More meetings, more tidbits

The Rensselaer City Council met Monday night. After voting to transfer some funds, the Council heard a short presentation from two representatives from Commonwealth Engineering about the storm water treatment plant. They met with the mayor about early designs in early October. The final design should be complete at the end of January or the beginning of February and it will then be submitted to IDEM. By April contracts should be bid, with construction beginning in early summer of 2015 and completion early summer of 2016. There was a question on odors from the plant, and they should be minimal. The plan will only operate when there is extremely heavy rain, and any sewage should be quickly discharged and sent to the treatment plant. The remaining water will be storm runoff.

The supply committee recommended Ceres Solutions as the provider for gasoline and diesel fuel and CTS for tire repair. I do not think Ceres was the low bid, but it has been a long time supplier and it has been very reliable. The Council approved these recommendations.
The police chief reported for the committee appointed to investigate replacing a squad car. The recommendation was for a 4-wheel drive vehicle from Thomas Dodge for $23,217 with trade in. The Council approved.
The Council approved spending $350 from the public relations fund for a float for the Christmas parade. The Park Department had expressed interest in a new truck at a previous meeting, but there is no money in the budget for it so it will not be pursued at this time.
The mayor expressed concern about a bill in the state legislature that would change the rules for boundaries for electric utilities. He said it would hurt municipal utilities such as that of Rensselaer.
A motion was approved to allow a police escort for the Bomber football team on their trip to Indianapolis this week.
Utilities reported that electricity has been provided to the construction site of MacAllister Equipment, but sewage and gas hookups have not been completed. In reference to a gas hookup to Blockbuster, mention was made that the owner of Blockbuster wanted to add a Noble Roman's Pizza; apparently other Blockbuster stores have found sales increase with this addition. Thursday trash pickup this week will be moved to Wednesday and Friday pickup will be moved to Monday next week. There will be a wage hearing for the Gasper project, which will extend the road going toward Fountainstone Theater east and then loop it back to the main road. The wood chipper will be attacking the brush pile next week. Remington is planning on extensive annexations which will more than double the area of Remington. Remington has already extended its utilities to the intersection of I 65 and US 24. Finally, Parmele Farms plans to auction off some of its frontage on SR 114.

The meeting was over a bit after 6:30 and there was some time to wander the downtown before the meetings of the Planning Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals started. The balloon in front of Landmark Realty is lit at night. Also lit was the inside of the old Hoover House building. The "For Sale" signs are gone, the windows are covered, and there was someone doing some sort of construction inside.

The Board of Zoning Appeals had one item on its agenda, an exception for a property in Barkley Township so that the owner can operate a small business of hydrographics. (Follow the link to find out what that is.) A member of the audience objected not specifically to this item, but rather to say that the rules for the Board are contradictory and that the Board does not follow the procedures that it is supposed to follow, especially those rules regarding findings of fact.. The Board, however, proceeded to act as it always does with the findings of fact. The exception was granted.

The Planning Commission approved a switch from A1 to A2 zoning for a lot in Jordan Township that will be split in two and made into a two lot subdivision. The land in question had never been farmed, and the farmer who owns the adjacent land supported the application.

Before the meeting one of the frequent attendees at these meetings told me that the South Shore Air Show will not be held at Fair Oaks Farms next year. Gary has reclaimed it. (Apparently the decision to move it out of Lake County got the people in Lake County motivated to do the things needed to keep it there.) Here is a link to an article in Times.

Two Tuesday Meetings

On Tuesday there was a special meeting of the Park Board in the City Council Chamber. The two trustees of the Blacker Trust gave a short presentation of what they were doing and what they wanted. 

They agreed to the Park Board's recommendation that renovation of Brookside Park is where the money should be spent. The highest priority was two ball diamonds where the soccer field is now. The next priority is a multipurpose building by the new ball fields, then renovation of the restrooms. The soccer field will have a temporary location in the northwest part of the park where the JC Cruisers have their annual car show, but the final stage of the project would be to find a permanent location for the field. 

Architectural plans are being prepared and they will be detailed so that construction bids can be made from them. The plans should be available soon and there will probably be a special December Park Board meeting to review and discuss them. Financing for this project will begin with the money currently in the Blacker Trust and some money that Blacker put in another fund at the Jasper Foundation. The Board or the Trust will seek additional funding from the Jasper Foundation and the trustees then suggested that the Park Board needs to conduct a fund-raising drive to get the additional money that will be required to complete the project. This last suggestion was met with some resistance because some members of the Park Board did not think that they could or that they should be fund raisers.

Less interesting was the second meeting of the evening, the monthly County Council meeting. The Animal Control Board wanted approval to buy materials for an Eagle Scout who wants to upgrade the dog kennels at the DeMotte Police Department. Currently they are not fit to house dogs on very cold nights, so Animal Control staff has to make trips to DeMotte to transfer animals in off hours. The Council could not move on this request because it had arrived too late. However, the Council did approve using donation funds to reimburse expenses for a parade float.

There were three requests for transfer of funds. The only one that got any discussion was for the Coroner's Office and that was because the Coroner was there to update the Council on what his office was doing. The new morgue near DeMotte is in operation and 22 cases have used the new facility.

Councilman Price wanted the Council to consider at a future meeting adjustments to the business personal property tax for small businesses. He argued that the cost of complying with the tax often exceeded the amount of the tax and thought there should be a way to reduce that burden on small businesses. Councilman DeFries disagreed, saying that any reduction in business taxes would result in a greater burden on individuals. Jasper County gets about $2 million from the business personal property tax (which is a tax on equipment), but the vast majority of that is from larger businesses.

The Council had a discussion about meeting times for 2015, Usually it meets the third Tuesday of the month, but when there are conflicts, it will meet either earlier or later. 

And in other news, I notice that the detour signs on SR 114 are gone. 

Veterans Day

A ceremony honoring Veterans Day was held at Weston Cemetery this morning. The weather was cold and rainy, though the heavier rain did not arrive until the end of the ceremony. Fr. Don Davison gave the invocation and Mayor Wood gave the address.

 The attendance was lighter than usual for this event, but some people braved the cold and the rain.

 A few days ago I noticed a grave just across the road from where the Veterans Day gathering. Lieutenant John W Hudson died on February 2, 1945 in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

Last night the City Council had a short and mostly uneventful meeting. There were some motions to transfer money and to allow bond funding for some of the expenses for the new fire station. The gas tracker for November will be a two cents decrease. The city opened bids for gasoline, diesel, and tire repair, and then appointed a committee to review them and make recommendations. The city project director wants to establish a fee for reviewing requests for right-of-ways, and the Council approved his request to proceed with the city lawyer. The Chief of Police wants to replace a 2005 squad car and the Council set up a committee to make recommendations. The report from the committee that had been investigating the purchase of a new van for the electric department recommended a new 2015 GM Arcadia from Ed White Auto for $29,499. The Council approved.

