Gasoline Prices Are Continuing To Rise

Telephone Industry Asking For Option

Deputy Punkin Is Retiring After 32 Years

A8 The DAwson springs progress Thursday, February 23, 2012

SEE YOUR LOCAL TOYOTA DEALER TODAY!

PER MONTH

$219$21936 MONTH LEASE

$2,499 DUEAT LEASE SIGNING

TOYOTA CAMRYAMERICA’S BEST-SELLING CAR

10 YEARS IN A ROW- MotorIntelligence.com

1

2

JUST ANNOUNCEDSPECIAL LEASE!

NEW 2012 CAMRY SE4-DOOR SEDAN MODEL #2546

0R MORE OF THE BEST LEASE DEALS!NEW 2011 COROLLA LE4-DOOR SEDAN MODEL #1838

• 36 MONTH LEASE• $2399 DUE AT LEASE SIGNING

NEW 2011 RAV4 4X44-DOOR SUV MODEL #4432

• 36 MONTH LEASE• $1599 DUE AT LEASE SIGNING

NEW 2012 HIGHLANDER4-DOOR 4X2 SUV MODEL #6942

• 36 MONTH LEASE• $2799 DUE AT LEASE SIGNING

NEW 2011 PRIUS5-DOOR HATCHBACK HYBRID MODEL #1223

• 36 MONTH LEASE• $2499 DUE AT LEASE SIGNING

NEW 2012 SIENNA LE8-PASSENGER MINIVAN MODEL #5338

• 36 MONTH LEASE• $3599 DUE AT LEASE SIGNING

$159$159PER MONTH

$239$239PER MONTH

$279$279PER MONTH

$289$289PER MONTH

$329$329PER MONTH

3

4

5

6

7

0R LOW APR!

1. New 2012 Camry SE Model 2546. Lease end purchase option $14,360.* 2. Camry ranked No. 1 on the 2011 American-Made Index as compiled by the editors of Cars.com. For more information about the 2011 American-Made Index visit, Cars.com. 3. Remaining new 2011 Corolla LE Model 1838. Leaseend purchase option $9,856. Toyota Financial Services $500 Lease Cash must be applied towards due at signing – reduces $2,899 due at signing to $2,399 due at signing.* 4. Remaining new 2011 RAV4 4x4 Model 4432. Lease end purchase option $15,003. Toyota Financial Services $400 Lease Cash mustbe applied towards due at signing – reduces $1,999 due at signing to $1,599 due at signing.* 5. New 2012 Highlander 4x2 Model 6942. Lease end purchase option $17,226.* 6. Remaining new 2011 Prius Model 1223. Lease end purchase option $13,642.* 7. New 2012 Sienna LE. Lease end purchaseoption $17,226.* 8. Customer cash directly from Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. Dealer participation may affect consumer cost. 9. Covers normal factory scheduled service. Plan is 2 years or 25K miles, whichever comes first. The new Toyota vehicle cannot be part of a rental or commercial fleet or a liv-ery or taxi vehicle. See plan for complete coverage details. See participating Toyota dealer for details. 10. Subject to approved credit through Toyota Financial Services. See dealer for terms and conditions. 11. Toyota Financial Services $400 Bonus/Subvention cash only available on new 2012 Tundra. Maybe combined with Toyota Financial Services special reduced APR and Lease offers, but cannot be combined with Toyota customer cash: ($2,500 on new 2012 Tundra CrewMax & $2,250 on new 2012 Tundra Regular & Double Cabs). Must take retail delivery from new dealer stock between 2/1/12 & 3/5/12. *NO SECURITY DEPOSIT subject to approved credit through Toyota Financial Services – Tier I PLUS customers ONLY. Excludes state and local taxes, tags, registration and title, and insurance. Ohio sales tax due at lease inception. License and applicable fees are extra. Lessee may be charged for excessivewear based on Toyota Financial Services standards for normal use and for mileage in excess of 36,000 miles at the rate of $0.15 per mile. A $350 Disposition Fee is due at lease termination. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, & 10: Must take retail delivery from remaining new 2011 and new 2012 dealer stock between 2/1/12and 3/5/12. APR, Customer Cash & Lease offers may not be combined. See participating dealer for complete details. Individual dealer prices may vary. Offers may vary by region. VEHICLE IMAGES USED FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY. Expiration for this ad is 3/5/12.

