GM’s loss could be ASU’s gain

General Motors quit Saturn this week when a third party rejected an opportunity to acquire the brand, ending 19 years of effort by GM to position Saturn as its leading product line for fuel-efficient vehicles.

TZR Editor Adam Klawonn

Economically sensible, given the times? Probably. Ironic and shortsighted in the long run? Definitely.

In April, I tried to turn this very topic into a “what if” story for The Zonie Report. Back then, GM was facing bankruptcy and President Barack Obama’s administration was still wrestling with a possible bailout in the court of public opinion. Whatever you may think of those moves, it was clear that the Obama Administration was intent upon forcing reform onto the U.S. auto industry. When talks of Saturn’s troubles surfaced in March, the story idea juices started flowing.

I started to assemble a few facts. First, here was America’s most visible attempt at developing its own line of fuel-efficient cars. Second, the company developing those cars appeared to be desperate for government intervention. Third, that government seemed intent upon reforms. Fourth, consumers were increasingly attracted by fuel-efficient cars, and that interest continues. And finally, it was clear that having more fuel-efficient transportation in America was going to be on the radar for the next several decades because, barring the development of new oil fields, Big Oil’s output was – and is – peaking.

Now let’s look at the local scene. At Arizona State University this spring, Science Foundation Arizona had announced it was re-doubling its efforts to study new and advanced uses of solar power technology. ASU’s Solar Institute would be a research cooperative between experts there and from the solar program at University of Arizona in Tucson, according to the State Press. In other words, a lot was going on around using solar energy in new – and more efficient – ways.

Around this time, I had received word that the CityCircles project – the platform to distribute information by light rail stop on the Web and on cellphones, co-developed by your humble editor – was a finalist in the Knight Foundation’s annual News Challenge competition. The announcement was going to be made at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where all finalists would be encouraged to mingle with students and faculty about the latest technological advances. Collaboration was everywhere.

And that’s when it dawned on me. GM, Obama and perhaps even ASU president Michael Crow were overlooking a golden opportunity: Why not spin Saturn off to ASU and MIT as a collaborative project to develop a new fuel-efficient, carbon-neutral car? [Toyota is already doing it with the latest Prius model, which uses solar collectors on the car's roof to power the air conditioning.] This would raise interest in GM (and thus, it’s stock), ASU and MIT (and thus, enrollment and university revenues and coveted research grants).

On the surface, it’s intriguing. In Arizona, you have a growing number of solar energy researchers looking for new things to stick more efficient solar panels on. In Massachusetts, you have some of the brainiest technologists in the world who build robots for fun. Imagine if you locked them in a room with a few engineers from GM.

Now imagine they were successful. The world’s most fuel-efficient car could be manufactured at Saturn’s remaining plants in Kansas, Michigan and Mexico, then sold at one of its 350 existing dealerships nationwide. The distribution network was already in place. All it needed was the right product.

This little exercise wasn’t a news story. In essence, by writing that story, I would be creating news.

Still, I couldn’t help kicking it around. I sent an e-mail to Dr. Thomas Choi at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business to bounce the idea off of him. Choi, who specializes in supply chain management, is currently a consultant to Toyota Motor Manufacturing at its Kentucky plant. The exchange went something like this:

ME: I have been wondering if GM should give/spin off one of its under-performing lines to a university like ASU, where students can work in R&D labs and with industry professionals to revive the line into something that offers a more sustainable product, such as solar/electric/hybrid vehicles.

What do you think? Would something like that be worthwhile for GM and the government to consider?

CHOI: This is indeed time to think outside the box and come up with some creative solutions. I have seen though other large corporations like IBM tried to off-load some of their surplus good on higher education. Not sure if what you have in mind for GM is along the same line…

Yes, Mr. Choi. It is. And if enough people read this, maybe they can bring the idea forward to see if it can happen before GM makes another mistake.

Enviros claim logging plan is illegal

KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST — A federal plan to cut down up to 9,000 acres worth of wildfire-ravaged trees has met resistance from a coalition of environmental groups, who claim the logging project violates federal laws and would further threaten the endangered Mexican spotted owl.

