Search: Site   Web

The Editor's Desk


Additional commentary and newspaper insights

Archive for the 'Local Issues' Category

Breaking the $5 barrier

June 13th, 2008, 11:28 am by Scott Shackford

Premium finally hit $5 this week and reporter Abby Sewell put together a story. I’ve gotten a couple of calls and requests saying that the Desert Dispatch should report the cheapest gas prices in the community on a daily or weekly basis.

The biggest problem with such a plan (assuming we had staff members who could take the time to go around checking gas prices, which we don’t) is that the information would be collected one afternoon and then published the next morning. By this point the information is obsolete and would likely be incorrect. It simply wouldn’t actually be as useful as some people think it would be.

The solution to this problem is the easily updateable Internet, but even there we found a problem. A couple of weeks ago we a briefly added a widget from gasbuddy.com that allows people to search gas prices by Zip code. But the problem turned out to be that only a very small number of local gas stations participated — four or five if I recall. We did not get a good enough cross-section of gas prices for the tool to be useful or reliable. Ultimately, we took it off our site.

However, Gas Buddy also allows users to essentially join the site and contribute by reporting gas prices. If Barstow residents were willing to do so, we could develop a more reliable price check system so folks can better choose where to fill up the gas.

“Click it or Ticket” experiences

June 10th, 2008, 5:03 pm by Scott Shackford

My editorial for Wednesday is about the wasteful spending behind the state’s seat belt public safety campaign. Paying officers overtime to check to see if folks are wearing seat belts? Really? Is this really a smart way to spend tax money?

I had my own experiences with this program last month. While I was driving down to Ontario to catch a flight, I was pulled over by a CHP officer for apparently no reason other than to see if I was wearing a seat belt. I was. Fortunately I always make sure to give plenty of padding time to get to the airport, given the potential bottleneck of the Cajon Pass, and it was just a slight nuisance.

Then, toward the end of May, I returned back from another trip on a Friday and of course got caught up in crawling traffic on Interstate 15 heading toward Cajon Pass. I wondered if this was just typical holiday traffic (Memorial Day weekend) or if there was an accident or problem up ahead. My car slowly crept along the highway, approaching one of those big signs they put in place to warn about traffic conditions or Amber Alerts. Maybe it would tell me what was going on?

Nope. Instead, it read: “Click it or Ticket.” That’s it. The sign’s intended use was subverted as well for some wasteful campaign.

$5 gas watch

June 9th, 2008, 12:09 pm by Scott Shackford

The 76 just across from Barstow Station has been holding at $4.99 per gallon for premium since last week. Gas prices went up over the weekend as oil prices went up, but they’ve managed to hold the line on premium. As a result, their mid-range gas is only four cents cheaper per gallon and I think their regular unleaded is about a dime less.

Keep an eye on them to see when we break that next threshold. I’ve asked reporter Abby Sewell to try to put together a story this week about the possibility of breaking $5 a gallon here in Barstow.

Forget $4 per gallon. Will Barstow hit $5?

June 5th, 2008, 10:12 am by Scott Shackford

We tend to try not to use too many state wire stories about gas prices in California because quite frequently their declaration of the most expensive gas prices tend to be off in a way that’s very visible here. Their “most expensive” gas price tends to actually be cheaper than prices in Barstow.

So while everybody is ranting now about $4-per-gallon gas prices, I’m noticing that premium gas in Barstow is now well into $4.80 per gallon. Will we hit $5 soon?

Crickets chirp at the polls

June 3rd, 2008, 10:50 am by Scott Shackford

I was the only person at Cora Harper Community Center voting this morning when I stopped by before work. Back in February I actually had to stand in line and wait.

Whether this bodes good or ill for local Assembly candidate Bob Smith I have no idea. His chances depended on getting his name out in the other parts of the district anyway — Barstow is just a tiny part.

I’d say it definitely bodes poorly for Prop 98. I can only hope Prop 99 is defeated as well and somebody crafts a more robust eminent domain protection bill that doesn’t have any other elements that can be used to campaign against it.

Was rent control change in Prop 98 a bad idea?

May 29th, 2008, 8:49 am by Scott Shackford

I received a press release from the No on 98 folks crowing about the latest polls that show the proposition losing and losing pretty badly next Tuesday.

Given that the entire campaign against the proposition is based on the rent control provision, I do have to wonder if it was a mistake to include it. We ran a guest commentary from Timothy Sandefur explaining in detail why the rent control issue isn’t a big deal, but sadly in some situations it is tough to fight emotional arguments with rationality.

Somebody needs to just suck it up and write a ballot initiative that restricts eminent domain and does nothing else, period. There’s too much mission creep going on. I understand the arguments for getting rid of rent control and keeping local government from abusing the zoning process to get what they want, and I agree, but this is a battle fought in increments. Let’s re-establish the proper use of eminent domain first and then wage the other battles.

I’m also disappointed in the number of newspapers who have fallen for the horrible arguments that have been presented to kill 98 and approve 99. You’d think an industry that requires government respect for the Bill of Rights in order to function would have a little more appreciation for property rights. But, sadly, for many newspaper editorial writers, the strength of your rights seems to weaken based on the amount of money you have. If you own a mobile home, you have all sorts of rights. If you own a mobile home park, well then, forget it.

An unexpected gas discount

May 15th, 2008, 9:37 am by Scott Shackford

A couple of days ago I pulled in at a local gas station that shall remain nameless (I don’t want to get any employees there in trouble over a mistake) that was offering regular unleaded at $3.89 a gallon, pretty cheap for our area.