For over 30 Toyota offers buyatoyota.com

Bonus/Subvention Cashthru Toyota Financial Services only.

• 60 monthly payments of $16.67 per $1,000 borrowed. • 60 monthly payments of $17.05 per $1,000 borrowed.

2012 TUNDRAANY NEW

2011 COROLLA2011 VENZA

APRFINANCINGFOR60 MONTHS

APRFINANCINGFOR60 MONTHS0%0% 0.9%0.9%

PLUS $400 TFS BONUS/SUBVENTION CASH!ANYNEW

10 10

11

Excludes Camry Hybrid and Prius v models.• 60 monthly payments of $17.92 per $1,000 borrowed.

ANY NEW

2012 CAMRY,PRIUS OR AVALON

APRFINANCINGFOR60 MONTHS2.9%2.9%

10

Excludes Highlander Hybrid models.• 60 monthly payments of $17.48 per $1,000 borrowed.

ANY NEW

‘11 AVALON OR RAV4 OR

‘12 HIGHLANDER OR SIENNA

APRFINANCINGFOR60 MONTHS1.9%1.9%

10

0R BIG CASH BACK!

ANY NEW2012 TUNDRA CREWMAX

$2,5002012 TUNDRA REG. & DBL. CABS

$2,2502011 AVALON, RAV4 or VENZA

$1,0002011 PRIUS EXCLUDES PRIUS v

$7502011 or 2012 COROLLA or

2012 HIGHLANDER GAS$500

$2,500

$2,250

$1,000

$750

$500

8

9

ASK ABOUT OUR $1,000MILITARY AND COLLEGE GRAD

REBATE PROGRAMS!PLUS TFS SPECIAL APR OF

1.9% UP TO 60 MONTHSFOR ELIGIBLE ACTIVE DUTY PERSONNEL.

HUDSON TOYOTA1 0 5 5 C r o s s i n g P l a c e • M a d i s o n v i l l e , K Y • 2 7 0 . 8 2 1 . 3 3 7 2

HUDSON TOYOTA

Dawson springs and hopkins county has not yet been hired, but the deputy believes the

sheriff’s office will continue the program.

Deputy punkin plans to take the summer off “to play,” but in the fall she will look for part-

time work involving youth, possibly substitute teaching.

“it will definitely be with children,” she said. “i love that.”

of their territories if other com-munications options are avail-able. state law now requires the companies to serve as “carriers of last resort” for households throughout their territories.

AT&T says it must follow where the market leads. Among its customers, land line usage has dropped 50 percent over the last 10 years and wireless usage has jumped 300 percent, said AT&T spokesman Brad rateike.

“This is one of the reasons we (wanted to buy) T-Mobile, so we could build out the wire-less spectrum and offer higher speeds and higher quality cover-age to all of Kentucky, including harlan County,” rateike said.

The public service Com-mission, which regulates many of the state’s utilities, already has lost much of its authority over traditional phone carriers, following the general Assem-bly’s passage of a deregulation bill in 2006.

As of last summer, for ex-ample, the psC no longer can rule on price increases for car-riers that choose to deregulate. since then, AT&T and Cincin-nati Bell have notified the PSC of increases for basic residen-tial phone service. Cincinnati Bell’s monthly price rose by 17 percent to $19.75, according to the psC, while AT&T’s cheap-est price group rose by 20 per-cent to $18.20 per month.