The most interesting tidbit from the meeting is that Gutwein Seeds would like to expand its headquarters and is investigating the possibility of buying the old Admin Building (old Monnett School). There are many steps to be taken before that can happen. The Council approved moving forward.

The breakfasts for the RCHS sports teams that won sectionals will be held in the Council chambers on Thursday for the boys soccer and girls cross country and Friday morning for the football team. The aerial fire truck still has issues and is out of service until the problems are fixed. Trunk or Treat was deemed a success, though it would have worked better if the weather had not forced the event indoors. Finally, SJC is now the gas utilities biggest customer. It is heating using a temporary boiler while a permanent boiler is being installed. The switchover is planned for Dec 1.

November 3, 2014

We got some really cold weather over the weekend, with temperatures dropping to the low 20s. Any plant that is frost sensitive should be dead.

This morning the County Commissioners met in what was an uneventful meeting with no big surprises. When I got there a representative from Midwest Restoration was discussing how work on fixing problems with the exterior stonework was progressing. He mentioned that the company had applied a sealer to two test areas of the Court House. An hour and a half later the meeting took a recess and two of the commissioners went out to see one of the test areas. The Midwest Restoration representative splashed some water on the area and below is what the commissioners saw. Can you see what area had been treated?

 After the break the commissioners then took up the question of whether they should approve applying the sealer. It will take three or three and a half days to apply, and the application should be done on dry walls with the temperature above forty degrees. If it is not done this fall, someone from the company that makes the sealer would have to come in the spring to determine whether the walls needed to be washed again before the sealer is applied. The sealer has a ten-year guarantee. After discussion, the commissioners approved the application of the sealer this fall provided it did not cost more than $58,390.

What else did you miss by not being there? The Commissioners approved a new lease for eleven large function printers. The county is also buying for $1.00 each three of the old printers that it had been leasing. These printers will not have a maintenance contract, so the county will have to pay for any supplies or repairs.

Soil and Water asked to replace their district coordinator, who is leaving. The request was approved. Animal Control asked about the volunteer policy that they had submitted to the Commissioners. The question of insurance came up and also the question of whether any volunteer policy should cover all volunteers for all county divisions. The issue will come back at some future meeting.

The Commissioners then had a webinar with people from First Empire Securities in New York about how they could help the county invest its money. The presentation took fifteen minutes to explain what could have been said in five. Changes in state law allow counties to invest some of their funds in securities with maturities longer than two years and this increased flexibility allows a higher rate of return. Empire Securities suggested investing in some shorter term Indiana municipal securities and some U.S. government agency issues, saying that could raise the return on the portfolio from .25% to .6%.

A benefits specialists who seem to be connected with Aflac wanted the county to offer supplemental dental insurance as an option to employees. The cost of the policies would be completely borne by the those who opted for them and they had a limit of $1200 in benefits. He suggested there were tax advantages to the plan.

The commissioners approved a zoning change and then approved Richard Kalenback as the attorney for the Animal Control Board. The jail update had good news, that the utility bills were lower as the result of the work that has been done to fix the heating and cooling systems. The airport had done a title search that seemed to reveal that a plot of land used by the airport might actually belong to the State of Indiana and not the county. At the end of the meeting the Commissioners' attorney said he had read the document and thought that it was pretty clear that the land actually did belong to the county because it should have reverted back when the state did not build an armory there. A member of the audience addressed the Commissioners about the problems of thefts from farms. It seemed he had two problems he was concerned about, the theft of anything that could be sold as scrap metal and people driving through fields as a form of recreation.

The Commissioners discussed calendar issues and scheduling of meetings and then turned to the question of what. if anything, they should do with updating heating and cooling in the Court House. The Council had approved a budget of $250,000 for this. Finally the Commissioners discussed how to proceed with the demolition of the old Johnny Rusk building. A number of contractors are eager to bid on the project. The County now has possession of the building, the tenant having moved out, and after the meeting the Commissioners were going to go over and inspect the building.

After the meeting I went over to Potawatomie Park to see how the planting of the rain garden was going. The crew had arranged all the plants that they were going to plant, and after each was put into the ground, the container was turned upside down over the plant. The reason for doing this was that after all the plants were set, the crew were going to mulch the area, and with the planters protecting the plants, it would be easy to apply the mulch.

 What is being planted? Wild columbine, swamp milkweed, butterflyweed, sand coreopsis, purple coneflower, rattlesnake master, blue flag, marsh blazing star, foxglove beard tongue, and showy black-eyed Susan are the forbs. The grasses are little bluestem and prairie dropseed. I offered some wild sunflowers that grow to about ten feet tall and spread aggressively, but my offer was declined.

Next year there should be flowers blooming in the swale for most of the summer. I look forward to seeing how this rain garden develops.

Cars and candy at the city council meeting

The City Council meeting on Monday night had no big surprises. Cars and candy were the main topics.

The Park Department wanted authorization to look for a replacement for a 1994 pick-up that is starting to have issues. The Electric Department gave an update on its search for a replacement for an old SUV that no longer is reliable, and at this point two citizens, one a car dealer, objected to the way the search was proceeding. The council had previously authorized bids for a new vehicle, but the two members of the audience argued that an lightly used vehicle would be as good and would save money. Further, they argued, the city should try to buy locally, supporting local businesses. The council responded by amending its motion of the past meeting to allow for used vehicles with 15,000 miles or less.

Planning has been going well for the upcoming Trunk or Treat event that will be held Friday evening at the Fairgrounds. About $7000 has been donated to the Truck or Treat or the Haunted House (14 rooms!) that the Fire Department is sponsoring. Lots of people are involved, and among other things, McDonalds will have a bouncy house there.

There will be Veteran's Day ceremonies on Nov 11 at 11:00 at Weston Cemetery. The Council approved some spending of public relations funds for a breakfast to honor RCHS athletic teams that have won their sectionals (so far boys soccer and girls cross county). The fire department's aerial truck seems to be working again. Soil borings will be made Monday for the new fire house. LED street light have been installed on Owens and Mattheson Streets.

Many things

Is it my imagination or does the sky look different in the fall than it does in the summer? I kept wondering that yesterday as the dark clouds mixed with patches of very blue sky.

 The city leaf vac is roaming the streets searching for leaves. It has ended one of the old rituals of fall--burning leaves. (Do you miss the smell of burning leaves?)

The Animal Control Board advertised that it was meeting in the Library on Monday night and because I had never been to one of their meetings, I decided to attend. (I was told that it had been a long time since any member of the public had been at one of their meetings.) They had six members plus the director of the shelter present, which was enough for a quorum, something they did not have at their last meeting. (A quorum is necessary for any vote to be official.)

