"Cash" Price for Gas at Hess Station

For the past week or so, the Hess station on Route 7 has been offering a "cash" price and a "credit" price.

I'm not sure what the State Legislature had in mind for its new Bill. Some said that the intent was to save us money by allowing stations to give a discount for cash. However, it appears that neither laws nor franchise agreements ever barred stations from doing this.

But what Hess is doing is absurd. Instead of offering a cash discount, it is simply charging more to customers who use a credit card. It's "cash" price is just about the same as every other station on Route 7.

In addition, a person using a debit card won't get the "cash" price at Hess even though money is taken from a debit account immediately, is riskless and doesn't require human time for handling and deposit.

The invention of the debit card was the darling of retailers who were anxious to find a quick, guaranteed way to get paid. Now it's a dirty word?

So far, this is the only station in Town that's playing this game. Buy your gas elsewhere.

Jankowski v. Turk, $1,832 Apart

Ray Jankowski, Town Treasurer and Director of Finance, makes $96,200.00/year and John Turk, Board of Education's Director of Fiscal Services, makes $94,368.00. The former has been working for the Town for 18 years, the latter, 3.

What am I missing?

The Budget: Which Candidates Didn't Vote?

It's too big a task to go through the entire electorate so I decided to start with the list of candidates in the last election. Here are the candidate no-shows, starting from the top of the ticket:

Bob Kostes (Mayor, NMF)
Bill McLachlan (Council, R)
Mary Patricia Issavi (Council, D)
Eileen Monaghan (BOF, NMF)
Al Brant (Assessment Appeals, R)
Bob Rush (Planning, D)
Jerry Monaghan (Planning, NMF)
Kevin Jackson (Zoning, D)
Charles Bogie (ZBA, R)
Keith Iaia (ZBA, R)
Lisa Alexander (ZBA, D)
Matt Pruss (ZBA, D)
Richard Dugdale (ZBA, D)

You mean to tell me that New Milford First wizards Kostes and Monaghan didn't bother to vote? Yes. Shame, shame, shame.

Guendelsberger Sues Town

In a Superior Court action entitled Guendelsberger v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of New Milford and GMLR LLC, local attorney and Town Council Member Bob Guendelsberger is suing the ZBA because it "improperly granted [a] variance relying on uninformed [sic] restrictions that wetlands will presumably apply, and by the elimination of access from an adjoining road." The papers are tough to follow and often redundant but apparently Bob is upset about a variance that was awarded with regard to a property across the street from his office at 28 Park Lane Road aka Route 202.

Route 7 Construction Update

How aggravating is it to watch this project held up by work on that little bridge just north of Still River Road? That's a rhetorical question. Commuters and non-commuters alike are "angry as hell" and "don't want to put up with it any more." (Network was an excellent movie, wasn't it?)

So here's an update from the Route 7 project's Chief Inspector, Mark Vinisko. "The wings have been poured and the parapet wall will be poured tomorrow," he said a few moments ago. "Traffic will be switched on Friday, the remaining overlay will be done the first week of July and there'll be four lanes by mid-July."

None too soon.