Mexican spotted owl (Courtesy: Arizona Game and Fish Department)

As a result, those groups are asking a federal judge in Tucson to halt the project. The affected area is on the Kaibab Plateau in the north Kaibaba Ranger District. The region is northwest of Flagstaff and includes part of the Grand Canyon and some of the last remaining mature ponderosa pine in the Southwest.

The suit stems from a wildfire that burned through the area in June 2006. A lightning strike touched off the Warm Fire, which initially burned about 19,000 acres, according to the complaint.

But the Warm Fire quickly grew out of control and burned another 39,110 acres before firefighters were able to contain it. Their tactics included more than 30 miles of bulldozed fire lines and thousands of acres of intentionally set fires to rob the fire of fuel, according to the complaint.

In July 2007, the US Forest Service decided to log “hazard” trees along the highway, roads and trails. A subsequent biological opinion from the US Fish and Wildlife Service found that this project “may affect, but not adversely affect” hundreds of acres of spotted owl habitat that are known to be in the area. They say the project is necessary to recover the economic value of the burned trees, reforest burned-out areas and rid the area of fuel for future wildfires.

The lawsuit comes from the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and Wildearth Guardians. All three groups claim the project would harm the spotted owl and encourage more growth of cheatgrass, an invasive species of grass that is highly flammable and would only promote more wildfires.

The environmental groups are represented by Marc D. Fink, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity who is based in Duluth, Minn. To download a copy of the complaint, click here.

Fishermen find missing Chandler planning commissioner

CHEVELON CANYON LAKE — The remains of Mark Irby, the Chandler planning commissioner who abandoned his ATV near Forest Lakes in January, were found here last Saturday by four Phoenix residents who were fishing from the shoreline.

The medical examiner used dental records to positively identify the remains on Monday as Irby, who was part of a citizen commission that helped oversee development projects in Chandler.

The lake sits between Heber and Christopher Creek, about 22 miles north of State Route 260. Forest Lakes is an unincorporated enclave of cabins that sits in the same area.

The medical has not yet determined the cause of death. Check out the White Mountain Independent for the full story here.

Federal high-speed rail dollars bypass Arizona

High-speed rail lines envisioned by the Obama plan

The Obama administration announced a proposal today that would steer about $13 billion – much of it from the $700 billion federal stimulus package – toward the creation of a national high-speed rail network.

The funds would be split among 10 different projects connecting major metropolitan areas throughout the country, such as the Seattle-Portland corridor in the Pacific Northwest and between New York City and Philadelphia.

The Footprint, Arizona environmental news blog

The Phoenix-Tucson corridor is the largest metropolitan “mega-region” not targeted by the funds.

That’s because the funds appear targeted at existing commuter service – a feature notably lacking in central Arizona. Although long proposed, no commuter rail service yet exists between Phoenix and Tucson.

My opinion? I found it kind of depressing to see Oklahoma make the high-speed rail list. Nothing personal, but Oklahoma? Oklahoma is going to have bullet trains before Phoenix?

Could be.

But you know, it didn’t have to be this way. When times were flush, oh say, three years ago, the state government could have steered some funds toward the construction of a regular old slow-speed commuter line running alongside the current Interstate 10 corridor. Expensive? Sure. But it’s not exactly rocket science.

Hell, anyone who’s driven from Tucson to Phoenix anytime lately has seen the massive highway construction underway in Pinal County. Would it have taken all that much imagination to throw down some rail next to that asphalt?

We might have looked for guidance to California, where voters just approved a $10 billion bond measure to construct a high-speed rail network linking their traffic-plagued cities.

By the way, this was Obama at the press conference announcing the plan:

“High-speed rail is long-overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways,” he said.

That vision does not seem to apply to Arizona, however. Long live the SUV!

Rural exec found guilty in wife’s death

PHOENIX — A Maricopa County Superior Court jury found a Pima businessman guilty of manslaughter more than seven years after his wife drowned in their bathtub.

The jury deliberated for more than two hours before reaching its decision. Douglas D. Grant was also facing counts of first- and second-degree murder, but the jury was unable to come to a consensus on them, according to press reports.

The Eastern Arizona Courier has the full story here. Grant faces up to 21 years in prison, but the jury will soon review any mitigating factors that might reduce that sentence.

