Rants

Filibusters, Shutdowns and other General Government BS

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This post fully embraces the “rant” designation, so scroll on if you don’t want my political opinion piece. Listening to the back and forth over the past month and a half has been tiring and frustrating. The Democrats’ position has seemed pretty untenable, considering they (Democrats while in power) passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without Republican support, they (Democrats while in power) passed the Covid enhancements to the ACA, which included the sunset provision that’s upon us, without Republican support and now, while not in power, they (Democrats) are demanding the Republicans fix it. In response, the Republicans have proposed paying everyone during the shutdown, despite the fact that the whole reason for the shutdown is there’s no money appropriated to do so. In typical Federal Government fashion. the only solutions either side seem to be able to see is to throw more money at problems.

Every time there is a government shutdown, they seem to put more rules in place to make the next one less painful… somewhat defeating the whole point of it. Why do a shutdown if no one is going to notice? After one of the last shutdowns, things were changed to assure that government employees would be reimbursed for lost wages, even though they weren’t working. No business could survive that way… The latest enhancement to that is that government employees will not even have to wait until the end of the shutdown to get paid! The ones laid off are already getting a paid vacation, but if the current proposal goes through, they’ll get a regular paycheck while off. I guess, “Why not?” All the Senators and Representatives got their check!!! They still managed to collect taxes though…

Side Note: Everyone should have an emergency fund, because it’s rare to have a 100% guaranteed income, but if you work in an industry (government) where these shutdowns occur regularly, it’s even more important. There is no question of IF there will be another government shutdown, only when… I have a hard time working up a lot of sympathy for those that were surprised by this.

James Stewart as Jefferson Smith filibustering on floor of the Senate

There was some talk about changing the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster. It may be on the way out the door anyway, as there was an attempt to eliminate it in the last Democrat controlled Congress, but was stopped by just two moderate Democrats. And they’re not in office anymore… I am fully against its elimination. I think the minority party should have some vehicle to slow and bring to attention bad legislation, but it shouldn’t be painless. Otherwise, like this time, it’s just obstruction for no benefit. There was no pain for Senators in this latest shutdown filibuster. Sometime in the 1970’s the rules were changed to allow a filibuster to only require an objection. Yes, that’s a simplification, but accurate. Before that time, a Senator or group of Senators would have had to speak continuously on the floor of the Senate to keep the filibuster in effect, a la 1939 movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. There was pain for all involved as the Senate had to stay in session and those filibustering had to hold the floor for hours on end, speaking into the record. The new rules are lazy and painless. If you want to take a stand against something, you should have to actually stand!

With very few exceptions, most Americans didn’t feel any effects of the shutdown, as most things continued as is. Only “nonessential” workers were furloughed. It wasn’t until the SNAP program began to run out of money and the airlines began to feel the air traffic controller pinch that anyone really perked up. Senators cared about SNAP, because those are actual voters affected. They didn’t care about not paying air traffic controllers, until it escalated to the fear of constituents complaining about not getting to fly home for the holidays.

In my opinion, pain and risk form the answer. Senators should feel some pain when they determine something should be filibustered and their constituents should feel some pain during a shutdown in order to get their attention. Senators should have been afraid of their actions getting their constituents attention for something that resulted in nothing. As is, the whole thing was low cost theatre that had very little effect on anything.

Post Frame Housing

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Traditional Pole Barn with vertical steel siding and steel roofing. Image from CMT Components

A few years back, there was an effort to ban post frame (also known as timber frame) housing in Plymouth. A similar ban has been floated a few times in Culver and resurfaced at the August Plan Commission meeting. In both cases, the rational has been that the style doesn’t fit the community. As near as I can discern, (and I could be missing something) it doesn’t have much to do with the post frame construction, but more about the look of vertical metal siding, since these homes can be indiscernible from homes built using standard framing.

Post frame construction is most often associated with the “Shade & Shelter” functionality of Pole Buildings. Where post frame barns are designed to protect farm equipment, post frame homes are generally better insulated, stronger structurally, sealed tightly and have a different aesthetic. It’s just a different framing technique that has recently had a resurgence in popularity.

