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Published: May 24, 2008 10:29 am
Gas prices anger area residents
By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
COOPERSTOWN _ Sarah
Wilcox of Schuyler Lake has to
stop often these days to fuel her
1994 Ford Ranger pickup truck.
``The price is so high, I can’t
buy very much,’’ she said Friday
morning, while pumping gas at
the Cooperstown Stewart’s Shop.
The price of regular gas was
$4.09 a gallon. Wilcox said she
had allotted $10 for gas, enough
to buy less than 2½ gallons.
``I never thought I’d see the
day when the price was over $4,
but this place is cheaper than
down in Index, so I came here.’’
A few miles down state Route
28 in Index, the Pitstop was
charging $4.13 for regular, Wilcox
noted.
Next door to Stewart’s in Cooperstown,
Taylor’s was charging
$4.09.
Customers were not happy,
but they weren’t taking it out on
Jolene, the employee who was
pumping gas at the full-service
station.
``I haven’t had any trouble
with people. They know it’s not
me,’’ she said.
``It’s Bush’s fault,’’ Dave Barletta
of Cooperstown yelled out
his rolled-down window as his
tank was being filled. ``He ought
to be impeached.’’
Barletta’s brother, Sean,
jumped out of the truck and
agreed the administration
should be taken to task for the
price at the pump, which just
this week topped $4 a gallon at
most local stations.
As the Barlettas left, Jacob
Baxter of Westford drove in to
fill up his 1990 Volvo.
Baxter is a breakfast cook at
the Otesaga Hotel who said the
drive to and from work has been
eating into this paycheck.
``I’ve only been driving about
three months, but the price
keeps going up,’’ he said.
Still, with a job to keep and a
gas gauge that doesn’t work, he
said, he has no choice but to fill
up and keep driving.
``Usually that costs me about
$60 to $65,’’ he said.
A few miles to the west at the
Fly Creek General Store, the
price of regular was just $4.01
a gallon, and that’s why Brian
Kegelman was there.
``They usually have a good
price here,’’ said Kegelman, a
New Jersey resident who has a
summer home in Fly Creek.
Asked what he thought of the
rise in gasoline prices, Kegelman
said he, like most people, has to
drive and pay the going rate.
Forrest ``Frosty’’ Misner of
Bissell Road in Fly Creek said
that when Bush took office, the
price of a barrel of oil was in the
$30 range, compared to the present
$130 range.
``You can’t go around policing
the world without paying a
heavy price,’’ said Misner, who
sees a connection between the
Iraq war and soaring oil and gas
prices.
``And it’s not going to stop
here,’’ he said. ``I’ll bet we’re going
to see $5 a gallon before the
end of the year.’’
According to CNN, Misner is
with the majority of Americans
who believe gas will go to $5 a
gallon in the next seven months.
``A CNN-Opinion Research
Corp. poll found that 94 percent
of respondents expect they will
have to pay $4 a gallon sometime
this year _ and 78 percent said
they figure it will hit $5,’’ the
network reported earlier this
month.
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