Down River – July 23, 2015
Commerce Division – We Win:
Can someone answer me this?
For years consumers buying gas in Clinton County were paying more per gallon than their counterparts in much of Centre County. Of late, that has changed fairly dramatically.
The question is: why has this changed?
The difference in prices was never so pronounced as this past weekend when a Lock Haven area gallon was anywhere from 20 to 25 cents less per gallon than a State College gallon.
Efforts to understand the vagaries of setting the price of a gallon of gas are beyond the comprehension of Down River although here’s a theory: Kwik Fill on Hogan Boulevard and/or the “truck stops” at the Lamar Exit of Interstate 80 keep their prices down and competitors are forced to follow suit.
In the State College area, who knows? We do know (statistics tell us) there is a lot more money in that area than here and maybe Centre Region motorists don’t mind coughing up an extra 10 or 20 cents a gallon. But somebody is making a killing on gas sales in the State College area (hmmm, the biggest player there is headquartered in Altoona and the company name ends in a “z.”)
Whatever the reason, drivers in the southern half of Clinton County should enjoy the continuing savings. (Tough noogies, State College).
Speaking of which: gas prices could very well be dropping for all of us throughout the remainder of this calendar year.
A GasBuddy report this week said “there’s a very good possibility” that some areas nationally will see gas at less than $2 a gallon by mid-fall. This is in stark contrast to the nearly $4 a gallon figure we saw in these parts a few years back, this before all that shale-released oil started to be found in North Dakota and Texas.
As of early this week the average price in Pennsylvania was reported at $2.81 a gallon, the national average $2.76. Here at home many of the local stations are under those numbers. I am not sure who to thank, remind me to check with Joe Walker at R & M Gas & Oil; maybe Cisco had something to do with it.
Commerce Division – Shoplifting:
The Record gets access to local state police barracks criminal postings and one never ceases to be amazed how many shoplifting reports flow from the Wal-Mart off Hogan Boulevard.
And the source of the amazement is twofold: 1) Why do state police have to waste limited man-hours responding to penny-ante shoplifting at Wal-Mart (in Bald Eagle Township where, despite housing Central Mountain High School, the township chooses to provide no local police protection) and 2) while much of the petty thievery is of the nickel and dime stuff, every now and then someone tries to up the ante.
There was an incident last week where one shopper tried to leave the store, after removing the security device, with a Vizio 43” television. The police report did not say if she attempted to conceal it in her pants.
When you see all these shopliftings at Wal-Mart you can’t help but wonder what the batting average is for those who try to beat the system. A lot of Wal-Mart visitors are caught; how many get away?
A Start:
The Pennsylvania budget stalemate is nearing the end of the fourth week into the new fiscal year. And for the first time there is at least an inkling of progress. That’s not good enough but it’s a start.
Movers-and-shakers from the state legislature met with Gov. Wolf on Tuesday and one report said the meeting lasted so long, more than three hours, they had to order out pizza. Oh my goodness, three hours.
Anyway, attendees said the Democratic governor is still sitting on a $34 billion budget request and the Republican controlled legislature remains tight with its $30 billion plan.
According to what I learned from Lock Haven Junior High School math teacher Miss Zindel, that’s a difference of $4 billion. That’s a pretty good gap.
The good news is no one said anything rude about one-another and the two sides agreed to continue to talk.
You can’t help but get the impression the final document will be somewhere in the $32 billion range. That’s called compromise, something missing in the budget discourse for some time now in both Harrisburg and Washington.
If these Harrisburg folks would be doing what they were elected to do, these differences would have been resolved by the end of June, not still unresolved as the start of the next school year approaches.
The whole process is an embarrassment. School districts and state schools, per state mandate, have to set their budgets for their fiscal year without a clue as to the amount of state dollars to be provided.
Not only does the state treat public education as a stepchild, it can’t even do that in a timely, responsible matter.
But, as written here more than once in recent years, we (or at least the ever declining number of us who still vote) keep electing the same representatives and we keep getting less than satisfactory results. That’s as much on us as them.