Post Frame Construction showing below grade piers, posts, girts & purlins Image from Roper Buildings

The main difference in this style of construction is the use of posts (poles) to provide the frost protection and uplift protection in lieu of the footings and frost walls used in standard construction. They are nearly always slab-on-grade (SOG) for the first floor. (Many standard construction homes are SOG as well, but standard homes could also have crawl spaces or basements.) Standard construction will use 2×4 or 2×6 studs at 16″ or 24″ on center to form the shell. Post frame buildings have posts spaces as much as 8′ on center with horizontal 2x4s girts to support the siding. Standard construction will have trusses or rafters at 24″ on center, where post frame buildings space out the trusses to bear on the posts and then use 2×4 purlins to support the roofing materials.

For a pole building, the big advantages are the ease and speed of construction. The construction is very forgiving. It is generally a big box to provide the most cubic feet of storage with the minimum of effort. They tend to leak and creak over time, but provide the basic shelter function needed. For a post frame home, there are a lot of enhancements:

  1. In standard home construction, the frost wall is insulated, in our area, down to 3′ below grade. In post frame home construction, insulation is added under the slab extending 3′ – 6′ from the perimeter to provide a similar thermal break.
  2. In standard home construction, there is continuous sheathing, generally OSB or plywood spanning the studs and providing the exterior diaphragm framing stiffness. In post frame home construction, this is provided by the wall girts which also support the vertical metal siding. Sheathing would still need to be added if a horizontal finish such as traditional siding or a brick veneer is used.
  3. In standard home construction, interior wall finishes such as drywall or wood paneling can be applied directly to the studs. In post frame home construction, it will be necessary to add interior girts to provide support for the interior finishes.
  4. In standard home construction, the wall depth is based on the stud depth, so in general there is a cavity of 5-1/2″, if 2×6 framing is used. Each stud is a thermal transfer point as there is no insulation between the interior and exterior at stud locations. In post frame home construction, the exterior wall thickness is determined by the post thickness (6″ or 8″) plus the 2×4 girt thickness on the interior and exterior, giving a wall cavity of 8-1/2″ or 10-1/2″. Unlike studs that create a thermal transfer from top to bottom, post frame construction reduces the transfer points to just the locations where the girts bypass the posts. This allows for super insulation, more than doubling standard exterior wall R values.
  5. In standard home construction, the roof framing is generally webbed trusses with OSB or plywood decking to tie things together and provide a substrate for shingles. In post frame home construction, either the trusses need to be moved closer together (generally requiring a collar beam) to allow sheathing on the trusses or the sheathing is installed over the purlins.
  6. In standard home construction, interior walls are often load-bearing. In post frame home construction, interior walls are non-bearing, allowing doors without headers, allowing standard slab thicknesses and often, greater stud spacing.

While some of these homes embrace the barndominium style, such as the one to the right that even includes a simulation of a silo, they often are hard to distinguish from their neighbors. It’s not the framing that determines the exterior aesthetic, and in many cases you wouldn’t know the framing style if you didn’t see it under construction. Three of the apartment buildings at The Paddocks have a definite barn aesthetic, yet they were stick-built.

Stating that the style doesn’t fit the community seems a particularly curious thing to say about a home in Culver. Culver has a myriad of building styles ranging from traditional to bungalows to A-frames to geodesic domes. Culver has exterior finishes ranging from siding to painted concrete block to limestone to fieldstone. The siding breaks down to various styles including vertical, horizontal and diagonal. We have buildings with vinyl, steel, aluminum and wood siding. Culver is allowing new construction to expand in size to the point that they encourage replatting/combining of small lots to accommodate the larger construction.

Some communities establish aesthetic requirements. Culver doesn’t have these. As it stands, they’re zoning decisions are based mostly on safety. Post frame verses traditional framing is more of an issue for building codes and as of this time it is allowed. Many would object to the use of vibrant colored residential standing seam roofs as not fitting the traditional aesthetic, but nothing has been said about banning those. Personally, I’m fine with the diversity. Culver shouldn’t stoop to the level of a group of Karens. A flock of Karens is known as an HOA. Culver shouldn’t go there. (Neither should Plymouth…)

Taking One Thing Off the Plate…

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In 2017, when I was serving on the Culver Stellar Committee, I volunteered to set up a Twitter, now X, account to promote Culver and the Stellar activities. Through that, I connected to Madison, Indiana, our sister Stellar Award winner, and many of the State agencies with which we were working. It was something I thought was important at the time, and I was happy to help promote Culver. Since that time, I have put up posts with pictures and reports about Town meetings, sent out promotional things and reposted many of the event announcements that appeared on Town, Gown and Lake. Most of what I see says that marketing should be multifaceted and you should meet your audience where they are. I assume some of them are on X. It wasn’t too onerous, but did take time converting PDFs to JPGs and editing things to the 140 character format. I included some humor here and there, but avoided anything I thought would be controversial.

