Drivers Give Pumped-Up Gas Prices Mixed Reviews

Ventura County motorists had mixed reactions to increased gasoline prices Wednesday, but many expressed hope that it will be cheaper to spend more money for gasoline if promised repairs to the county’s rutty roads cut down on their wheel realignment and new tire bills.

“You want to know where the potholes are?” asked Santa Paula resident Norm Fournier, who travels among the Western states promoting a water conservation product. “I’ve got them marked from here to Oregon.”

“You want to see why we need a road tax? Just try to get to Fillmore,” he added.

The tax increase, approved by voters as Proposition 111, was designed by the state to help finance a 10-year $18.5-billion transportation program to help relieve traffic congestion and repair crumbling roadways.

Under the program, Ventura County could receive more than $200 million during the next 10 years for roadway projects that include linking the Simi Valley and Moorpark freeways, widening the Saticoy Bridge and widening California 126 from Fillmore to the Los Angeles County line.

California 118 from Moorpark to Oxnard and the Ventura Freeway between Seacliff and the Santa Barbara County line also would be widened. The county will receive about $20 million a year for new construction projects.

Approval sparked a 9-cent-per-gallon hike in gas taxes. Five cents of the increase went into effect Wednesday with the other 4 cents to be phased in during the next four years.

An extra few nickels is “cheaper than buying new tires,” said Fournier’s business partner Jim Balding, who was pumping gas into his car at a self-serve Shell station in Ventura.

A few frustrated drivers said they wished the money could come from someone else’s pocket.

“Yes, we need the roads fixed. No, I don’t want to pay for it,” said Tim Lewis, a Ventura resident and professional clown refueling his van in a clown suit Wednesday afternoon.

Several station owners and managers across the county said business at the pumps increased more than 20% on Monday and Tuesday as people tried to get in their last tank of gas before the price change.

“Every time gas goes up people think station owners are building another swimming pool or something,” said Alan Dikes, whose family has operated a Chevron station in Ventura for 22 years. “A lot of them are coming up and saying ‘What in the hell happened to the prices?’ ”

Since the gas shortages of the 1970s, motorists have feared prices soaring above $2 so “people always think it could be worse,” Dikes said. Once reminded of the voter referendum they simmer down, he added.

Some county residents said that as a result of the gas hike, prices may also be increased by businesses that depend on gas guzzling cars to provide services.

David Wagner, who uses two pickup trucks to run his Camarillo landscaping business, said the price hike will cost him at least an extra $25 each week, an extra $25 he will be forced to charge his customers.

“It’ll get passed on down to everybody. I can’t afford to soak it up,” Wagner said.