continue to expand. 

There is a new swing set at Foundation Park. On Wednesday night before the parade there was a large pile of mulch ready for the swing set.

On Thursday the installation was finished. Two of the six swings are for handicapped people.

Over the weekend the Park Department had strung lights on the bowstring arch bridge to prepare for Little Cousin Jasper. That night someone unwrapped the lights and stole them. Vandalism remains a problem in the parks.

There will be a ribbon cutting for the Blacker Fields on Friday, September 15 at 4:00.

Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Advisory Plan Commission met Thursday evening. It held a public hearing about and then passed three zoning amendments that will now go to the City Council for final approval. Instead of having City rules for swimming pool requirements, the new ordinance will simply adopt the State requirements. Currently there is no provision for residences in business districts. The new ordinance allows them in upstairs apartments and in the back of buildings provided they have separate entrances. 

The main discussion was about a request for a rezone from light industrial to residential for a couple of lots along Melville Street. They are in a block between Oak and Maple Streets that is zoned I1 but is entirely residential, mostly rental housing. The owner of the two lots, which are narrow lots split with a line running east-west, would like to combine them and split them with a line running north-south and then add a second house. (There is only one house now.) After a lot of discussion, the members decided it would make more sense to rezone the entire block as residential and the Planning Office will try to get a proposal to do that ready for the next meeting.

At a previous meeting the Commission had appointed Josh Davis to represent them on the County Plan Commission. The County thought that the representative should be a voting member of the Commission, not the City Planning Officer, so the Commission appointed Mike Davis.

Rensselaer BZA meeting

The BZA meeting on Thursday had two requested variances on the agenda. The first was for a carport in a driveway, which was not allowed because it is an accessory structure in the front yard. There had been no complaints and the structure is an attractive structure that had been in place for over four years. The variance was approved.

The second was for an illuminated sign that the Brookside Church (formerly the Bridge Church) wants to erect as a replacement to their current sign. After discussion, the variance was granted with the condition that it be turned off at dusk from April 1 to September 30 and two hours after dusk from October 1 to March 31.

Notes

The exterior of the new EMS building looks finished. The building should be ready for occupancy before the end of the year.

A grave knocked over? No. This is the start of a reconstruction of the marker for George Spitler, which was in danger of falling over. Spitler was featured on the first Weston Cemetery Walk. 

In 1834 George and his father traveled to Indiana looking for land. In 1835 he returned to a site south of Brook where he erected a cabin. A few years later that cabin hosted the first court in the County. In 1841 George moved his family to a site just south of Rensselaer. He was the first school teacher in Rensselaer and served several terms as county clerk. George was killed by lightning in 1863. In 1867 the family sold his farm of 933 acres to the Diocese of Fort Wayne to be used as an orphanage. That land later became the campus of Saint Joseph's College.

This year's Cemetery walk will take place on Saturday September 16, with the shelter program at 11:00 and the walking program at 2:00. Tickets are available at Browns Garden and Sblended.

A person featured this year is perhaps the most famous person in the cemetery who people in Rensselaer have never heard of, Frank Clair. Ever hear of him? He has a wikipedia entry and is in a hall of fame. 

Another person featured is Ruth Bott Beam. She married the son of William Beam, who came up 17 votes short of becoming the mayor of Rensselaer in 1909. Beam has a street name for him. Do you know where it is? Ruth was the daughter of William Leroy Bott (1866-1948) who was orphaned as a child, but became a leading merchant in Star City before moving to Rensselaer in 1914 when he purchased most of the shares in the Rensselaer telephone company. On his death in 1948 he not only was the majority owner in the Rensselaer telephone company, but also that of Wheatfield and Remington. He helped found the Farmers and Merchants Bank and Camp Kanne.

If you want to learn more, come to the Walk on the 16th.

The mural on the back of Markit Arts seems to be finished.

A former Rensselaer resident, Gretchen (Schenk) Baker, has been on the news in the past few days, providing commentary for a cave rescue in Turkey. Here is one example (she appears at the 1:00 mark.) You can find more by searching for Gretchen Baker cave rescue Turkey. She has given a dozen interviews to the media providing background information.

Gretchen developed an interest in caving while working at Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota when she was in college. She now works at Great Basin National Park in Nevada. She is interviewed because she is the National Coordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission, a group that provides training for cave rescues.

