Now the schools

[Tater]

I just read that a lot of schools are cutting back on buses, field trips and even textbooks...what the crap?:mad: I read a couple weeks ago where some police agencies are cutting back on training and patrols to save gas...WTF??? What else are we going to lose before somebody gets a handle on these gas prices? As it is, if I don't get my stimulus check soon I'm not going to have enough money for gas to do what I want when my kids come up to visit next week. This is getting completely ridiculous.

[GoodOlBoy]

We usually run 2 bike (bicycle) patrol officers, 4-6 patrol cars, 2 traffic officer trucks, and 4 traffic cars during a normal day. As of last week we are running 2 patrol cars and 4-6 bike officers, 1 traffic truck, and 1 traffic car. The rest of our traffic officers will be on foot (writing tickets etc) We are already $25K OVER budget this year due soley to gas.

GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

Tater,

The solution for the schools and the police force would involve raising taxes, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be too happy about that. Times are changing. Honestly, we cannot say that we couldn't see this coming. I saw the real estate bust coming when my wife, a pharmacist, and I, an attorney/CPA, would be struggling to own a house and I figured that gas prices would eventually go up too since it was $5.00 a gallon in Italy when I went over there in 2001. I just didn't see everything hitting at once, with an increase in the cost of food on top of it all, partially due to crops being used for alternative fuel.

It just might come down to a lot of us riding bicycles. Luckily, that is my thing. Just put in a 40 mile ride today and I already have a trailer for the bicycle just in case we need to start using it for grocery shopping and small errands. Luckily, we live across the street from almost everything, so it isn't too bad for us, but my wife is a ways from her work and we are 30 miles from my parents.