After a brief discussion of the director's report on how many animals were received and what happened to them, the Board had a lengthy discussion of finances relating to donations. The whole issue came up when the Animal Shelter had a float in a recent parade. They wanted to use some funds in their donation budget to pay for some expenses, but were told by the auditor that they could not do that because they lacked the appropriate line item in their donation account. If that does not quite make sense to you, you can understand why the Board spent about half an hour discussing it.

I do not think I have ever been to a meeting where members had as many cell phone calls. Most of the members got at least one, and at this point in the meeting the chair of the Board received one and had to leave because of an emergency involving one of his dogs. The meeting continued with a discussion of a policy for comp time. I do not understand the nuances of this, but the issue is important because animal control people often have to come in at odd hours to deal with a problem. As I understand it, they are paid time and a half for these calls, but then are expected to adjust their work schedules so their total time worked is not affected. The policy passed and a couple more people had to leave.

Then there was a discussion of personnel issues that I did not understand at all, followed by a discussion of a pit bull that is being held at the shelter pending a court decision. The dog had bitten three people and its fate will be determined at a November 10th hearing. At this point two more people had to leave, so only the director and one member of the board were left. Since I was no longer at a meeting bur rather a conversation between two people,  I left as well.

The Tuesday night Historical Society meeting had one of the largest crowds ever. The program was about Indian artifacts. All of the items shown below and much more were found by one local collector.

Our area seems to be unusually rich in these artifacts. Much of our area was once swamp so people camped on the sand hills, and those hills are often full of arrowheads, spear points, axes, and other stone items used by the Indians. However, finding them has gotten more difficult because of the advent of no-till farming--wind and water erosion are friends of the arrowhead hunter. Also, land owners are much less willing to let collectors onto their properties than they used to be.

(Normally the County Council meets on the same Tuesdays as the Historical Society, but this month they moved their meeting back a week because county officials who need to be at the meeting were out of town. The County Council meeting will be next Tuesday.)

A routine meeting

Few citizens attended the city council meeting on Monday October 13 but they did not miss much. The council voted to approve the budget for 2015 that will spend almost five million dollars and also a gas tracker decrease of two cents per 100 cf for October. An Urban Tree Forestry spokesman addressed the council requesting that in future budgets a line item be established to aid in their mission of planting trees. The group is in its seventh year and has planted 187 trees. It has brought in $40,000 in state grants that it has matched with contributions or in-kind with work. However, grants from the state are becoming harder to obtain and with the threat of the ash tree borer (28% of trees along streets are ash, 40% silver maple), they foresee a lot of work ahead. The council passed a resolution to provide them with $1500 from the public relations budget provided that there are enough funds in that budget.

The council passed a resolution to keep the city's contribution to employee's HSA plans at $1500, which is what it was last year. (I think HSA is health savings account.) The council ratified a telephone vote taken between meetings to accept a one-time offer to seal coat the roads in Weston Cemetery. The work is finished and cost $9500. Finally the council approved investigating the replacement of a 1995 Suburban van used by the electric department. It needs expensive repairs and they thought was it was time to replace it. The mayor appointed a committee of council members and city employees to find a vehicle for the council to approve.

The gas department reported that it has six hookups to do on the gas line extensions and that it will probably get to SJC by Thursday.

College Avenue is torn up from Clark Street to the intersection with US 231. It will be resurfaced as soon as weather permits.

The most interesting bit of information from the meeting also was about College Ave/US 231. The state has plans to redo the Mt Calvary Road/US 231 intersection in July of 2016. (When the state is involved, things move slowly.) It will add a passing lane to the road and move the intersection 12 feet to the east. That will involve a gradual shift of the roadway starting several hundred feet either side of the intersection. The project will also align the two sides of Mt Calvary Road so that they line up--presently they do not quite do that. The project should not require the closing of US 231 to traffic.

The state has another project involving Rensselaer that will close US 231. It is planning to work on the Washington Street Bridge in August of 2016. I am not sure what that project will do other than close the bridge.

Meetings and openings

The monthly Commissioners Meeting took place Monday morning.  Here are some of the items that I thought interesting.

Midwest Restoration reported on progress on the work on the exterior of the Court House. Presently they are patching limestone and doing additional tuck pointing. When they pressure washed the exterior, there were two places where water entered the building and the representatives from Midwest said the problems had been addressed. They talked a bit about the retaining wall around the square and said that because the stones were set so close together, freeze-thaw cycles and expansion-contraction of the stones had gradually chipped them and moved them out of alignment. They were going to increase the gap and put in expansion joints. Finally, the Commissioners decided not to have a sealer applied because the sealer being proposed had not been used by Midwest Restoration previously and there was uncertainty about whether there would be adverse side-effects.

The County will have an auction on November 15. Among items for sale will be three vehicles from the sheriffs department.

NIPSCO had a contingent of people there who wanted the County to vacate CR 250E between 1450N and 1350N. They plan to expand their landfill for fly ash in five to seven years. If the expansion has to be approved as a new landfill, it will take five to seven years to get all the regulatory approvals completed, but if it is approved as an expansion of an existing landfill, the regulatory process only takes 18 months or so. NIPSCO owns both sides of the road, and if the road were not there, the expansion would be viewed as an expansion, but if the road remains, the expansion will be classified as a new landfill. There were questions about fly ash, and NIPSCO said that some of the fly ash is used. The sulfur scrubbers produce the gypsum product used by Georgia Pacific and the fly ash from one of the four units at the Schaffler plant is used as a concrete substitute. One member of the audience said that farmers use the road. The topic will be the subject of future meetings, not just of the Commissioners but of the Planning Commission and the Drainage Board.

At the end of the meeting a citizen who lives in the Prairie Ridge subdivision near SR 10 complained about 14 unsold lots that were rarely mowed. One of the commissioners said he would take care of it.

As I left the Court House, I noticed that a person was being carried out and put into a Prompt ambulance. I learned later that she had fallen down the stairs.

In the afternoon the Drainage Board met. There were two longer discussions. One involved a contractor who had sprayed ditches to kill trees and brush and who had not been paid because the surveyor had found his work unsatisfactory. At the end of the meeting there was a discussion about people who repair tiles or ditches and then want the surveyor to reimburse them. The new policy is that if you want reimbursement, you need to talk to the surveyor before you begin work.

Leaving the meeting, I stopped in Demotte Carpet, which opened its Rensselaer branch on Monday. If I had been a customer, I would have been the third one.