Sometime around September 1 blogger says this blog passed the 2 million mark in page views. I am not sure what gets counted in that but some of it probably is machines, not people. I had an unexplained spike in traffic in August that did not get reflected in views of individual posts.

The school corporation is advertising for bids to build a1550 sq ft restroom and concession stand northeast of the middle school. See the legal notices in the 8-24-23 issue of the Rensselaer Republican.

The tree in Weston Cemetery that guards the bridge over the Iroquois is showing signs of color and is dropping some leaves. Fall is fast approaching.

Have a good time at the Little Cousin Jasper Festival.

Last post for August

Notes

In a post about the Lillian Fendig exhibit, I included a picture of some basketball players that she painted that belongs to the Rensselaer High School. I received this comment:

The basketball painting by Lillian Fendig was commissioned by the RHS Class of 1960 in memory of 1st Lt James E Taylor. Jim was a member of the class of 1960 and the basketball team wearing #23. Jim was killed in Viet Nam on February 1, 1969 and posthumously received the Bronze Star and Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in battle. The painting has hung in the hallway outside the RCHS gymnasium. The Class of 1960 continue to honor Jim for his brave service to his country.

James Taylor is buried in the Remington Cemetery. 

On Friday Markit Arts had a premier showing of a short film about the Rensselaer murals. It will eventually end up on YouTube. Before the showing I snapped a picture of the car that keeps getting repainted.

The film was projected onto a white wall that previously had a tree painted on it. (You can see it at the very bottom of this page.) After the event ended, Ryan Preston started creating a new tree mural. It resembles a tree he had painted on the wall of the old Sears building that was destroyed by fire.

The jail has installed an x-ray machine to screen incoming prisoners. This was the subject of a number of Commissioner and Council meetings.

On Sunday a contractor began resealing the parking lot by the LaRue Pool. The first step was to put tar on all the cracks. The tar showed up clearly with the setting sun.

This past week this part of the lot has been sealed and parking lines painted, and work has progressed to the west.

The Tuesday night Farmers Markets have ended. Some calendars begin the season of autumn with September 1. I hope you had a nice summer.

City Council meeting

The Rensselaer City Council met Monday evening in an uneventful meeting. The Council passed an appropriation reduction that will allow money to be used in next year's budget and passed a resolution that amended another resolution that the City can move forward with the proposed phosphorus building at the sewage plant. The Council affirmed a telephone poll allowing use of public relations funds to be used for expenses for Kids Night at the Farmers' Market and also approved reimbursing an employee for some other expenses for the same event. The Council also approved spending $2000 from public relations funds for a City employee Christmas Party later this year and a donation of $500 to the American Legion for their annual Thanksgiving dinner that is available to all.

The City will contribute the same amount to employees HSA as it did last year, $1800 per employee. The Council approved hiring a replacement for the Mayor's administrative assistant, who recently resigned. The City earned $50,556.25 from its recent auction and those monies were distributed to the departments that submitted items. The Council approved spending $5400 for a second Kawasaki mule for the Cemetery. The Police Department has received complaints about the new guardrails on SR 114 east of town where a culvert was recently replaced. It tells complainers that they should complain to the Indiana Department of Transportation. The Fire Department was recently one of several awarded money to expand its training facility. The Fire Chief was not at the meeting so details were sparse.

It's hot

 Notes

We are having a heat wave. Unfortunately the pool is closed for the season.

The City had an auction last Friday. There were over a hundred bikes for sale. Unfortunately for anyone wanting to buy just one bike, they were sold in lots of about a dozen. 

Several vehicles were in the sale as well as a pop machine that may not have worked and an old recycling trailer. I wonder how much it sold for. I did not stay around long enough to find out.

The picture below is from last week and shows work on water line replacement on Van Rensselaer.

A shelter house is under construction in Filson Park. This picture was taken last week. Since then a metal roof has been installed.

On the other side of Front Street, the City parking lot has been seal coated and painted. Tree removal began and then seemed to stop in Potawatomi Park along the River.

The building next to Ayda's that previously was an optometrist's office is now the office of VanHouten Wealth Management. I believe he was previously with Edward Jones on Washington Street. That office is still open.

Willow Switch is in its final days but will be replaced with another business. The new business, Cup of Joy, will expand the coffee part but drop the home goods part of what Willow Switch has. It will open after Labor Day. NuBloom Naturals is closing. The owner had a long statement on Facebook saying that the Police Department is shutting them down even though they are doing nothing illegal. Dollar Tree plans to close its existing store on September 18 and open its new store in the former Walgreens on September 21.