Apparently I was wrong… Last week the Town said they had received complaints about it being too political. I’m not sure if that’s just because of the Elon controversy and the fact that it is X or if there was something else. (Maybe someone was upset about me reposting Notre Dame Women’s Basketball posts?) They couldn’t tell me what the issue was as this was decided without looking at the site, so it will remain one of life’s mysteries. I have at time posted or reposted things from elected officials, but never from candidates. In any case, I was asked to take the references to the Town off the feed or shut it down. 1) I was doing this as an promotion for the Town and if they don’t want that, I just won’t do it. (Thus this post’s title.) and 2) It’s not worth my time to figure out either of those things, so I made one last post and I’m letting it sit idle.

I’m choosing, mostly, to take this as a time saver for me. I do think it was a positive for Culver or I wouldn’t have continued it. Out of curiosity, I went back and looked and the site had 327 followers, including: News/Talk 95.3 MNC, Michiana Life, Pulaski County Community Foundation, Startup South Bend, INDOT Northwest, The Ron Rubin School for the Entrepreneur, Marshall County LLN, Swan Lake Resort, Anita Goodan (reporter), Purdue Center for Regional Development, Leadership Marshall County, Madison Main Street Program, Argos Hardware, Visit Marshall County, Marshall County Blueberry Festival, Summer Horan ABC57, The Pilot News, The Lakes Magazine, Patronicity, Indiana Philanthropy Alliance, Indiana Bond Bank, Jeff Rea (South Bend Chamber, South Bend Tribune, Economic Outlook), Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA), South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership, US Fish and Wildlife, Hoosier State Chronicles, Suzanne Crouch (former Lt. Gov.), Launch Indy, Max 98.3, Visit Indiana, Marian University, Inside INdiana Business, Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC), AIM, Marshall County EDC and that’s every entity and none of the people. Many of those sites are from outside Culver, so they were seeing Lions Club Pancake Breakfasts, Lakefest calendars, and other events they might not have otherwise seen. Honestly, I don’t know if those are all still active sites, but they were at one time when they chose to connect to Culver. And maybe having that many followers is the problem, since I’ve been so political and controversial! Ha!

Most people don’t know that I was behind the @CulverISstellar site and I mostly took pains to keep it that way. I was doing this as something to give back to the Town. I feel it was an asset to the Town or I wouldn’t have been doing it. As is typical with social media these days, apparently someone couldn’t just scroll on. If there had been a negative comment with someone questioning a post, I would have just taken it down. I hope it was not just at Town control issue, because that would be even more sad. I made 6,547 posts over the last 8 years. With X, it’s hard to tell who is looking unless you’re controversial. I wasn’t.

In any case, this is another end of an era for me. Such is life.

DST – 2025

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How do I feel? Pretty much as crappy as the Daylight Savings Time (DST) change always makes me feel. To add insult to injury, we were at a conference in Vancouver, Washington, the end of last week and just got back yesterday, so DST got multiplied by the three hour time difference to make it all the more fun!

I know President Trump has made some comments about ending DST. I have a little bit of hope that the nonsense could end. Marco Rubio is in the cabinet and as Senator, he championed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would do away with DST. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement surely would support this as well, considering the negative health effects related to DST, i.e. increased heart attacks and strokes.

As always, this is your warning to give me a little leeway for the next week or so. I’ll be grumpy (grumpier) in the morning as my internal clock is slow to reset.

