May 8, 2008
Lewisboro residents, businesses and town are all affected
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As the highest gas prices in town hover just $0.001 below $4 per gallon, local residents and municipalities have begun searching for ways to cut back on gas usage and other expenses.
“I cringe every time I put money in the pump,” Virna Sandler of Katonah told The Ledger. “It’s $70 to fill my car up. No matter what, it’s just affecting everybody.”
With gas prices so high, many residents have been forced to re-evaluate vacation plans, commuting habits and even how they run their errands.
“We have a big trip to North Carolina planned,” said Michelle Blum of South Salem. “We were definitely going to drive, and now we’re not sure — it’s not as economical a savings as it might have been a few months ago.”
Ms. Blum said that she and her husband have started looking at carpooling more seriously, since he works in southern Westchester. A skyrocketing gas bill can be more reasonable when split with other people.
Some residents have started trying to limit their outside activities and errands, or plan them all around the same car trip.
“It’s just sit home and stay put and try to hope that it subsides,” said Ms. Sandler. “I don’t really know how else to deal with it.”
And the prices are reflected in the types of cars people are buying. Both car dealerships in town have seen changed, although not necessarily reduced, sales.
“For the most part, Westchester County is fairly affluent. Those who can afford Mercedes-Benz are not balking at the gas prices,” said Jeffrey Berlant, sales manager at Estate Motors in Goldens Bridge. However, although overall Mercedes sales are up over this time last year, “first-time buyers are looking at smaller cars,” he said.
“We’re definitely selling more cars than we did,” said Lou Roberti, owner of Arroway Chevrolet, Hummer and Saab in Katonah. “It used to be 5% cars, 95% trucks and SUVs; now it’s about 20% cars, 80% trucks.”
But Mr. Roberti said sales overall have slowed thanks to the recent spike in gas prices.
“People in the past two, two and a half weeks have stopped buying, period,” he said. “They’ve slowed up their buying process.”
The gas stations
The effect of the high prices seems to vary from gas station to gas station, however. Some, such as Vista Getty or Katonah Sunoco, are still selling the same amount of gas as before.
“It’s stayed pretty steady,” said Vista Getty owner John Sweeney. “The volume has stayed the same.”
But other stations have seen more people switching to regular gas, and not spending the extra 5 cents to 20 cents charged for high-octane gas. And despite high prices, gas station owners aren’t exactly rolling in the profits.
“Right now, the credit card companies are making more money on gas than we are,” said Michael Mongiello, owner of Cross River Demon Shell. “The dealer makes peanuts.”
According to Mr. Mongiello, fewer people are buying gas and more people are using credit cards to pay for gas than ever before, which cuts into the station’s profit significantly. Where a station owner might normally see a profit of 10 cents to 12 cents per gallon on high-octane gas, the credit card companies end up taking about 3%, which at $4 per gallon comes to about 12 cents, almost the entire profit. Mr. Mongiello said that because of this, gas stations are now making only 1 to 2 cents per gallon.
Mr. Mongiello said this was not as bad as during the gas shortage of 1979, however.
“They haven’t started allocating the gas yet, so it’s better this time around,” he said. “Last time, it didn’t matter how much the gas cost, you couldn’t get gas unless you were an odd or an even plate number.”
Municipal prices
Residents aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch. The Katonah-Lewisboro School District and the town Highway Department both spend a significant part of their budgets on fuel oil.
“This department moves on fuel. Without it, we stop,” said Highway Superintendent Peter Ripperger. “Everything we do, every operation we do in this town requires fuel.”
Even though the town pays reduced prices for gas, the price is still over $4 per gallon for diesel fuel, which powers most of the vehicles, said Mr. Ripperger.
“My biggest fear is that the amount of paving we can do is going down,” Mr. Ripperger said. “It’s very possible there will be areas that we’ll have to curtail.”
And the school district’s transportation department, although paying significantly less — about $3.67 a gallon for its last delivery of diesel — is searching for ways to minimize gas use.
“We’ve kept a closer eye on idling,” said transportation supervisor Jim Minihan. “As soon as the buses arrive, they should be shutting right off.”
The transportation department uses about 190,000 gallons of fuel a year, both gasoline and diesel, which is delivered on an approximately weekly basis to fuel pumps at John Jay High School. All the large buses and most of the smaller vans run on diesel, with a handful of the vans gas-powered. Although the newer vans, which were purchased this year, are much more fuel-efficient than previous versions, the schools have not purchased new large buses for three years.
The largest part of the district’s gas expenses go toward fueling the district’s 51 large buses and 44 vans, of which about 78 are used on a daily basis to transport students to and from school.
“We can’t rearrange the routes at this part of the year. However, we are going to be looking at them certainly for next year,” said Mr. Minihan.
One year ago
One year ago, the Westchester County Department of Consumer Protection declared that the Citgo in Katonah had the highest gas prices in the county, at $3.459 for regular gasoline and $3.659 and $3.759 for higher octane. At the time, that was about 20 cents higher than prices at the two other Katonah gas stations, although all three were hovering at $3.999 for regular as of Tuesday.
As of last week, the highest-priced gas station in Westchester was in Pound Ridge, which was selling regular for $4.099 per gallon. The national average for regular gas was $3.610 on Tuesday, compared to $3.035 a year ago. The New York average was $3.803 on Tuesday, compared to $3.115 a year ago and $3.424 one month ago.
Westchester County gas prices may be checked at westchestergov.com/consumergas, while national and state prices are available at fuelgaugereport.com.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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