Markit Arts is hosting a showing of a short film about Rensselaer murals and mural week this Friday at 7:00 pm. 

We are less than a month away from the fall equinox and days are rapidly shortening. 

Jasper County BZA and Plan Commission meetings

The Jasper County BZA met Monday evening with one item on the agenda, a request for a variance for lot size and frontage for a property in Wheatfield Township. The case was a strange one. The owners had restored an old barn, converting it into what is called a barndominium, with living quarters on the second floor. However, they did not get a building permit for this even though they had checked with the Planning Office about what steps they needed to take before they began. The fact that they had made the changes and the people were living in the barndominium was discovered by accident as something else was being checked. The Planning Office threatened enforcement and the owners then hired a surveyor to retroactively correct things. He and the Planning Office decided they should go back to the start and the first thing that they should have done was to apply for the variances. After discussion, the variances were granted, with one member of the Board voting "No."

The second step was to apply for a two-lot subdivision from the Jasper County Advisory Plan Commission, which met immediately after the BZA meeting. Here there was even more hostility because the applicants seemed to have intentionally ignored the permitting process. The Commission decided to table the application to the next meeting, assess a $2500 fine for violations, and have the owners hire an approved building inspector to see if the barndominium is up to code. The next meeting will be on September 18.

The Plan Commission is short one member and has another member who has missed three consecutive meetings, which the bylaws say is the same as a resignation. They are concerned about getting enough present to have a quorum.

30 years of PAC and the Lillian Fendig Gallery

The Prairie Arts Council is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and has devoted the year to Lillian Fendig. Its exhibits have had a Lillian-Fendig connection, but none so obvious as their major exhibit of the year, a showing of a collection of about 100 works of the gallery's namesake. The art comes from about a dozen collections, including many from the permanent collection of the Prairie Arts Council. 

After the Rensselaer Library moved out of their home at the Carnegie Building in 1992, several citizens stepped up to save it from demolition. The Prairie Arts Council, the Jasper-Newton Foundation, and the Chamber of Commerce were the first occupants of the building after the Library moved.

Lillian Fendig was born Lillian Bossom in London England. She exhibited artistic ability early and went to an art school as a high-school student. During World War II she met Ralph Fendig, who was stationed at a hospital in England. In 1948 she came to the United States and married Ralph. She continued her career in art and was recognized as one of Indiana's finest artists. 

Most of the paintings in the exhibit are water colors. She did many landscapes and floral arrangements.

She also designed clothing and the exhibit has some of her designs. I remembered seeing these before and I found them in an earlier post.

Ralph's brother Frederick owned a guest ranch in Arizona that Ralph and Lillian often visited. Many or most of Lillian's pictures with a western theme were painted as a result of these visits. This portrait was done in oil.

This picture of basketball players is one of two that is owned by the Rensselaer Central School Corporation.

Many of her paintings are of buildings and towns, often in England.

The picture below was loaned by a nephew of Ralph who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His father Phillip Fendig entered the U.S. Foreign Service after leaving Rensselaer and was posted in several foreign countries. You can learn a bit more from the obituary of his widow.

In addition to her paintings, the Prairie Arts Council has a series of her prints and also the blocks from which the prints were printed. These were done by Lillian for Christmas cards. The prints are quite small, a few inches by few inches, but have impressive detail in them.

This is a remarkable exhibit for a small city and if you have any interest in art, check it out. The gallery is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays, on Tuesdays from noon until four and on Thursdays from two until six. The show continues until September 28,

The Fendig family was an important family in the history of Rensselaer. It has no descendents living in Rensselaer. For a brief summary of the family and their impact on Rensselaer, see here, here, and here.

(Two Fendigs have been featured in the annual Weston Cemetery Walks, in 2019 and in 2022. No Fendigs will be featured in this year's walk, but there will be eight interesting people presented when the event takes place on September 16.)

More August meetings

 Continued Commissions meeting

The Commissioners ended their August 7th meeting by continuing it until the 14th. The reason for continuing the meeting was to have a public hearing on an ordinance for the Health Department. The public hearing could not be held on the 7th because it had not been advertised enough days in advance.

