Jordan will make another payment on the Well No. 8 project.

Tonight, the city council OK'd spending of $62,007.69 from the bond proceeds it borrowed last year.

The well is located at the water treatment plant, which is near St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in lowertown Jordan.

City Engineer Carol Caron said the well has been fully drilled and televised so that city officials can see its level of production.

"It looks like it's going to be a very good well for us," Caron said. "A lot of water." 

If the Jordan City Council wanted more streetlights along Highway 282, they would cost an average increase of $2,500 apiece.

Months ago, the council authorized Xcel Energy to install a dozen 150-watt streetlights along Highway 282 at a cost of $90,055, or about $7,500 per light. Late last month, the council talked about adding four more streetlights -- two near the intersection of Highway 282 and East Street, two west of Mertens Street and near the highway bridge over Sand Creek.

My friend and I, on a trip to an arcade game auction, had a brief discussion about the escalating price of gasoline. He offered this overly simplified explanation of one possibility as to why gas could reach record heights this summer:

As hybrid and fuel efficient cars become more common, people are buying less and less gas. In turn, gas companies raise their prices to make up the difference.

The start of something big often starts with something little.

Businessowners have succeeded in garnering a $1,500 pledge from the city of Jordan to take out an advertisement in a promotional brochure meant to showcase the city's downtown to tourists.

The city council unanimously approved the measure this week, following the recommendation of the Jordan Economic Development Authority to pass the proposal made by Terri Knox, Mara Wallach, and Vicki Anderson.

Building permit revenues are lower than expected, Jordan Finance Director Tom Nikunen told the city council tonight.

The city budget calls for $230,100 in revenues to come from building permits. During the first quarter of the year, only $7,855.62 had been received. That's a little more than 3.4 percent of the annual budget, according to Nikunen's monthly finance report.

"Theoretically, we should be at 25 percent," Mayor Ron Jabs said, "but we're at 3.41 percent."

Yesterday, Jordan resident Melody Monyok stopped by the office of your local newspaper, the Jordan Independent, to talk about and show me photographs of her church mission trip to Haiti. It is the second time Monyok has gone on a mission trip to Haiti, both times with Friendship Church of Prior Lake. This year, Monyok wrote this about the trip:

I have a lot of great memories and fun times in Haiti this
year.

Last night, I filed both my state and federal tax returns. In the three years that I’ve done my own taxes (since I moved out of my parents house and they completed my tax form for me), I have never been done this early. In fact, I remember one year filing the returns electronically at 5 p.m. April 15 – the absolute last moment allowed.

Right now, I’m caught up in a fervor of planning and excitement. It happens to me a lot. I tend to get an idea in my head and then just run away with it. Usually, it’s a building project or a plan of some sort, and as I get more and more into the idea, the bigger and more expansive (and expensive) my planning becomes.

Earlier this weekend, I was reading an article online about expectations for the weekend box office. The article mentioned that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was (which is today) had become something of a cash cow for movie theaters, because most students have the day off (including Jordan’s students).

A press release from the office of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar:

WASHINGTON –- U.S. Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.,
and Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., announced today that the Department of Health and Human Services has released $450 million in emergency funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). Of this funding, Minnesota will receive $19.9 million. LIHEAP helps over 5.8 million low-income families, as well as senior citizens and disabled people pay for home heating and insulation in winter and cooling their homes in the warmer months.