 The store is misnamed--it carries other types of flooring besides carpet--tiles, linoleum, and wood flooring. The store if full of samples but does not have any actual carpet for sale--you chose what you want and they install it or they will bring what you want from DeMotte and you can install it. The store is narrow and very long--it stretches all the way to the alley.

 Demotte Carpet did a considerable amount of remodeling to the building. The back section had been an unheated store room. Now it has more samples of flooring.

The other opening for Monday was Franciscan Urgent Care.

On Monday evening the Park Board met. The primary item discussed was their plan to revamp Brookside park by putting two ball fields where the soccer field is now. The financing would need to be done from the Blacker Trust, which has two trustees who must approved any expenditures. There was a lot of frustration at the slow pace of events early in the meeting, but the meeting ended on a more optimistic note as the members decided that they would ask the trustees to have a set of blueprints drawn up. The blueprints will be costly and will require financing from the trust, but it seemed that they are necessary to move forward.

More meetings Sept 22, 2014

On Monday night the City Council met. I arrived in the middle of the public hearing on the budget, which had no public comments after the reading of a long list of numbers that meant nothing to anyone who does not deal with these numbers daily. The vote on the budget will take place in October.

The Council then passed an ordinance that would prohibit large trucks from parking in the city parking lots. The ordinance was in response to the large trucks that have frequently parked in the Front Street lot. It will take effect 30 days after it is published in the newspaper.

Electric bills will be lower because the cost of electricity has been lower due to the city's generation of electricity. The low rates will not last.

Town and Country Paving won the contract to pave many sections of city streets. The cost will be $371,673. It is unlikely that finances will allow as much repaving next year.

The city will contribute $500 from it public relations fund to the Trunk or Treat event at the fairgrounds.

In announcements, the high school homecoming parade will be Thursday at 6:30. I could not find confirmation of this on the high school web page, but that web page and calendar is basically useless for learning what is going on at the high school. The state will soon begin working on SR 114 between Rutsen and Milton, though exactly what kind of repairs or repaving they will be doing is not known by anyone in city government. Right now power from NIPSCO is coming through the Banet Substation as work on connecting up the 69K line is underway. I learned after the meeting that the very tall pole at the Melville substation will have some kind of antenna on it so that NIPSCO can monitor electrical usage. I also learned that the city does not buy power directly from NIPSCO. NIPSCO sells to the Indiana Municipal Power Agency, which is the supplier to Rensselaer. So even though the power lines directly connect NIPSCO and Rensselaer, IMPA is involved.

The Fire Department's aerial ladder truck is temporarily out of service because of mechanical problems. The manufacturer of the truck is out of business, which makes getting parts a challenge. The Drexel water tower has been cleaned and the city is getting easements for a water line from the fairgrounds to the Interstate. The pipe will cross under the highway at the county highway garage and be on the north side of the highway. There was mention that Comfort Suites was interested in building near the Interstate, and when I got home and looked at Facebook, I discovered that this was old news because Visit Rensselaer had a photo. The city water line will probably not be completed for a year and one city official wondered if Comfort Suites would build before city water arrived. (Council meeting minutes are available here.)

Then it was time to go to the Court House for meetings of the Jasper County Plan Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals. Usually the BZA meets first, but on Monday night they switched the order of meetings because two items were on both agendas and the Planning commission needed to act first.

The Planning commission approved three zoning changes. (These must be confirmed by the Commissioners before they go into effect.) The most interesting of them was a request from IBEC to change a small parcel of their lot from I2 to General Commercial. IBEC wants to put in a single gas pump to allow the public to buy fuel with ethanol. It will be near their plant entrance. What I found confusing is that the BZA then had to grant a special exception for this. After the meeting I learned that for certain kinds of business such as gas stations, it is not enough to get proper zoning. In addition a special exception must be granted.

The trees are still green, but fall has arrived at the retailers. (A picture to brighten up the post)

meetings 09-16-2014

The Jasper County Historical Society had its monthly meeting Tuesday night. They met behind the displays for the new traveling exhibit, one featuring cartoonists from Indiana.

 Most of the cartoonists I had never heard of. There were a bunch that came from Wabash College, and several from Nappanee. The man who did the Mary Worth cartoons was from Indiana, and though I never bothered to read them, I do remember them. However, the most recognizable of the cartoons was the Garfield cartoon.

I left the meeting early to go over to the County Council meeting. The main items on their agenda were budgets. They approved the overall county budget of about $33 million dollars. They then discussed something called non-binding reviews. I think this was a chance for governmental agencies that did not need council approval to discuss what they were doing with the council. The only person who showed up was the Jordan Township Trustee.

Next was a public hearing of binding taxing units. First was the Rensselaer School Corporation, which did not have any big changes from the previous year. I do not know why the Rensselaer School Corporation was on the agenda and not the KV school corporation. The Airport Authority had good news--its proposed budget came with a lower property tax rate.

Third up was the Iroquois Conservancy budget. This group oversees the Iroquois River and its main expenditure is removing log jams. It was also interested in joining with the USGS to monitor pollution.

The last agency was the Northwest Indiana Solid Waste District. They get all of their money from the landfills in Newton and White County, where they get 10 cents and 12.5 cents per ton respectively. Those rates are set by the county commissioners of Newton and White counties. That raises $400,000 per year, which means that about 4 million tons of waste go into those landfills each year. However, the district has spent more than that amount per year, drawing down investments made when they were getting 25 cents per ton. To conserve money, they were no longer going to be making grants to cities, towns, and schools. (Most of their expenditures are in the form of grants.) The reason that their budget has to be approved by the Jasper County Council is that it is the fiscal body with the largest assessed value in the area that it serves. It has a board of 20 members, all elected officials from the various counties, with White and Newton getting extra members because of the landfills.

In addition to the budget, the district wanted the council to approve an ordinance that would allow it to take advantage of a new state law. The change in the law allows county governments to invest some of their excess funds in instruments with maturities up to five years, allowing them to get a higher return. The ordinance passed.

The person that the council approved for the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) at its last meeting decided he could not do the job, so the Council selected Scott Walstra to the position.

Finally, John Price moved that the Council's lawyer investigate the possibility of establishing a violations bureau. At present there is no effective enforcement mechanism for many county regulations. If a person ignores an ordinance,  the county can take the person to court, but the costs of pursuing the case will usually exceed the amount recovered. Recently the county spent $1200 to collect a $150 building fee. However, the county can establish a body that will sit below the state court system, and if it finds a violation, the case is handed as a ticket violation, and it moves easily and cheaply into the state court system. Two members of the audience were in strong support of this idea because they have been personally affected by people ignoring regulations without any consequences. However, the council president was hesitant, in part because this is a matter that must be passed by the commissioners, not the council and in part because he was not sure that the problem was big enough to worry about. The matter will come up again, probably in the October meeting, which will be held on October 28 rather than October 14 as scheduled.