I scanned my card and had to wait an unusual amount of time for it to let me start pumping. I pushed the button again, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten, but it was still about 30 seconds before I actually was able to pump fuel.

As I was waiting, I noticed something odd — the price digitally listed on the pump for gas was $2.89 per gallon, not $3.89. I figured perhaps this was a visual glitch. But once it let me begin pumping, I watched the numbers fly by and discovered, indeed, it was charging me only $2.89 per gallon.

I wondered briefly what to do. Part of me wanted to let the staff there know, because I’m well aware that the profits from high gas costs aren’t going to individual stations. I didn’t want them to get in trouble or fired for “undercharging” for gas. But then once I was finished and replaced the nozzle, the display went through an odd reset process, and the price switched back to the correct $3.89 per gallon.

By the way, Barstow is of course known for higher gas prices due to our location in the desert. Traffic between Los Angeles and Las Vegas increases demand for gas to get through the Mojave, and that drives up prices. Typically gas is cheaper almost everywhere in the state (except Baker).

However, when I drove down to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, I discovered gas prices were pretty much the same as they were out here. My previous experiences had gas prices at about 10 to 15 cents cheaper per gallon in LA. So even though our gas prices are extremely high, they’re not necessarily that much higher than gas elsewhere in the state the way it used to be.

What should replace the drug war?

April 3rd, 2008, 9:08 am by Scott Shackford

The United Way in Barstow is in the middle of determining the allocation of its donations to its local member agencies for the year.

I was invited to participate in one of United Way’s allocation subcommittees, which visits the agencies to see what they do and serves as a form of oversight to make sure United Way donors’ money doesn’t go to waste.

One of the agencies I visited was New Hope Village, a transitional housing complex for homeless adults and families that works to make them self-sufficient members of our community. I met a couple of the complex’s residents, recovering addicts who are working to put their lives back together. According to Executive Director Angela Pasco, many of them have destroyed their credit ratings, making it difficult for them to overcome their problems even after fighting back their addictions.

New Hope Village struggles as well, trying to secure enough funding to keep their modest efforts going. Pasco said they’d like to expand to offer more apartments for needy families. They rely a lot on donations to furnish the apartments they offer. They do a lot with a little.

A couple of weeks ago a wrote an editorial chiding State Sen. George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner for trying to compound the failures of the drug war by increasing penalties for meth use and sales. Their “Safe Neighborhoods Act” is a costly waste of time that attempts to garner support for their own ambitions by appealing to people’s fears.

And so you may ask, “Well then, what’s the alternative?” Places like New Hope Village are the alternative. Residents get assistance with meeting basic needs, training and help with their problems so that they learn to overcome them, and most importantly, they’re also held accountable for their actions. They are neither discarded, nor coddled. They are treated like adults, not wards of the state — but also not like helpless children.

We need more places like New Hope Village, not more prison cells.

How much is that doggie in the window?

March 11th, 2008, 10:52 am by Scott Shackford

A commenter on Jason Smith’s story about the financial problems of the Barstow Humane Society mentioned having a negative experience with the staff there and said others have reported the same.

I’ve heard this as well, but I have to say they were pretty accommodating to me when I adopted my dog, Xander, from there a little more than a year ago. They were no-nonsense about the whole thing, but I wouldn’t call them rude. I have a reputation for being pretty blunt myself, though, so it’s possible I just am not sensitive to that sort of behavior.

They were also very helpful when, not two weeks after I adopted Xander, he figured out how to unlatch the gate and escaped from my backyard. One of the employees recognized him a couple of days later out on the street, brought him back to the shelter, and I was able to bring him back home.

I’ll have an editorial in tomorrow’s paper about the Humane Society’s issues, but it should pop up online after 5 p.m. here in the editorial section if you don’t want to wait.

I couldn’t even surf the Web as a distraction

February 19th, 2008, 4:31 pm by Scott Shackford

When nearly everything you do in your line of work involves communicating, suddenly not being able to do so really makes you feel kind of useless.

The Desert Dispatch got hit pretty hard in the communications outage today. Our phones went out, our Internet went out, and our company cell phones went out. We couldn’t access our customer service database to deal with problems. We couldn’t even post about the telecommunications problems on our Web site (not that most Barstow residents would have been able to read it anyway). We were as cut off as everybody else.

I thought I’d be able to work around the issue because I have a cable modem and phone service at home, but when I ran home to post a quick news story about the communications outage, I discovered cable phone/Internet service was out as well.

So for four hours I simply sent Aaron Aupperlee and Jason Smith loose on the city to get all information that they could and then … just kind of sat here. I couldn’t call the two of them, so I trusted them to come back with good information. I couldn’t do anything. We were supposed to have a teleconference regarding a redesign of our Web site, but I couldn’t call in. Everything on my to-do list was shot. There is hardly anything I do as the editor of the newspaper that doesn’t incorporate telecommunications of some sort. Fortunately, some people on our staff had personal cell phones that still worked so we were able to contact a few folks outside Barstow to plan.

If you care at all, if we’re in a situation where we can’t design the Desert Dispatch here (and with communications down, we can’t — all our work is saved on a collective server and we can’t access it or print it), we send our page designers and sometimes even reporters to our sister paper the Daily Press in Victorville to make sure a newspaper comes out as usual. We’ve had to do so once before a couple of years ago due to a power outage. Fortunately our services came back around 2 p.m. and (knock on wood) don’t have to do so today.

ADVERTISEMENT 
ADVERTISEMENT 
powered by
google
Search
        Search: Web    Site