Crabby Fat Guy

As you probably know I have been critical of Lancaster’s utilities for years now. Well, it just gets better and better all of the time. Now they want to charge a surcharge if you pay with a credit card according to the Lancaster Eagle Gazette. (Click here). Try looking it up online – a credit card surcharge is against Visa and Mastercard’s policy. Visa’s website states:

What is a Surcharge?
A surcharge, also known as a payment card checkout fee, is an added fee that a merchant charges a consumer when they use a credit card. (Visa merchants are not permitted to charge consumers a fee when they use a Visa card.)

Mastercard says:

A Merchant must not directly or indirectly require any Cardholder to pay a
surcharge or any part of any Merchant discount or any contemporaneous
finance charge in connection with a Transaction. A Merchant may provide a
discount to its customers for cash payments. A Merchant is permitted to
charge a fee (such as a bona fide commission, postage, expedited service or
convenience fees, and the like) if the fee is imposed on all like transactions
regardless of the form of payment used, or as the Corporation has expressly permitted in writing. For purposes of this Rule:
1. A surcharge is any fee charged in connection with a Transaction that is not charged if another payment method is used.
2. The Merchant discount fee is any fee a Merchant pays to an Acquirer so
that the Acquirer will acquire the Transactions of the Merchant

Isn’t It bad enough that we have a hidden tax that amounts to about $1000 per household?

Remember the O’Keefe video where the film makers pose as a hooker and pimp seeking ACORN’s help to getting government assistance in setting up a house of prostitution for illegal aliens? Well now that ACORN has basically gone out of business O’Keefe has selected the next victim – HUD.

Stay tuned!

It is now being reported that there is now a pending ordinance in New York city banning restaurants from using ANY salt in cooking. Click here. Utterly absurd!

The Columbus Dispatch published the January unemployment stats (click here). It seems Fairfield County jumped from 9.4% in December to 10.3% in January. The good news is that we will have a great bike path for the unemployed to hang out by.

While we can complain to our city council about the very high utilites that we pay in Lancaster it is very unlikely that the situation will improve. I’m not trying to be a defeatist, just trying to be realistic.

While the city would like us believe that no profit is derived from the utility operations we know, from open city council meeting discussions, that funds derived from gas operations are being divvied up as we speak. The figure being discussed is $500,000 PER YEAR!

That is the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, the city gets FREE utilities. Other cities have to pay for their own utilities in their buildings.

The Economic Development office is also subsidized heavily by gas revenues (as discussed in previous posts).

Do you really think that the city of Lancaster is going to increase the cost of operations by having to pay for their own gas, trash, water, sewage, and ED office? If we really checked I bet we could find many more city expenses being paid by utility revenues.

If these city operations had to be paid from city tax collections we would quickly find that the budget would no longer work. The city is addicted to these funds. We can’t go cold turkey and there is no patch that we can wear to help us break the addiction.

We are stuck with these high rates for the foreseeable futures, but remember that we pay these “hidden” taxes next time they ask for more and start comparing our tax rates with another city.

AT&T is currently experiencing a massive outage in the 740 and 614 area code.

Here is a quote from the Lancaster Eagle Gazette’s article regarding using gas-department funds for the bike trail:

Law Director Terre Vandervoort proposed a plan at Monday’s city council meeting to use $50,000 of the city’s pre-pay natural-gas fund, which provides Lancaster about $500,000 a year for the next 15 years. She said the remaining shortfall could be paid for with a grant from the Fairfield Foundation.

I don’t understand why there is no outrage over this. This is money that we are being over-charged for gas utilities. At what point did we, the citizens, decide that Lancaster Municipal Gas’s profits could be used for anything other than Gas Department. This is simply an unvoted tax. YOU pay about $80 PER MONTH for this TAX. The term “enterprise fund” is simply lip service.

Ask a senior citizen of this town if it is OK for them if they pay 80% more in utilities so they can spend it for other projects. Frankly I think that is more important that we help our seniors keep the heat on than to provide more bike paths. Ask the unemployed.

I am certainly NOT saying that a bike path or fixing roads are not a worthwhile project, it is just that the utility tax has been slid by us. If you need money for these projects then vote for a new tax. Further as Wirenut pointed out in the LEG forums the tax is mostly on those that heat with gas. All electric homes are exempt from the tax including city councilwoman Melody Bobbit.

I for one am outraged.

Since the LEG is not allowing discussion of the DeMastry sentencing I thought that I would open a thread for discussion. Play nice now!

It’s not so good if you were one of the 36,000.

On August 10, 2009 I reported that Pizza Shop had reopened at the old Avondale market. It’s now closed. I have heard that the owner is in talks with another Zanesville pizza shop owner.