24 APR 08: CUT-DOWN DAYS
"How high is it going now?" I asked the woman holding a long pole Wednesday afternoon.
"Three-57 for regular unleaded...." and the prices went up from there, to $3.77 for top-grade. You'd think that grade would be cheaper by now, with no one buying it anymore.
As you might guess, the woman with her long magnetic pole was outside changing gas prices at a central Columbus convenience store. They went up another eight cents Wednesday - making me glad I merely walked to this store to buy a bag of corn chips.
A church denomination I attended for years warned members to "prepare to reduce your standard of living." The high price of fuel seems to be making a lot of people do that - at least a little. But I still don't see a lot of people rolling down 13th Street during morning rush-hour on bicycles.
Fuel prices can cause the shipping costs of many items to go up. WXTX "News at Ten" found an East Alabama flower shop Wednesday, which now is charging a delivery fee. Money may not grow on trees, but it's now growing in bouquets of roses.
The Ledger-Enquirer reorganized its paper this week, explaining it was reducing the cost of newsprint. The editors seemingly forgot to add another reason - a reduction in the number of print advertisers.
Someone suggested in the newspaper's "Sound Off" column Wednesday that the city of Columbus could do more to save on fuel costs. Of course, city government engages in a good deal of car pooling already. Police officers ride in pairs, and firefighters go out by battalions....
But anyway: the Sound Off suggestion was for the city to cut garbage collection from two days a week to one. This presumably would cut fuel consumption by the Public Services Department. And it might inspire residents to do some experimenting - either by using more recyclables, or turning leftover chili beans into some kind of "natural gas."
But if trash pick-up is cut in half across Columbus, what will the garbage crews do -- as in the jail inmates? You know what they say, about how "idle hands are the devil's playground." There's only a need for so many license plates right now....
(And should we extend this idea even farther? If we pray for a drought to come back this summer, jail inmates won't have much grass in the parks to mow.)
Even military maneuvering is being affected by the high cost of fuel. The first group of Third Brigade soldiers returned to Fort Benning late Wednesday night - but those 100 soldiers arrived with 170 from another unit. I didn't realize the "One Columbus" phenomenon had spread this far....
Perhaps the scariest sign of the gas price squeeze came Wednesday from Sam's Club. It's joining Costco, in limiting sales of several kinds of rice. But thankfully, this won't apply to me - because I buy brown rice at the store. I'm simply not a Jasmine guy.
Commodity experts insisted on the TV news that there's NO rice shortage in the U.S. But some people may be panicking, because, uh, the rice price is not so nice....
(There's another side to this possible panic which still has to happen. It's a great time to sell Tupperware, and keep rodents away from the rice bags.)
BLOG UPDATE: Along these lines, Muscogee County School Transportation Director Randall Curry said Wednesday the district encourages a "no-idling" policy for bus drivers. So what a reader saw outside the RiverCenter last week [17 Apr] may have been a quick warm-up before children left the musical -- or it may have been a game of "first off the pit lane."
It turns out Muscogee County schools are spending about $1.5 million on fuel this school year. I could be wrong on this, but I believe the price is fixed by an annual contract. When a new school year begins in August.... well, you won't mind a fare box next to the bus driver, will you?
E-MAIL UPDATE: A couple of things we've mentioned already go hand-in-hand with this message....
Mr Burkard:
Being Earth Day, I have been recently notified about the Columbus Recycling Program's issues and I was wondering if you knew of it or know where to find it. The city of Columbus collects recyclable material and then brings it to the Goodwill Industries, from there Goodwill packages it and then it is implied they sell it. This is similar to what most cities and communities do with such material, however the other cities can provide citizens with financial information of revenue raised from the sale of such material. Columbus can not or will not provide that information. The City claims it is up to Goodwill to disclose the information and Goodwill claims it does not have to abide by The Freedom of Information Act. Additionally Fort Benning recycles material and then sells it for a significant amount of money and has sought to combine effort with Columbus and the community to create a more efficient 1 stop shop recycling center and sales center. Columbus refuses every time but claims there is no revenue from sales of material.
Where is the revenue from the Sales?
Do we just give the material to Goodwill and then they sell it, why? and what does Columbus get from that?
Why do we not collect Cardboard and other easily recycled and higher revenue materials?
Why are we not participating in the other Nationally encouraged programs?
Why do we not participate in the EPA voluntary programs?
What do we get from the sales of tires, how about shoes computers etc? All of these other cities are selling to save landfill space, collection resources and pollution/environment.
We have enough extra waste collection time and budget to collect twice a week at all residences and five days a week down town, but we can not collect cardboard due to manning constraints?
Seriously worried,
John
A check of the city web site Wednesday found very little information about the recycling program. There isn't even a picture of the mascot -- so for all I know, "Blue Ben" may be buried at the city landfill now.
Goodwill Industries has had a contract with the city since 2001 to process recyclable items. Perhaps John contacted the city official listed online, for more details on that deal. Betty Hughey must wish from time to time she had an "l" in her last name....
I found a Goodwill Industries financial statement online Wednesday night, which claimed "recycling revenue" for 2006 of about $297,000. By comparison, Goodwill stores sold about eight million dollars worth of merchandise -- so the aluminum can with recycling money isn't even half-full.
The latest Goodwill Industries annual report claims it shares "the net revenue equally" with the city, from the sale of recycled goods on the commodities market. So that would mean about $150,000 for Columbus in 2006 -- which you'd think would be enough to build the skate park with old water bottles.
. I take my cardboard to All-American Recycling near Marshall Middle School. Computers are collected on special weekends at the Civic Center. And as for recycling shoes - have you visited one of the Valley Rescue Mission's thrift stores?
Now let's move beyond the color green, for some other news from the last couple of days:
+ A report to Columbus Council indicated city employees lost about 19,000 work hours last year due to sickness. So filling the openings in the police department may only be half the problem.
+ Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman told PBS's Tavis Smiley Show he was persecuted by the state's "Republican political machine." Machine?! Its parts for controlling the state legislature must have broken years ago....
+ Rodney Rutherford rewrote the record (say that five times fast) for Columbus State University home runs in a season. Rutherford now has 24 - so suddenly we don't miss that Fox drama with Keifer Sutherland at all.
+ Boston belted Atlanta in the N.B.A. playoffs 96-77. These teams once had a classic post-season series, pitting Larry Bird against Dominique Wilkins. So far this year, it's more like Paul Pierce against Dominique Dunne -- and she died 26 years ago.
+ Instant Message to WRBL: I'm shocked - SHOCKED! You showed a Fort Benning woman on your news with the title, "598th Wife." Not even that strange fundamentalist sect in Texas is accused of going that far....
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BURKARD BULK MAIL INDEX: 621 (+ 12, 2.0%)
TRUDGE REPORT, DAY 53: Walking, 0.4 miles. Total: 163.9 miles run, 18.1 walked
The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author -- not necessarily those of anyone else in Columbus living or dead, and perhaps not even you.
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