It's a slow week

Every once in a while I peek at the sitemeter statistics for this blog. They have a lot of information, most of which I do not know how to use. However, they show that something very unusual happened this month.

Normally this blog gets between 100 and 200 visitors per day. When it sinks below 100 it is slow day, probably a day on which there is no post. When it gets over 200 it is a busy day. But last weekend there was a spike and on November 17 there were almost 1000 visits. What happened? That was the day on which I posted pictures of storm damage. Why that got as much attention as it did I cannot explain.

Because it is a slow week, last night I decided to attend a meeting of the Jasper County Plan Commission. The Commission consists of nine members and they meet every fourth Monday of the month in the County Commissioners quarters on the second floor of the court house. They sit around a table and the public can sit in the rows of wooden seats that are permanently attached to the floor--the sort of seat that was in auditoriums fifty years ago. Because of the arrangement, half of the commissioners have their backs to the audience. That probably does not matter much because there is not much of an audience--the meetings do not appear to be very interesting unless they involve your property.

There were two items on the agenda. A citizen who lives between Demotte and Rensselaer wanted his property approved for a two lot subdivision. He wanted to sell his house and move to town and this division of his property into lots would make his property more sellable--at least that is what I understood his position to be. After the members of the commission bounced a variety of ideas around, mostly involving drainage, they approved the subdivision. The rest of the meeting was taken up with discussion of fees for building permits and/or building inspections. At present there is no variation in fee for the size of a building (unless your shed is less than 200 square feet, in which case you do not need a building permit). Other counties, such as Porter and Tippecanoe, vary the charge based on size. The topic will come up at a future meeting when a new fee schedule may be on the agenda.

The building inspector did say that this year housing permits have increased after being a very low levels for several years. During those lean housing years, most permits were for sheds or pole barns.

The meeting lasted about half an hour. The minutes of the Commissions meetings are available on line at here.