A few more meeting notes

On Wednesday evening the Airport Authority Board met for its monthly meeting. They mostly discussed routing things--drainage, the proposed fuel farm, a nepotism policy, the courtesy car. One new item was the approval of the purchase of a new truck and snow plow that will be used to clear the runway in the winter. They hope to get ten years of use from it.

The airport manager challenged them to come up with goals for the next two to four years. They will apparently take this up at future meetings. One member suggested that a goal should be a website. Presently neither the airport or airport authority has a website.

Across the road, something has happened at the MacAllister site. A green box is in place--one of the essential items on any construction site.

On Thursday evening the Park Board had its monthly meeting. There was discussion about the Staddon Field. The School Corporation owns the land, and earlier this year the Park Board or maybe the city offered $40,000 for it. That offer was rejected on a 5-2 vote. The School had the land appraised and the result came back at a bit more than $90,000. One member of the Park Board wanted to see if negotiations might move ahead if the Park could get the Blacker Trust (or the City--the Park Board does not have the money to purchase the property) to offer about $60,000. This idea was met with resistance. One member said that the School should be left to sit on the property, maintaining it. If they decided to sell it, it would not fetch $90,000, but it would fetch a lot of criticism for the school board members. There was agreement with this sentiment, so the matter did not go further.

Then there was more discussion of proposed ball field in Brookside Park. Again, the Park Board has no money to do this, but it is trying to put together a proposal that will be acceptable to the lawyer who controls the Rex Blacker Trust. The Park Board will try to get cost estimates for the various parts of their plan.

There was some discussion of the proposed Dog Park in Iroquois Park and how that project could be advanced.

It was noted that Kentland spent about $1.5 million to update their swimming pool. It apparently has added water-park features. As for the Rensselaer pool, on the last weekend the water level was unusually low. After the pool was closed, a crack in a pipe under the pool was discovered as the reason that the water level was not what it should have been.

And in completely unrelated news, a very long utility pole was delivered to the Melville substation this morning.

Meeting odds and ends (updated)

The Commissioners held their monthly meeting on Tuesday--delayed a day because of the holiday. Most of the meeting was taken up with routine matters. (I have attended enough of these meetings so that almost all of the meeting seems like routine matters.)

A representative from WorkingWell gave the commissioners information about their services and prices. She also said that they would be adding express urgent car starting October 6. Franciscan was not intending to offer express care so soon, but there was a demand for it.

The commissioners approved the purchase of a backhoe by the highway department for $93,700. It will indirectly replace a backhoe that the surveyor's office was using and that burned this past spring.

The commissioners will schedule a public hearing in an upcoming meeting to vacate 1000 N between 300E and 400E. (My map of Jasper County does not show a road there.) This bit of road is entirely within the Jasper-Pulaski Reserve, is not included on the county's inventory of roads, and gets no maintenance from the county. It is also almost impassible at one end.

The county now owns the old Johnny Rusk building between the court house and the post office. The commissioners asked the county engineer to solicit bids for its demolition, which cannot take place for at lest 60 days because a tenant needs to vacate the property. The county engineer wondered if the county could do the demolition in house.

At 9:30 bids were opened for restoration work on the exterior of the court house. There were three bids, and in addition to a base bid, they also were supposed to bid on five options. After they were opened, the commissioners asked their consultant on the project to review the bids. Near the end of the meeting he returned, and after discussion, the commissioners accepted the bid form Midwest, which is based in Paris, Illinois. They agreed to the base plus options 1, 3, and 5 for a total cost of $297,535. (I do not know what options 1, 3, and 5 are, so do not ask me.)

The commissions also approved a switch in the company handling inmate health care at the jail, from Advanced Correctional Care to Quality Correctional Care. The price was about the same, but the new company offers some mental health services.

In the afternoon the Drainage Board met and the crowd of people filled almost every seat in the room. The reason for the interest was that there were public hearings about two ditches, the Nagel Ditch east of Rensselaer and the Lawton Ditch in Kankakee Township, near Teft. The discussion of the Nagel Ditch was fairly short and was continued to the December meeting because one of the landowners said that the tiles in his field ran not to the Nagel Ditch but to the Mary Dunn Ditch. the surveyor said that after the harvest, he would check this out, and if it was true, then he would have to reconfigure the assessments. The typological map indicated that the surface drainage of the land should be to the Nagel Ditch.

There was a vigorous discussion of the Lawton Ditch. Several people said that they spent money keeping their portion of the ditch clean and they though it was unfair that they should pay as much for cleaning the ditch as those who had done nothing at all. The commissioners were sympathetic, but implied that trying to charge by who cleaned their ditch and who did not would be impossible. The commissions pointed out that the only reason this was on the agenda is because the landowners had petitioned it to be on the agenda, and that with some ditches the landowners involved found ways to agree to clean the ditch without involving the county surveyor. They were invited to try to resolve the matter among themselves. However, because the town of Teft was included in the proposal, and because Teft now drains into a different ditch, this discussion was also continued to the December meeting.

Almost everyone left. The board then heard requests from two people to consider cleaning the lower Ryan Ditch and the Frances Fleet Lakin Ditch. The Board approved the drainage plan for the Davis Veterinary Clinic, and the meeting was finished.

While on the topic of water, the water level in the quarry is rising very slowly. I compared this picture taken today with a picture I took two weeks ago and there was very little difference. Today, however, there was a nice reflection of the cliffs in the water.

 There is still a lot of equipment down in the pit. However, the water will probably not threaten it for several more months.

 You do not need to go west to see badlands. We have some by the quarry, though they are not as colorful as those you find in the west.

 SJC must be worried about water because they were beginning to install some drainage tile north of the softball field.

 Workers were also working on the roof of Bennett Hall.

Update: It appears that the drainage at St. Joseph's College is for Halleck Center, which had water problems a year or two ago.

City council, Monday Aug 25 2014

The Rensselaer Police Department has a couple broken windows. A few days ago a gentleman decided to throw bricks through them. He was arrested.

(It is usually difficult to find pictures to illustrate City Council meetings, so I could not resist taking the picture above after I left the meeting.)

At the meeting, the airport manager gave a brief summary of what has been happening at the airport during the citizens' comment part of the meeting. His best story was about a call he got at 2:00 in the morning. A medevac helicopter had stopped at the airport to refuel and the credit card that the pilot had was not working. After trying to help over the telephone, the airport manager drove to the airport and used another way to get the copter fueled. It then flew to Jasper County Hospital, picked up its patient, and took off for Indianapolis. Its tank was almost empty when it landed at the airport--it would not have been able to complete the run if it could not get fuel.

The Council approved the first reading of an ordinance granting city employees a 3% pay raise. Then they suspended the rules and voted to approve the second and third reading.

