Just the messenger

This morning I was up early and noticed water running into the storm sewer on the other side of the street. Intrigued, I followed it back to its source and found water seeping out of cracks in the pavement. Maybe it was a new spring. Or maybe the water main that lies beneath and that connects the water treatment plant with the water pumps north of town was leaking. I called the utility emergency number, which connects to the police department, and reported my find.

An hour or so later a fleet of city vehicles was on the site and a backhoe was digging up the street. I am sure the neighbors were wondering what all the racket was.

 The crew brought strange vehicles. I do not know what this one does.

This one pumps the water out of the hole so they can get to the pipe.

Because the leak is on the pipe between the pumps and the water treatment plant, it should not cause any interruption of water service--unless they cannot get it fixed for a few days, in which case we would run out of water. However, the crew seems to have gotten a lot of practice recently fixing these leaks, so they should have it all fixed before some Rensselaerians are up for the day.

Update: The city guys were fast. They had it fixed by about 8:30.

Thing, June 28, 2014

Vicky's Corner Pocket is no longer occupied and probably has been gone for many months. I took this picture early this week with the dark clouds of a passing storm giving the building contrast.

The county is in the process of buying this building and if all goes through, the building may not be there in a year or two.

The Chamber of Commerce received a letter or e-mail early this week from the people who produce American Pickers for the History Channel. The show will be in Indiana this summer and they were looking for places that would fit their show. I hope they find some local places. A few years ago they visited Brook or Goodland for the show.

If you are looking for something to fill the void that the cancelation of the air show is causing, a circus is coming to town on Friday July 11. The city council approved blocking off a bit of Weston Street for the annual V-girls performance.

On Friday I attended a meeting sponsored by the Jasper Council Community Services. It was a meeting that was supposed to be the start of process that will lead to a strategic plan to improve services and quality of life for the elderly in Jasper County. The first half of the meeting was a presentation of the results of a survey, the Community Assessment Survey for Older Adults. To be blunt, I thought this part of the meeting was useless. Jasper County was lumped with five other counties, including Lake and Porter.  Jasper County and Lake County are two different universes. Even north and south Jasper county are very different in what they have and the problems they face, The survey had a 22% response rate, so the claim that one could draw useful statistical inferences from it is true only if there is no selection bias, which I find implausible. Anyway, they had numbers and those attending had to endure them.

Then there was some give and take with the people attending. Four areas of concern were volunteered: the lack of doctors and medical care, transportation issues, in-home services, and the problem that some elderly are so attached to their pets that they will forego medical treatment if they cannot find someone to take care of Fluffy.

(I have been neglecting this blog because I have been focused on some other projects.)

A couple days late

The bombshell news today was that the South Shore Air Show scheduled for Fair Oaks Farms in less than two weeks has been canceled. We have gotten too much water and there is more in the forecast, so parking on wet fields would have been a nightmare.

Weston Lake has reappeared and there is water in many fields, though it is often hard to see because the corn is big enough now to hide it. It may not be good for the corn, but it is good for the goose and the gander.

 Water has crept up a bit in the quarry since the last time I was by.

 I was surprised to see two large semis being loaded with stone. They did not look very big next to the big loader.

On Monday the City Council had its biweekly meeting. Not a lot happened. The solar panel farm is now producing electricity for the grid. It is not owned by the city--it is owned by the Indiana Municipal Power Agency. There was supposed to be a discussion of the Rock the Arts event scheduled for mid to late July, apparently involving the selling of alcohol in the park, but the representative who was supposed to explain things did not show up. The council was willing to trust the judgement of the chief of police in the matter.

After the meeting I went next door to the court house for a couple meetings. The first was the Board of Zoning Appeals. It had only three members in attendance, and the chair had to vote to make a quorum. They had two cases. The first involved an estate that was selling off land. A change in zoning rules had made one of the plots that they were trying to sell out of compliance, and the executors of the estate wanted a variance. The two neighbors on either side were very opposed, arguing that the plot was not a buildable plot and that if anyone should try to build there, it would harm them and lower their property values. However, when the BZA voted on finding of fact, they voted that the variance would not have  adverse effects on neighbors and would not affect property values. I found it a rather surreal moment, but I suspect similar surreal moments are very common in government.

The other case was for a man who has been mining clay and wanted to continue mining clay, but on an adjacent piece of land that he owns.

The third meeting was of the Planning and Development Commission, and they had a very similar case. A man who owned a ten acre plot in Walker township wanted to subdivide it to a two acre and an eight acre plot. He would build his house on the eight plot and his father-in-law would build a house on the two acre plot. Neighbors attended who were concerned with what exactly he planned to do and were upset with some burning he had been doing to clear some of the land. (It apparently is sand hill with trees.) His request was approved.