Grant’s company is Optimal Health Services, a vitamin supplier whose offices are on the main drag of Pima, a small town of 2,000 people outside of Safford. The case divided residents in the area and drew interest from Phoenix New Times, which wrote this story about the case’s odd circumstances before the trial began last fall.

‘Eco Barons’ author to speak in Tucson

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Humes is touring the country promoting his new book, Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet.

The book profiles a cross-section of the environmental community’s leading lights: activists, entrepreneurs and wealthy ladies and lads, all of whom have devoted their lives – and for those who have them, their fortunes – to preserving or restoring the natural world.

Of these folks, Humes writes:

“They seek to show, in deeds and words, that it is possible to strike a better balance between consumption and conservation and still prosper to save the world, piece by piece, species by species, place by place.”

The Footprint, Arizona environmental news blog

The tour arrives in Tucson this Saturday, March 14. The reading will take place at 1:00 p.m. at the University of Arizona, in Room 150 of the Integrated Learning Center (not exactly sure where that is, but since you’re reading this online, I suggest looking it up on Google).

So, why should you check it out? Well, I haven’t read the book yet myself, but Humes gets props for profiling Peter Galvin and Kieran Suckling, the founders of Tucson’s very own Center for Biological Diversity, which Humes calls “the most effective environmental organization you’ve never heard of.”

I got the news by email from the CBD, which wrote:

Two of Humes’ worthy visionaries are none other than Kierán Suckling and Peter Galvin, co-founders (along with Todd Schulke and Robin Silver) of the Center for Biological Diversity. Eco Barons pays special heed to the Center’s successful early efforts to protect the endangered Mexican spotted owl from the timber industry and congratulates us on winning first-time protections for 350 endangered species and some 70 million acres of habitat.

For more detail from someone who’s actually read the book, check out this review from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Humes also has a nice website, where you can flip through the first couple of chapters of the book for free.

Stimulus encourages Gilbert to grow again

GILBERT — What was once the nation’s fastest-growing municipality of its size may soon get federal funds to complete key infrastructure projects that could help it keep its status.

But funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 may also force Gilbert town officials to keep spending money like any other consumer. In this case, that means covering its share of expensive projects at a time when red ink could appear in the city budget.

“Plan for success in the future or plan for failure,” Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman said during a recent Town Council meeting. “I think we should plan for success.”

Last Tuesday, the council unanimously passed a motion to seek these federal funds in order to complete several projects that the town could not afford otherwise.

Gilbert is facing an $8.5 million dollar budget deficit in the next fiscal year and the motion passed could cost the town millions more. The projects that the council seeks the funds for include two canal trail crossing projects, a fire station, improvements for the Sonora Town neighborhood and 10 new police officers.

The most deliberated item was the hiring of 10 new police officers. Town officials want 1.3 officers for every 1,000 citizens and a minimum standard of 1.1 officers. Right now, Town Manager George Pettit said, that the ratio is about 1.03 officers for every 1,000 Gilbert citizens.

The federal funds will cover the first three years of the new officers’ salaries, but the town will have to pay for overtime and the initial costs of new vehicles and equipment out of its general fund. The federal funds will cover an estimated $77,000 for each new officer per year for the first three years, but the total cost to the town is estimated to be about $825,000, Pettit said.

“They were somewhat prudent in their decision,” Pettit said in an interview after the meeting. “They could have called for 22 new officers to reach that 1.1 standard, but they tried to reach a midpoint that would still help the community’s needs.”

The other projects were overshadowed by the police officer issue, but they still bring in big changes and costs for the town. The Santan Vista Trail project is estimated to cost a total of $5 million, with federal funds covering about $1.7 million. The other canal trail crossing project could cost up to $680,000, of which the feds may cover $180,000.

The building of the new Fire Station No. 10, near the intersection of Guadalupe and McQueen roads, could cost up to $7.5 million in federal funds. One of Gilbert’s two mobile fire units would staff the new station, so there would be no additional costs involved.

The money for improvements on Sonora Town, a neighborhood located near Gilbert and Warner roads, would come from a Community Development Block Grant. An estimated $180,000 would be needed to complete the improvements, which include changing the septic tank systems currently in place to a wastewater system and installing new fire hydrants and streetlights.

“We have an obligation to provide certain services to the community,” Berman said in an interview after the meeting. He also pointed out that Gilbert’s deficit is far lower than other communities’ deficits in the East Valley.