A financial consultant updated the council on funding for the proposed firehouse. USDA funding turns out not to be an option--the program that the city thought might be the source of funds has been cut back and now funds much smaller projects. Rensselaer could sell general obligation bonds and fund them with taxes on citizens. The consultant said it had a better option--sell bonds and use the revenues from the TIF districts (mostly or entirely Drexel Park) to pay back the bonds. In this way the citizens would not have to face a tax increase. The TIF district generates about $400K a year, but $165K of that is needed to pay on bonds that will mature in 2020. The consultant said that there was enough left to fund about $4.5 million in bonds.

An objection to this idea that there was free money was quickly raised by Councilman Cover. He pointed out that if the TIF funds were used to help finance the fire station, they could not be used for other projects, such as a new water well or the extension of water lines to the Interstate. After a bit of discussion, the council agreed that using the TIF funds for the fire station was their best use. Before more details on financing can be developed, plans and costs must be known much better. The Council voted to move to the design stage of the project.

There was about five minutes of discussion about a request that the city fund the continuing education for an employee of the power plant. He needs one course each semester to finish his degree in electrical engineering. As is standard when the city funds continuing education of employees, the employee would have to agree to work for three years for the city or else pay back the grant. The discussion was about how difficult it was to enforce that agreement. The council agreed to grant a bit more than a thousand dollars a semester to allow the employee to take the class at Purdue.

The council voted to approve about $5000 to clean the exterior of the Drexel water tower and another $2000 to fix the roof on city hall so water would not pour into the building when the rain was heavy. (I wonder if they had any problems this afternoon. We got another inch and a half in two heavy downpours.)

The gas department representative announced that work had begun on the gas line extension along John Deere Road. It begins just past the Madison subdivision. You can see the pipe that has been fitted below what appears to be a drainage tile.

It will extend about mile east. The pipe is plastic. I am not sure how the joints are sealed. For some of the route a trencher is used to bury the pipe, but a directional drilling machine will be used to get it below Melville and several driveways.

 This morning I briefly stopped in the County Council Meeting to see what their budget discussion would look like. They got a late start because they could not get the computer to display on the screen (the computer had two screens, and the second screen was what was being projected). In ordinary meetings the members of the council face the audience, In this meeting they shifted to the other side of the table so they could watch the spreadsheet.

I had too many things on my agenda to stay and watch very long. While I was there they were deciding that they wanted to give a pay increase big enough so it would cover the increased cost of insurance. That way the employees would not see their pay checks shrink. (The cost of health insurance is almost certain to rise significantly.)

More budget hearings

The County Council reconvened at 8:30 on Monday morning to continue hearing the various county departments explain their budget requests. As I listened to the discussions, I was struck by how much the process is constrained by rules from the state. The budget that the Council and then the Commissioners approve must be reviewed by the state, I think by the State Board of Accounts. The county is not supposed to increase its budget by more than 2.9%. If a new program is initiated for $100,000, but the state funds $50,000 of that, the budget is deemed to have increased not by the net of $50,000 but by the full $100,000. The Council can cut budget requests but not increase them. 

Having attended a lot of city and county meetings over the past six months, I have noticed frequent frustration with the state government. The state constantly changes the rules by which the local governments must abide. It frequently asks or requires local governments to do more or do things in more costly ways. It rarely provides the funds to compensate the local governments for their demands. In fact this year the governor wanted to eliminate a tax that provided revenue to local governments and no revenue to the state and had no proposal to compensate the local governments for the lost revenue. The words "unfunded mandates" were heard more than a few times during the discussion today.

Almost all of the departments reporting today proposed a ten percent increase in wages. A few proposed five percent and one or two proposed a measly three percent. All of them certainly know that ten percent cannot happen given the constraints of the budget process. 

There were over a dozen presentations in the morning session. Here are a few highlights.

The weed control people said that they are not just working to control marijuana but have also begun to work on palmer amaranth. It now occurs throughout the county and they expect that they may soon spend as much time and effort trying to control it as they do marijuana. They do not control in farmers' fields, just along the roadway.

The public defender was the first of several departments from the county court system. A court case has ruled that parents in all child abuse cases must have a lawyer or a public defender and this requirement will increase the number of public defenders that the county will need to fund. At present there are six public defenders, four who primarily handle felony cases and are thus partially reimbursed by the state and two who primarily handle misdemeanors and are not reimbursed by the state. 46 children so far this year have been taken from their parents by Welfare, up considerably from previous years. He requested two new positions for public defenders, filled either by two full-time people or one full-time and one position split between two people.

One of the commissions had to present the commissioners budget, which includes a lot of different things that do not fit anywhere else, such as upkeep of the county buildings and health insurance. Workman's compensation insurance is expected to take a jump, as is health insurance. The price of health insurance per person is $17,000, which explains why the county is so concerned with limiting full-time employees. The county will be closing on the Donnelly building (former Johnny Rusk building) on Friday and the plan is to demolish it. The Youth Center has enough children so that they should be economically viable. The big project for next year will be energy savings for the Court House, which will involve getting better control systems on the heating and cooling and perhaps replacing some windows.

Jasper County Community Services gets some funding from the county but is not part of the county government. (CDC Resources, another organization that gets some funding but is not a branch of the county government, gave a summary of what it does in the afternoon.) Community Services opened a new senior center in Remington this year and the building is debt free. The organization is reaching out beyond seniors to find other places where it can provide services. It has 18 employees, 11 full time and 7 part time.

Community Corrections requested four additional officers. They foresee a real chance of having full occupancy next year (presently there are two male beds and five female beds empty) because of changes in the state criminal code that will keep more offenders in local lock-ups rather than in state prisons. It is only slightly cheaper to house prisoners in community corrections than in the county jail, but those on work-release have to pay a bit for room and board, so that makes the net cost significantly less.

After a few more presentations, it was time for lunch. The afternoon session began at 1:00. Among those presenting reports were the surveyor, planning and development, the tourism commission, soil and water, IT, emergency management, the assessor, extension, animal control, the prosecutor, and the health department. The prosecutor wanted to add a full-time investigator. She said that because the new criminal code gave judges less discretion in sentencing, she expected that there would be fewer plea bargains and more trials. 

I missed the very end of the meeting because I noticed it was raining and decided I needed to go home and protect my basement. There were a lot of basements flooded last week, including that of the Mayor Wood. At the city council meeting Monday night (the subject of a future post) the mayor announced that people who had furniture and other things damaged by backed up sewers or other flooding could put them out for pick up on their regular trash pick-up day, but should call first. I think the number was 7833. There are now 20 to 22 people on the list for back-flow protectors. It may be a long wait.