A lot of the property issues that come before these boards and commissions are for things happening in the northern part of the county. On Tuesday I briefly stopped in the Business After Hours event at Farm Credit (the attendance was poor) and listened to a discussion of people borrowing money to purchase not houses, but lots. I had a hard time understanding how someone who had to borrow 80% of the money to purchase the lot would ever be able to finance the house, but they do.

An unexpected stop, but at least I could stop

I was planning on writing about local meetings today, but early this morning I had to go to West Lafayette to sign some bank papers. What should have taken a few minutes took about an hour--pretty normal for a lot of bank transactions these days. Leaving West Lafayette, I noticed that my brake pedal did not feel right. I had to press down further than I thought I should and I made mental note to myself to schedule an appointment at my mechanic when I got home.

As I was driving up US 231, the red brake light came on and there was a message on the dashboard that I had low brake fluid. I was not sure what to do, but I knew that between where I was and Wolcott, there was only one stop light. I guessed that I had a brake line leak and that I had a very limited number of stops left before the system would be dry.

I was delighted to discover an auto parts store on the south edge of Wolcott. I was able to stop without a problem and bought some brake fluid. I filled the reservoir  and hoped that I would be able to make it back to Rensselaer. However, the brakes still felt bad and the brake light came on immediately. I pulled across the highway to a conveniently located garage. And a few minutes later my car looked like this:

I was very lucky that I found a conveniently located service station that provided quick and efficient service.

While I was waiting at Farney's Service Center, I took a look at the Wolcott and Monticello papers. Their top story was the groundbreaking for a 60,000 square foot building shell that is supposed to attract business to the 600 acre Mid-America Commerce Park. The new building will be just over the Jasper-White county line, on the White County side.

I left Rensselaer at 7:00 in the rain and I returned at noon in the rain. There is water in the fields and there are places where there is water on the roads, though the only one I encountered was on the highway in Wolcott. My rain gauge says that we have received about two and half inches since Sunday.

In completely unrelated news, a close relative of mine who grew up in Rensselaer has a new book on Amazon called The Great Basin for Kids. The Great Basin is the area of the Western United States that has no rivers that reach the ocean. I reviewed a digital copy of a preliminary version and was very impressed with it. 

Another water main break

The crews were busy fixing another water main break today in almost the same spot as the break two days ago. There will be another 48-hour boil order that will start before the old one elapsed.
The Families of the JCYC have closed because the law requires them to, and I suspect some restaurants may have to close as well.

For a really good picture, check out the one that Visit Rensselaer has posted.

Old, odd, and new

The new Dollar General opened this morning. It has more food items than I expected, though much of it is convenience-store food

 On the way back from the DG I noticed a couple of odd squirrels. Maybe they had visited one of our local hair salons.

 The library program on eagles eagles earlier this week gave a web link to a camera showing the nest of an eagle in Decorah, Iowa, There were three eagles early this week and now there is but one. They probably are very close in age to eaglets in Jasper County.

Here are some more pictures form early Rensselaer Telephone books.

 Why were there several people buying poultry, eggs, and dairy products?

 Below are illustrations from a publication that was not a phone book, but something that one of the local lawyers had printed before 1950. Parr had a business. Note the college tuition.

The Pass Garage was opposite the stock yards, Does that place them on Maple Street?

Rensselaer is under a boil order as a result of water main break. I saw the city crews assembled on Wednesday morning, but did not know what they were planning to do.

Tuesday night, June 17, 2014

The Jasper County Historical Society had its annual carry-in dinner on Tuesday night. The attendance may have been bigger than they expected--they almost ran out of seating space. At the table I was at, a couple old telephone directories were passed around and I could not resist taking some pictures. These are all pages of the Rensselaer telephone directory from 1956.

 I do not remember anything about the businesses listed above. Perhaps they were all gone by the time I arrived in 1974.

The Jasper County Abstract Company is still in business. Established in 1928, it must be one of the oldest businesses in Rensselaer. I remember Brusnahan's, which is the ancestor of Superior Sales and Service on Vine Street. I think they were out of the coal business by the time I came to town. The bottling plant had at least two locations, but was probably at the corner of Clark and Cullen in 1959. The building later was a laundry and is now empty and for sale.

 I know nothing about this camera shop/photography studio.

 George Warden, manager of Talbert-Schaab, used to live on the same block as I do. When my oldest son was pre-school, Mr Warden befriended him and was nice to him. He was retired and quite old at the time. I do not know anything about the shoes, though the x-ray fitted sounds interesting.

I left the historical society meeting early and headed over the the court house for the County Council Meeting. As I approached the Court House, I noticed that the tattoo shop that had been in the same building as Long's Gifts was now on the second floor of the old Oddfellows Building (which has a new owner as of a couple months ago.) It is in the space vacated by the Monfort Law office, which is now in the old Sears Building or Town Mall Building.