Although the decision to seek these federal funds was unanimous, there was still some skepticism from other members of the council. At the meeting, Councilman Dave Crozier said, “I feel like we’re paying our mortgage with credit cards.”

Still, Berman struck an upbeat tone at the meeting. “I think take the money,” he says, referring to the federal stimulus. “In three years, the economy will certainly be better.

“We still have money,” he added. “We just don’t have as much as we used to.”

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Internet porn feeds X-rated addiction

SCOTTSDALE — At the age of 5, Mark entered a phase of male initiation that many men are familiar with: He saw his first Playboy magazine and the experience piqued his interest.

By the age of 10, he was looking at lingerie catalogs and masturbating, sometimes as much as four times a week.

And by the time he was in high school at the age of 14, he realized he had a problem to deal with. Masturbation had gone from a youthful curiosity to a compulsive habit.

“I knew I liked to do it but I also knew I wasn’t supposed to be doing it. I also knew I couldn’t stop,” says Mark, whose full name is being withheld by TZR.

But, as Mark says, his masturbation habit really became a problem when, in 1994, he discovered Internet pornography around the age of 23 while still living at home.

“When I got a computer and Internet access, it went crazy,” Mark says of his pornography and masturbation use.

“After everyone would go to bed, I’d stay up late to surf for pornography and masturbate,” Mark says. “I’d do that for 2-3 hours, 4-5 nights a week.”

His pornography use was taking its toll on his personal life too.

Mark was always tired from his all-night porn sessions. He would fall asleep in his college classes, his grades suffered, and his social interactions became messed up. His view on reality became distorted.

When he graduated from college and moved out, he was computer-less for a year and a half. But instead of ending his pornography habit, not having a computer only caused him to use other outlets to get his fix. Adult bookstores became the new replacement.

He got his next computer in 1998 and, true to form, learned that old habits die hard.

“The first thing I did was I hooked it up and looked for porn,” Mark says.

By now, things had gone from a controlled burn to a full-blown wildfire.

“If I wasn’t at work or involved in something outside my home, I basically spent every free moment I had looking at porn,” Mark says. “When I was really bad, I’d come home from church, shut my door and be on the computer looking at porn for the rest of the day.”

While Mark’s story may sound extreme, it is not unusual. He is dealing with what some therapists call a sexual addiction and others call hyper-sexual behavior. And if you think he’s an isolated incident, think again.

National and local experts say the rate of sexual addiction is increasing, that if closely follows the increase of Internet pornography, and that tech-savvy teenagers are increasingly at risk of becoming its latest victims.

“Absolutely,” says Dr. Jill Manning, a Denver-based marriage and family specialist whose 10 years of sexual addiction studies led to a Heritage Foundation fellowship and Congressional testimony on the subject. “There are a lot of experts who readily agree with that. We’ve had problems with pornography for years and years and years but it was a lot harder to develop a problem with pornography because it was very costly.”

Local experts like Stacy Hall, a licensed therapist in Scottsdale, agrees. “At a staggering and stunning pace it is increasing.”

And it strikes close to home. In 2006, the city of Chandler ranked in the top 10 of U.S. cities who had the most search requests for the words “sex”, “porn” and “xxx,” according to Internet-filter-review.com.

IN PSYCH CIRCLES, A SEXUAL DEBATE

The term “sex addiction” was first coined in 1983 by Dr. Patrick Carnes, widely considered to be a pioneering clinician in the sexual addiction movement.

But more than 25 years later, there are still those in the mental health community that question whether or not sex addiction should really be classified as an addiction.

For example, it is not included in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM is to the field of psychology what the Bible is to the field of theology.

“There is still considerable debate within the mental health community as to how we define and how we even acknowledge these problems,” Manning says.

“There is a whole camp in the mental health community that doesn’t believe sexual addictions exist,” Manning says. “They believe that people can have obsessive-compulsive disorders and impulse-control disorders with this type of material but do not believe that sexual addiction, as a category, is unique unto itself.”

Hall also acknowledged that there is some opposition in the mental health community but added that it is becoming less prevalent.

“Most of the people I know and work with accept it as an addiction but, of course, there’s always going to be some controversy in the field,” Hall says. “I’ve read articles from people who oppose it but for the most part I think most clinicians accept it as an addiction.”