The County Council will reconvene on Tuesday morning at 8:30 to begin cutting, trying to shape a budget that fits the constraints that the state has set.

And now for a picture. The city has been working on east Vine Street to remove a few more storm sewers from the combined sewer system and make them drain to the big underground pipe that was the Melville Street project.

Groundbreaking and bugets

On Wednesday afternoon a groundbreaking ceremony was held for a MacAllister Agriculture Division building that will be on the corner of Airport Road and SR 114. There were a lot more people there than I expected.

 The new building will have 12,000 square feet, much bigger than the current MacAllister building.

 It will include a showroom (on the left in the picture below, some offices for sales staff, the parts manager, and the service manager on the bottom of the picture. There will be a large service shop on the right of picture. It will initially have two bays, but once the operation is up and running, bay doors can be installed on the other end so that four service bays will be available. The company has already begun to hire new staff so that they will be trained when the new building opens. When everything is fully operational, the company will have about ten employees.

MacAllister has been in Rensselaer for several years. Before that, they had a small parts business in Remington for a few years. They figure that the Rensselaer office will be able to service farmers within about a thirty mile radius.

 I asked about construction and was told that construction might begin as early as this week. The completion date is vague, but is expected to be around the end of 2014. A lot depends on weather.

Before the ceremonial shovel picture, three people spoke. I think the first one, pictured on the left below, was the head of the agriculture division for MacAllister. The second was Mayor Wood, and the third was P.E. MacAllister, who is a the oldest member of the family that owns the business. He recounted the history of the company. His father began working for an agriculture equipment dealer in Wisconsin and in 1941 was offered the chance to run a dealership in Indianapolis. Then Caterpillar contacted him, and he became a dealer for Caterpillar. The main business for MacAllister remains construction equipment and they remain a large dealer of Caterpillar equipment. They got back into the agriculture business when Caterpillar developed the Challenger line of tractors. The Ag division of the business has grown rapidly in the last decade but it no longer sells Caterpillar tractors  because Caterpillar left the tractor business, selling its Challenger line to AGCO. AGCO is a company with a complicated history. It has absorbed the equipment lines for several other companies, including Allis Chalmers and Massey Ferguson. Mr MacAllister stressed how their success depends on serving their customers well, and said that would be a focus of the Rensselaer employees. (I did not bring pen and paper to take notes and I wish I had.)

 Then Titan Construction people, MacAllister people, and City of Rensselaer officials scooped up a shovel full of dirt for the cameras.

After the picture taking, people talked to each other for a while, ate some cookies, and then left.

Later in the afternoon the Rensselaer City Council held a special meeting to consider the budget. Most of the discussion was about budget cuts, but since I do not know what the baseline was, I could not understand most of what they were discussing. There will be a public hearing on the budget in September, and the budget will not be approved until October 11. At some point, and it might be after October, the budget has to be submitted to the state for its approval.

(If you want to try to make sense of the budgeting of the local governments, you can look at the information at http://budgetnotices.in.gov/. I tried to make sense of it, but most of it was not in a form I could process. However, it was interesting looking at the employee compensation by the county, school district, and city.)

More meetings, August 2014

On Tuesday evening, August 12, the Jasper County Airport Authority held its monthly meeting. Because the Civil Air Patrol was holding a meeting at the same time, the JCAA meeting was not held in the conference room but in the lounge area next to the office.

Before the meeting started, a member of the public asked about hanger rentals and was told that at present there is a waiting list.

The airport engineer reported that drainage work should begin in about two weeks. Then the floor was turned over to the Authority's financial advisor, a woman identified as Paige. She referred the members to projections of current and future revenues and expenditures. At present the Authority is getting for current operations about $380,000 from the property taxes and with additional revenues has total revenues of about $570,000. It is currently spending a bit less than $300,000, so that its cash balances are increasing by about $275,000. The current tax rate is .0166 and it could operate, assuming that expenditures would not increase, at a tax rate of half of that. So she suggested that they could consider a reduction in the tax rate. Dropping the rate is easy, but if in the future it must be raised, that is hard. Ideally you want to find a rate that will not need to be changed. She also said that the cumulative building fund, which has a tax rate of .0033, is bringing in about $80,000 but almost all of this is spent, so it is not building a cushion. She suggested that if the operating budget rate is cut, the cumulative building fund rate be increased a bit--it cannot be increased much because the maximum allowed is .0046. However, the Treasurer pointed out that it could not be raised this year because there was a deadline of August 1 that was missed.

During the discussion the term CAGIT was used several times and I had no idea what it meant. A search on Google reveals it stands for County Adjusted Gross Income Taxes.

The question arose as to why the revenues and receipts were so out of balance. The answer was that the County Council, which has to approve the budget, cut the spending last year but did not cut the tax rate.

After this background, the Treasurer moved to approve the budget for 2015. It will have the same total level of spending as for 2014, with some line items increased and some decreased. That budget will be read in the September County Council meeting, with approval voted in the October meeting.

The attorney for the Authority had a number of concerns. He said that they had to pass a conflict of interest ordinance that required them to disclose any transactions that the board member might have that could involve a conflict of interest. It passed. There was more discussion about purchasing a courtesy car, which would upgrade the vehicle from a 1998 model to a 2009 model. They passed the recommendation. Finally, there was discussion about whether having the Authority lease the airport land from the county was the best way to limit liability in case of an accident.

At this point I had to leave, so whatever else transpired, will forever remain a mystery.

On Wednesday evening Congressman Todd Rokita held a town hall meeting at the Ritz Theater. The format was very similar to his previous town hall meeting, but the attendance was smaller. People asked a variety of questions, none really hostile. They asked about out-of-control spending, and he pointed out that 60% of the budget is now mandatory spending such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Other questions were about immigration, Obamacare, No Child Left Behind, and Lois Lerner.

Because I do not want to do another post without pictures, here are two, both showing progress this week in hooking up the city to the 69K electrical line. The first shows a NIPSCO crew on Thursday working on a new pole for the Melville substation, and the other shows workers hooking up cables in the substation next to the power plant.

 Both pictures illustrate why you should not shoot into the light.

City Council meeting, Monday, Aug 11 2014

The City Council had a short (about half an hour) and relatively uneventful meeting on Monday evening. When I got there a few minutes late, they were discussing an ordinance for LED security lights. Because I was late, I did not feel it appropriate to ask questions, but as I understand it, the ordinance established a $3.00 monthly charge for private security lights that are LED, the same charge that exists for non-LED security lights. I think there was also mention that the city would be experimenting with LED lights on Owen, Wood, and Mattheson Streets.