The County Council meeting was short. They approved a number of things that the commissioners had approved or initiated: transfers of some funds, agreement to purchase the old Johnny Rusk building, and renewal of the cumulative bridge and cumulative capital fund rates.  (Some actions require approval of both the commissioners and the council.)  The Council appoints one member to Board of Zoning Appeals, and they seemed unprepared for that item. After a bit of discussion, they decided to come back to it at next months meeting.

Then there was a discussion of a motion passed last month but which exceeded the authority of the council, being a matter under the jurisdiction of the commissioners. The Council had voted to shut down part of the county website that contains tax information; that is not their decision to make. They moved to rescind that motion, and then to pass again the part of the motion that was in their jurisdiction.

The director of the JCEDO reported the expansion plans of ConAgra that will add up to 80 jobs at the Rensselaer plant. New product lines should be running in October. Taco Bell will probably not open until late July or early August, but the Dollar General may open this week, possibly as early as Wednesday. (We will see.)

(While on the topic of websites, the state now has a list of all reported meth lab sites. The one for Jasper County that is most odd is the Rensselaer Police Department Pistol Range.)

Update: Dollar General will open on Thursday.

Water rising

The water is rising in the Babcock Quarry.  Compare the picture below (taken Saturday, June 14) to the one from two weeks ago.

 The temperatures will be rising this week. A place to cool off is Brookside Pool, where there is something new this year thanks to funds from Farm Credit MidAmerica and the Jasper Foundation.

New tables have replaced the old fiberglass tables that had been there for decades.

People told me that here has been a lot of activity around the newly-constructed Dollar General Store. I stopped by on Sunday and peeked in. Many of the shelves have been stocked, but many still remain empty. I have not seen an announcement for an opening date yet, but that probably will be determined by how long it takes to finish filling the shelves. There are signs in the windows noting that they take SNAP and that they sell cigarettes, so the signage seems complete.

Update: The Farmhouse Restaurant at Fair Oaks Farms is nearing completion. Here are pictures from the FOF Facebook page.

Construction update Taco Bell

The walls are up at what will be a Taco Bell restaurant near the Interstate.

Ribbon cutting Franciscan Working Well

On Thursday the newly opened Franciscan Working Well office in Rensselaer had its ribbon cutting and an open house. There were quite a few Franciscan people from the north, but few of them got into the picture.

Before the ribbon cutting, the office had a blessing, and you can see a picture of that here. Because it was scheduled an hour before the ribbon cutting, I did not attend.

Working Well is an occupational health clinic. What that means is that it is a clinic that does examinations and urgent care for businesses. Its medical services are not much different from those of any other clinic, but it tracks everything with specialized software, and that tracking makes it easier for businesses to meet the various OSHA and Workman's Compensation requirements. This type of clinic would not exist if it were not for a variety of state and federal regulations.

The local office is across the highway from the Jasper County Hospital in a building that was built by Dr. Greene and more recently occupied by Dr. Beaver. I had never been in the building before, but those who had said that it was completely remodeled and redecorated. The clinic has four examination rooms like the one below and a procedure room on the west end.

 On the east end is a room that will house the x-ray equipment when it arrives and some testing equipment for hearing. There are OSHA rules that require workers in especially noisy workplaces to have annual hearing tests. The booth is soundproof, and it would make a good place to send your teenagers who want to play their music at extremely high decibels.

 The office will start with a staff of four: the doctor who had been in their Munster office but who lives in Lowell, two technicians, and a office supervisor. Two of the staff live in the Rensselaer area and one is from Wheatfield. I did not get to talk to them until the very end because a worker from a local company came into the facility with an injury when the open house was starting and it took about an hour to get him fixed up and ready to leave.

I asked why they located in Rensselaer and was told that there was a demand for their services. There is no other occupational medicine office nearby, so they will serve the region. Though they will be only occupational medicine for the time being, they may add other services in the future.

One of their people at the event was a lady whose job it is to get new offices up and running. She has contacted many of the area businesses telling them about Working Well's services. A few weeks ago she gave a presentation to the Rensselaer City Council. This new office is attractive to businesses because it cuts their costs. It should be something that will make Rensselaer more attractive to businesses thinking of moving here.

This is as far south as the Franciscan Alliance group that is headquartered in Lake or Porter Counties has come. Their previous most southerly location is a clinic in Demotte. St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lafayette is part of the Franciscan Alliance, but has separate management.

For more information on Working Well, see their website. You might also want to look at the website of the Franciscan Alliance.

The office is decorated with pictures that are in the collection of the Jasper County Historical Society. The wagon says "Jasper County Telephone."

 There was food catered by a company from St. John. They brought this odd contraption to serve punch.

 The office is open five days a week from 8am to 4:30 pm.

At the open house I asked a city official what was happening with the solar panel farm on the east edge of Rensselaer. She said it was almost finished, but needed some kind of equipment that would act as a backflow regulator. I did not understand what that meant.