Manning also added that some think that using a label like sex addiction sends the wrong signal about human sexuality.

“The other piece is there are people in the mental health community that believe to call something a sexual addiction is just one way to pathologize sexuality and ask ‘What’s wrong with pornography and masturbation?’ There are a lot of people that see nothing wrong with that,” Manning says.

Whether or not sexual addiction will ever be classified officially remains to be seen. Pornography enjoys the protection of the First Amendment, and some may argue that the temptation for sex addicts to partake may be the safest form of sex.

But regardless of which camp observers fall into, one thing is for certain: Pornography use is growing, thanks largely to the Internet, and it is feeding the habit of sexual addiction.

A $13 BILLION INDUSTRY GROWS

About 10 percent of adults admit to having an Internet sexual addiction, according to Internet-filter-review.com. Of those, about 28 percent are women.

Although Manning and Hall both say that they believe the 10 percent figure is a good estimate, some believe it isn’t quite that high. In an article posted on SexualHealthConnection.com on Sept.13, writer Jerry Kennard says that “the Mayo clinic estimates up to 6 percent of adults in the United States are affected.”

Celebrities have been affected by this. In recent years David Duchovny and Michael Douglas have sought treatment for sexual addiction. Eric Benet, ex-husband of actress Halle Berry, and Peter Cook, ex-husband of supermodel Christie Brinkley, also struggled.

In 2006, in the United States alone, there were over 244 million pornographic web pages on the Internet, according to Internet-filter-review.com. In 2006, there were 68 million pornographic search engine requests on average per day. That accounted for 25 percent of the total search engine requests each day.

That same year, total revenue for the porn industry was $13.33 billion, and experts say there is a direct correlation to sexual addiction.

“When Internet pornography went public in 1993, we saw a pretty immediate explosion of compulsive sexual behavior and addictions,” Manning says.

The reason for the increase in the rate of addiction was due to mass amounts of pornography being made available free of charge, in the privacy of homes, without ever having to order anything or put an identity on the line, Manning says.

Manning is speaking of a principle that has been instrumental in the Internet’s ability to foster a sexual addiction. Therapists call it The Three A’s.

This idea was developed by the late Dr. Al Cooper. Like Carnes, Cooper was one of the sex addiction community’s earliest research pioneers while running Stanford University’s Counseling and Psychological Services program.

The Three A’s stand for accessibility, affordability and anonymity. Pornography on the Internet is just a click away, it is cheap and oftentimes free, and no one has to know who’s consuming it.

“Before pornography was so accessible on the Internet, you might have to go into a bookstore in a seedy area of town and sort of be undercover,” Hall says. But now, he adds, “you can just sit in your own house and create fantasies online.”

Hall explained that the Internet has also brought addiction into the lives of many that were not susceptible to it before. Before the Internet, sex addiction almost always included an element of some sort of trauma, like abuse. But now, men are more susceptible because of The Three A’s.

“Because of the ease of accessibility, we’re finding more middle-aged men recognizing that they have an addiction when they’ve never suffered from an addiction in the past,” Hall says. “Those who would not be considered vulnerable to an addiction are now much more susceptible.”

But not all people who view pornography are addicts, Manning says.

“It’s really important to make a distinction between pornography consumption and compulsive or addictive pornography consumption,” Manning says. “These terms get meshed too much because the reality is that not everyone who looks at pornography is addicted to it.”

But while some of these statistics might be alarming, Manning points out that more research on this subject is still needed.

“We don’t have exact statistical information of how much the population is struggling with this but we have good information about how many people are using the Internet for sexual purposes,” Manning says.

“We need more research,” she adds. “There’s a lot we don’t know about this. This is a new area of mental health.”

THE DEFINITION OF ADDICTION

Obviously, not everyone becomes addicted to sex or pornography. Work is getting done. Bills are being paid. Vacations are being booked.

But consider alcohol as an example, Manning says. Not everyone who drinks becomes alcoholics, but the risk always exists that that could happen.

Pornography is the same way, she say. It’s a substance with the potential to become addicted, and it’s more easily available than ever.