There will be an increase in natural gas bills for August as a result of a $.14 per hundred cubic feet increase in the gas tracker price. A list of 21 streets needing resurfacing was given to the council so it could approve the seeking of bids. (Grace Street is not on the list because it is a state highway, and despite efforts by city officials to get the state to do something about it, little seems to be happening.) The water department got approval to purchase a new truck from Gutwein Motors. Repairs to City Hall to fix a water leakage problem were approved.  Department of Agriculture funding for the new fire station does not look promising, so the city will begin to look to a bond issue. Coffee with a Cop was successful enough so that the Police Department will probably do it again next year. The power plant was working on making the electrical connections to the new substation and NIPSCO has decided on a metering point. The fire department is beginning planning for the Halloween Trunk and Treat event for this year, which will probably be at the fair grounds. The Eger Road gas main line should be installed and charged this week.

The most interesting announcement at the meeting was that SJC will not be burning coal this year--environmental regulations have gotten too hard to comply with--and will be hooking up to city gas for the power plant. I had not heard anything about that from my sources at SJC.

In other news, something is happening at the Hanging Grove Township School.

If you wonder what is happening upstairs at eMbers, check out these pictures.

A new auction service will soon have its first auction.

Early August meetings

The County Commissioners held their monthly meeting on Monday morning. As always, there were lots of items on the agenda and as always there were times when the meeting dragged. One reason it often drags is because they schedule certain items at specific times so that people can come and go without waiting for hours listening to things about which they have no interest.

Some highlights. The Animal Control Board had several items, including some repairs needed at the animal shelter and a recommendation for a new director, a woman finishing up a masters in Michigan with family in the area. A couple of spiffy-looking bankers told the board that the state has changed requirements for county investments and that they would like to help the county adjust. In the past a county was limited to investments of two years maturity or less. Now up to 25% of funds can be invested in maturities from two to five years. The state made the change in response to the extremely low interest rates for safe, short-term investments. 

A representative from the Jasper Pulaski preserve asked about what he could do with part of a road that the county does not maintain but for which it has a right-of-way. The issue came up because of neighbors. The road is a mud pit, and when people get stuck, they bother the neighbors. The issue will probably be on the agenda for September. A very similar item involved a road right-of-way near DeMotte. The county has a right-of-way but there is no road. The request from some of the residents was that the county vacate the right-of-way. There was a public hearing called on the matter, at which there were no public comments, and the commissioners voted to vacate the right-of-way.

A couple of zoning requests involving vet clinics were approved. Then there was a discussion about drainage assessments. The Remington Post Office is refusing to pay their drainage assessment, arguing that no state entity can tax a federal entity. The commissioners were told that assessments are paid by everyone, including tax-exempt organizations. The sum involved in this dispute is currently only $9.00, but when it reaches $25, the county can threaten a tax sale. Then things might get interesting.

The engineering firm that has been working on the county jail had been asked to look at the court house to see what changes could be made to its heating-cooling systems. A long discussion followed, much of it directed to documents that the commissioners were provided but which were not available to the public. It seemed that changes to the windows were much too expensive to even consider, and that many of the other changes could not be justified on a cost-savings basis, but might be worthwhile for a comfort basis. At present the court house has two systems, one for the third floor which is not too old, and another for the bottom two floors which is about twenty years old. Neither system has automated controls. 

In the evening the Rensselaer Park Board met. The big item on their agenda was a set of plans to remodel Brookside Park. The plan included two new ball fields that will fit where the old football field (now a soccer field) was. Included would be a new concession stand/press box and an enlarged parking lot. The extension of the parking lot would require that the basketball court be moved, perhaps to over by the tennis field. There was nothing in the plan about what would happen to any other park. None of this can happen unless the trustee for the Blacker Trust approves the plan. There is a frustration on the part of the board members because the Blacker Trust has money to improve the parks, but at this point they can see nothing that it has done to make any improvement. The one expenditure of the Trust has caused them problems and has solved no problems.

There was also some discussion of what would be needed to turn much of Iroquois Park into a dog park, The total cost of that would probably be less than $20,000. It will need two areas because apparently big dogs and little dogs do not mix well.

Despite a number of meetings, the future use of the old Monnett Girls School building is as uncertain as ever. The city does not want to be a landlord, and the park board does not want to lose land on the site. 

The meeting got a little crazy at the end as it approached the two-hour mark and some of the frustrations of a couple of members were voiced in the form of motions.

Meetings on Monday

I missed the big event of the weekend, the Rock the Arts, because I was out of town. How did it go?

When I left on Friday, I noticed that GRG Auto Repair was having its gas tanks removed. When I came back on Monday, it looked like the work was almost finished.

Last week the Teen Mission was busy around town. Among the things they did were a floor for a greenhouse at CDC Resources, weeding in the community garden, and projects at the Jasper County Youth Center.

The Pulaski County Economic Development  had an interesting article about Gutwein Popcorn. It can be seen here: http://www.pulaskionline.org/images/stories/pdf/pcedd3-2.pdf

On Monday I attended a short (35 minute) city council meeting. An ordinance for an new electric lighting rate that involved LEDs but which I did not understand passed first reading. I think the council has to have a public hearing on it and pass it again before it takes effect.

The council approved gas line extensions along Eger Road (9200 feet), Wood Road (4200 feet) and Amsler Road (2200 feet). 

The mayor recommended a 3% raise for city employees for the upcoming fiscal year and his recommendation passed.

The utility office manager wanted to use an on-line service to check the utility payment records of new customers. If they had not been reliable payers for past utilities, they would be charged a high-risk deposit of $125 rather than the standard deposit of $75. This past year the utility wrote off $13000 of unpaid bills, and this would, in the opinion of the utility manager, reduce that amount in the future. The council approved the request of the utility office manager.

The future of the Hoosier State Amtrak service is in doubt because Indianapolis no longer wants to subsidize the line. It is possible that the Hoosier State will cease on October 1.

The council approved a $500 donation to the Jasper County Community Services as a result of the presentation given the council at its last meeting. The money would come from the $7500 that has been approved for donations.

Councilman Barton wanted the city to sponsor a team at the Jasper County Economic Development Organization's golf outing in August. $280 was approved from the PR fund.

Coffee with a Cop is coming up next week. Citizens are invited to meet with police officers at four restaurants to voice any concerns that they have. This event is a replacement for the National Night Out that has been held for several past years.

Progress is being made in the 69K power switchover, and it may be completed in September. 

The early completion of the council meeting meant there was plenty of time to get to the Jasper County Planning and Development Commission meeting in the Court House. There was only one item on the agenda, a rezoning of a parcel of land along US 231 north of SR 14 from A1 to A4. The request was for the Davis Veterinary Clinic, which has outgrown their present quarters about a mile to the east. Mr Davis remarked that he was getting to meet a whole lot of people that he did not know existed in the process of getting approval to build.