Growing or Dying

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Years ago I was part of a group that went to New Bremen, Ohio. We went there as a delegation from the Culver Chamber of Commerce to meet with Jim Dicke II, to discuss how to turn around Culver and possibly get his assistance. Jim had been instrumental through his company, Crown Equipment, in revitalizing New Bremen. From that small group and the then Culver Chamber Board, the Culver Second Century Committee was born. (More on that another day.) One thing he said in that meeting has stuck with me over the years, “Communities are either growing or dying. There is no such thing as staying status quo.” (I don’t know if it was a personal statement or someone else’s, but I always attribute it to him.) I’ve repeated that over the years in multiple settings. I generally try and attribute it to Jim, but even when I don’t, I’m not too concerned, because it fits with one of my other favorite quotes, “Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.” Which I first saw in a B.C. Comic by Johnny Hart…

In this case, I am asking that question about Marshall County, as one of the first actions of the new County Commissioners was to enact a moratorium on projects that involve Solar Farms, Battery Storage Facilities, Carbon Capture and Data Centers. While I understand some of the arguments about Solar (though I don’t necessarily agree, I’ve discussed that here and here), I am particularly interested here in stopping Data Centers.

Data Centers have been protested in other areas for many reasons. One of them, NYMBYism, seems to be the main one behind these efforts. The protests are not coming from our Amish community, so most of the protestors have cell phones and use the internet. I assume they’re not against them as a concept. I also find that interesting coming from the Commissioners, some of whom have expressed their support for our new President, Donald Trump. In a January 7th press conference, President-elect Trump introduced an investor group, DAMAC, planning to bring $20 billion dollars in data center investment to the U.S. In the speech, he specifically called out Indiana as one of the places to benefit from this investment. Though apparently not Marshall County, per our moratorium.

The others reasons don’t seem to apply or could be controlled. There are complaints from other areas that they use too much power… but that’s what’s drawn them here… our somewhat unique position as a crossroads of power grids. Interestingly, the same reason that the solar farm developers have been drawn here, though for the opposite use, i.e. solar farms uploads power and data centers downloads power. The second complaint is excessive use of water, but that’s been mostly corrected and we don’t have a water shortage here. Also, in other areas they are concerned about the draw on existing water infrastructure, but this moratorium is in the County… which does not have a water system. The third complaint is potential pollution from back-up generators, but again, we’re on a major grid line and if that goes down, there’s a lot more to worry about than back-up generator exhaust! A couple of interesting resources here and here.

The main point here is that we seem to be moving towards an anti-development stance in the county. This despite a new national movement to reduce development impediments, Marshall County seems to be focused on setting up road blocks. I realize that some of this is grassroots, but that doesn’t mean it’s based in facts. It seems to be more based in NIMBYism and lack of knowledge. All of these things would increase our tax base, with minimum disruption to our communities. Yes, they should be researched and possibly controlled, but two years from now, we may lament being passed by.

While a data center wouldn’t employ a lot of people in the long term, it would generate jobs during construction. Once completed, it would be low impact on roads, i.e. no semi-traffic as with other manufacturing. Besides the building itself, they do not use up as much land. They are often taller than our general manufacturing construction, sometimes building 90 feet high. They don’t have larger numbers of regular employees, so no acres of asphalt parking lots. We already have setback requirements, impervious surface requirements and if we don’t want to give exceptions on heights, we have existing height restrictions.

But we currently have a moratorium. So what is our alternative? MCEDC has spearheaded three shell buildings in the past, with what seems to be great success. Are more on the horizon? The last one the building in the Plymouth Industrial park at the SE corner of Pioneer and Jim Neu Drive, which currently houses Divert. It has been occupied since 2022. Is there another in the works? Seems that there should be.

I don’t know what the answer is to the growth question. MCEDC is trying, but it’s hard to do without the County behind them and with headlines that make us seem anti-development. If the County Commissioners and County Council have another plan, I haven’t heard it yet. Hopefully they have something in mind. Because Communities are either growing or dying and I don’t think they want to preside over the latter.

Edit: Yesterday, January 28th, 2025, I attended the PIDCO Annual meeting. The guest speakers were from NIPSCO. The topic of data centers came up as well as wind & solar. Several things of note were mentioned that I thought were worth adding here:

  1. Marshall County is well positioned to vie for these new developments do to the proximity to the new transmission lines.
  2. Any infrastructure or increased capacity costs related to a data center would be born by the developer and not the existing rate payers.
  3. NIPSCO is eager to help if we would choose to pursue a data center.
  4. NIPSCO is required to have capacity for it’s projected power needs, exclusive of renewables like wind and solar for those time when renewables aren’t available, i.e. when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining… Regardless of whether wind and solar developments are pursued, NIPSCO is exploring battery storage to even out their capacity and take advantage of storage to supplement electric service when production costs are at their highest.