The State of Indiana is trying to standardized rules for septic systems and has issued what it wants those standards to be. It voided all County ordinances that were more restrictive than those standards and told the counties to pass new ordinances that will be reviewed by a State technical review board in October, starting with those that are submitted earliest. At this meeting the Commissioners passed a new ordinance that remains more restrictive than the State standards in three ways. The County wants 100 feet of separation between a water well and the discharge field of the septic system, the County wants all installers to be licensed by Jasper County and the State wants installers to be licensed in at least one county, and the County prohibits homeowner installation unless the homeowner is licensed while the State allows homeowner installation. The Commissioners passed the ordinance.

Rensselaer Board of Public Works meeting

The Rensselaer BPW met on Monday afternoon and approved a series of pay requests:

McGuire Iron for $593.735 for work on a new water tower;

Grimmer Construction for $157,806 for service line replacement on Weston Street;

Commonwealth Engineering for $32,388 for easement work and inspecting water tower and line replacement work;

Thieneman Construction for #36,449.84 for odds and ends while finishing up work on the lift station;

Commonwealth for $3,399.99 for supervising the work of Thieneman.

The Board also approved change order #7 for $782 thousand for Thieneman to work on phosphorus removal at the WasteWater Treatment Plant. IDEM and the Federal Government are mandating the City remove phosphorus, and Commonwealth was approved for $116,800 for their work on this project.

The concrete base for the water tower has been finished but nothing is rising above ground yet.

City Council meeting

In the citizens' comments at the beginning of the meeting, Main Street Rensselaer asked and received approval for use of Van Rensselaer Street in front of City Hall for its Oktoberfest event in September. The Street will not be torn up by then.

The Council held a public hearing (at which no one spoke) and then approved continuing tax abatements for Conagra, Filtration Parts, Indiana Facemasks and American Melt Blown Filtration, Gold Bond Building Products (National Gypsum), and Genova.

The gas tracker for August will reflect a 2¢ increase per hundred cubic feet.

Two bids were opened for the brick street project. One had a base bid of $2,530,554,65 with two additions of $101,114 and 51,958.20. I believe this bid was from Milestone. The other bid was from Grimmer Construction and had a base bid of $2,246,572 with the two additions of $98,684 and $66,164. The bids were taken under advisement and the winner will probably be declared at the next Council meeting.

The Council agreed to a 3% increase in employee salaries for next year's budget, and the same increase for elected officials. The Council approved using $189,300 of ARP funds to help finance the construction of a building at the wastewater treatment plant to remove phosphorus. The total cost is estimated at $1,669,700 and several other sources of funds will be used to pay for the building. This is mandated by both State and Federal governments.

A concern was raised about maintaining City Parks. A splash pad is under consideration and it may replace the baby pool at the LaRue Pool. The Street Department requested and was granted permission to replace a striper (machine paints markings on roads) for $6,408.21. The Department can no longer get parts for its current machine. The Gas Department requested and was given permission to purchase a new pipe trailer for $18,223,42.

The City auction will be held on Friday at the Police Department.

County Council meeting

The County Council began its budget hearings on Tuesday evening. Each department explains the changes they want to make in their budget. The discussion of the Coroner's and the Sheriff's budget took some time, while the discussion of the Auditor's, Council's, and EMA's budgets was quite short. The budget hearing continues all day on Wednesday, starting with the Highway budget.

Before the budget hearings began, the Council held its regular meeting. It approved an additional appropriation of $25,000 for funding the GIS team's request to hire a consultant to evaluate moving to new software. The old software is losing its support. It also approved a salary ordinance for two part-time employees hired with grant funding. The Health Department had at a previous meeting said it could pay for expanding the parking lot but the State Board of Accounts said that it cannot.

Several additional appropriations were approved. One was for medical/psychiatric consultants for one of the courts. This year there have been more than the usual number of trials with defendants that may be impaired. Another was for the other court for special prosecutor expenses.

Notes

On Sunday I visited the Remington town park and saw the mural that Cameron Moberg painted there.

The park has a small sledding hill which kids find fun even in the summer.

And of course, the splash pad is popular.

This park shows what can be done if a a large plot of land is designed as a park rather than have a park that grows gradually. Its one drawback is that it is not easy to get to because it is remote.

Water line replacement has begun on Van Rensselaer Street south of the brick street part of the street. It will be closed until sometime in September.

After a dry start to the summer, we got a lot of rain in August and that has popped up mushrooms. When you see a ring of them, you know that there was once a tree on that site.

The rain has made the grass grow and I am worried that our freedom from mosquitoes may come to an end soon.