GAS: Gouged and outraged

Oil prices are down around $23 a barrel since May. Around the country retail prices have dropped more than 30 cents a gallon.

There is plenty of competition. In the time since I have lived here, the geographical Coeur d'Alene downtown area gas stations are never more than a few pennies off each other. Of course Zips by the lake hasn't dropped one single cent since May. Of all the stations in this area, Zips seems to have the rare gas customer. Deservedly so, perhaps.

My comment about this is curiosity about this unknown cabal of gas station owners who refuse competition with each other and by doing this, hold us hostage to price fixing, barely reducing local gas prices by 10-15 cents/gallon while the rest of Americans enjoy 2-3 times more in savings. Are the citizens of this town really this complicit, so used to those in power doing whatever they want, whatever the cost to you? It seems so un-American to me.

LINDA BONUCCELLI

Coeur d'Alene