Eagle-Tribune Blogs: In the News

This week’s column:

In the time it takes you to read this column, gas prices will have probably risen another few cents.

As I write this Friday morning, the news wires are reporting gasoline prices have hit yet another record high, reaching a national average of $3.83 a gallon. The $3.82 a gallon I spent filling the family pickup that morning had me yearning for the diminutive, fuel-sipping Ford Festiva I drove early in my career.

Don’t expect things to get better soon.

“We’re going to blast past $4,” James Cordier, a Florida-based trader, told The Associated Press.

A year ago at this time, we were complaining that prices were topping $3 a gallon.

We’ve all chuckled at the folks who drove all around town looking for the cheapest fuel, burning gas in the hopes of shaving a few cents a gallon off the cost of their refill.

Now there’s a better way.

The Salem News now offers local gas prices on its Web site. Go to Gas Watch at salemnews.com/gas, and you’ll find out which 10 North Shore stations are offering the best deals. (As of Friday morning, you could still find gas for $3.75 a gallon.)

The best part is that the information comes from local drivers, through GasBuddy, a site that uses volunteers to track prices at stations across the United States and Canada.

GasBuddy is often touted as one of the best examples of “crowdsourcing,” taking a job done by one person or company and essentially giving it to a large, open group of people. In this case, it’s a community of people coming together to help each other save some money on gas.

Gas Watch is also an improvement over the gas price reporting we’ve offered in the past, when a reporter would have to sit at his or her desk with a phone book and call all of our local stations, or drive the dozens of miles necessary to record prices that may have changed by the time the paper goes to print.

In this case, everybody wins. Until it’s time to fill the tank again.

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If the amount and tenor of the debate over the future of the Beverly schools is any indication, that city’s June 3 Proposition 2 override vote will draw an impressive number of voters to the polls.

While the vote is drawing near, there is still plenty of time for discussion.

The Salem News and BevCam, the city’s cable access station, are sponsoring a forum Thursday at the Senior Center on Colon Street. The event runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Salem News Editorial Page Editor Nelson Benton and local attorney Scott Houseman will serve as moderators. The panel will be made up of two representatives from the anti-override group Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility (Elliott Margolis and Gail Burke) and two from the pro-override Yes! for Beverly (Tracey Armstrong and Joan Sullivan).

The public is welcome to attend, of course, and the forum will be broadcast live on BevCam Channel 10 and shown several times over the weekend leading up to the election, where voters will decide on the proposed $2.5 million property tax override.

Readers can participate, too, by e-mailing questions to be asked of the panelists. You can e-mail questions to forum@salemnews.com. We’ll do our best to get them answered.

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Finally, to end on an up note, fishing season is here and The Salem News is marking the occasion with the return of Frank Dwyer’s popular column, Fish Finder.

The column, which offers information and tips on all kinds of fishing from Marblehead to Seacoast New Hampshire will run every Friday on the sports page until ski season starts or the fish stop biting, whichever comes first.

Good luck.

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