Traditional phone carriers say it’s unfair to burden them with state regulations and service re-quirements that don’t apply to their cable and wireless com-petitors. But some communities that depend on land lines could be abandoned under the bill, said Tom Fitzgerald, director of the Kentucky resources Council.

given a choice, the phone

carriers may drop “those on fixed and low incomes, those in hard-to-serve locations and those for whom the cost of ser-vice does not justify continued service absent the legal obliga-tion to do so,” Fitzgerald said.

The bill’s sponsor, sen. paul hornback, r-shelbyville, said he doesn’t want households to lose any existing phone service. horn-back said he will change the lan-guage in his bill to make that clear after it’s scheduled for a commit-tee vote as early as next week.

“There will be no abandon-ment,” hornback said Thurs-day. “it doesn’t state that spe-cifically in its current language, and we’ve heard some con-cerns, so that will be added.”

hornback said his bill start-ed as a proposal from AT&T lobbyists, who approached him because they recognized his pro-business sensibilities.

“people call it the AT&T bill because that’s the biggest compa-ny,” hornback said. “But it helps windstream and the others, too.”

AT&T is a significant force in Frankfort. it employs 31 legislative lobbyists, includ-ing a former psC vice chair-woman and past chairs of the state Democratic and republi-can parties. its political action committee has given at least $91,000 in state campaign do-nations since 2007.

Also Thursday, the tele-phone industry testified against house Bill 209, which would require phone carriers to “make every effort” to fix service out-ages within 24 hours.

There would be no penalty if carriers failed to act in 24 hours, but they would have to report problems to the psC in any month during which they failed to clear 85 percent of their outages within that time.

several witnesses told the

house Committee on Tourism Development and energy of households that have waited two to three weeks for phone service to be restored.

phone carriers were required to act within 24 hours of an out-age until the legislature voted in 2006 to deregulate phone service, said rep. rick nelson, the sponsor of hB 209.

“now i’ve got buyer’s re-morse,” nelson, D-Middles-boro, told the committee. “ithink we can expect transpar-ency and we can expect good service, and i think that we’re letting them off the hook.”

The committee chairwom-an, Leslie Combs, D-pikeville, allowed discussion on nelson’s bill but did not schedule a vote. Combs said she wants more information on the extent of phone service outages, some-thing that nelson said can be difficult to provide because the psC no longer is authorized to track individual outages and company response times.

The phone industry told the house committee that nelson’s bill would be burdensome, particularly for the 20 smaller, independent carriers. phone carriers’ competitors in the cel-lular and broadband industries don’t work under such rules, an industry spokesman said.

“it will cause an increase in operating costs,” said Forest skaggs iii, executive director of the Kentucky Telecom As-sociation.

rep. Jim gooch, D-prov-idence, said the government should not dictate how quickly customer complaints are handled.

“i don’t think it’s up to us to determine if a company is providing the proper service,” gooch told his colleagues on the committee. “i think the cus-tomer can decide that.”

—Continued from front page

—Continued from front page

DAWSON SPRINGS High School pep band members performing at the basketball game Friday, Feb. 17, are (from left) Bradleigh Bruch, Ryan Caudill and Jacob Skimehorn.

Average retail gasoline prices in Kentucky have risen 5.9 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $3.48 sunday. This compares with the national average that has increased 4.5 cents per gallon in the past week to $3.51 per gallon according to gasoline price web site Ken-tucky gasprices.com.

gas prices in Dawson springs as of Tuesday were $3.49 per gallon, the same as one week ago.

including the change in gas prices in Kentucky, prices sun-day were 38.3 cents per gallon higher than on the same day one year ago and are 18.4 cents per gallon higher than a month

ago. The national average has increased 17.1 cents per gallon during the past month and stands 35 cents per gallon higher than last year.

“gasoline prices have perked up a bit in the last week,” said gasBuddy.com senior petroleum Analyst pat-rick Dehaan.