Three of the most common signs of sexual addiction are a life that has become unmanageable, an increased tolerance for harder materials to achieve the same level of arousal and pleasure, and an escalation in the frequency of use, Manning and Hall say.

There is also a biological component to sexual addiction. As Manning mentions in her book What’s the Big Deal about Pornography?, the brain contains natural chemicals that get released during a sexual experience. One of those chemicals is oxytocin, and it plays a powerful role in the establishment of addiction.

Some refer to oxytocin as the “cuddle hormone.” When a mother breast-feeds her child, this chemical is released and serves the purpose of helping the mother bond with the child.

The same chemical is released during sex. So when a person looks at pornography and masturbates, oxytocin is activated and “sears” the image in a person’s brain. In a sense, the person bonds with the pornographic image the way a mother bonds to a child or a man to a woman.

This is partly what makes the addiction so difficult to kick, Manning says.

“Unlike a substance you ingest, pornography activates chemicals within the body that we all have,” Manning says. “There has been some research that has shown that pornography can start to activate those neurochemicals and hormones within three-tenths of a second.”

Manning also worries about this effect this has for teenagers.

“One thing that is frightening to me is that for teenagers who are going through their sexual development, when they start getting hooked on this stuff and they start rehearsing their body to being hyper-aroused so regularly, they’re training their body and their mind in a very concerning way,” Manning says. “Those young people may reach a point where normal, healthy sexual relations become so boring to them because they’re used to such an intense rush that is linked to very distorting images.”

And Manning also points out that pornography consumption is not without its consequences.

“Really serious compulsive sexual behavior does do harm,” Manning says. “There is economic loss to businesses. It’s one of the leading causes of divorce right now. We know that that violence and child pornography do considerable harm, so my view is that when this gets to a certain level, this is not just a benign from of sexual expression.”

With all the information that has become available about the effects of pornography, Manning has been amazed by how little the public, especially youth, actually know about it.

“It seems so wrong to me that our youth today have such easy access to hardcore materials but little to no education about the risks of viewing that material,” Manning says. “I have great concerns, especially for our youth, because there are a lot of people being sucked into this that simply are ignorant to the risks and harms.”

For someone battling a sexual addiction, Manning and Hall remind people that there is help. But potential sex addicts must ask for it, “go sober,” and then maintain sobriety like more traditional addictions, such as alcoholism.

As for Mark, he’s in treatment for his sexual addiction and is trying to put his life back together. He’s been sober for four months but explained that his addiction has had its consequences.

“I had no life,” Mark says. “I gave everything up. Hobbies, sports, everything…. It’s put a real burden on my wife. She’s lost a lot of trust in me and it’s a hard thing to earn back.”

Despite the setbacks, Mark has continued forward in spite of his adversity.

“Every day I make progress and learn from the day before,” he says. “Some days it feels like I’m pulling the nails off my fingers and some days I’m just plucking a hair out.”

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Students decry ASU tuition hike in ‘09

TEMPE — Many Arizona State University Students are displeased with the announcement of a tuition increase that will take effect next fall.

The Arizona Board of Regents approved ASU President Michael Crow’s proposal for a 5 percent tuition increase in a meeting on Dec. 4.

This increase is consistent with Crow’s promises last year to keep tuition predictable for students by capping increases at 5 percent a year.

The regents also added a measure that requires ASU to dedicate 17 percent of tuition revenue to financial aid, up from the current requirement of about 15 percent. The measure establishes 17 percent as the minimum for financial aid funding, according to the State Press, ASU’s independent campus newspaper.

Since 2002, Crow has been positioning the university for a tuition increase by saying it will put on the same level as other research universities.

With the proposal, those students entering their first year will pay $5,679 on all campuses. New in-state undergraduate students will pay $5,997, and the rate for in-state graduate students will be $7,128, according to a press release released by ASU in November.

Jocelyn Scott, an ASU sophomore, doesn’t understand why tuition continues to rise for continuing students.

“I think that it’s ridiculous that tuition goes up every year, and for people on scholarships it’s really straining,” Scott says.

With the 5 percent increase, continuing in-state students in their second year guarantee will pay $5,316 on the Tempe and Downtown Phoenix campuses and $5,093 on the Polytechnic and West campuses.

Aaron Smith is a senior but will still experience the increase as he plans to attend ASU for one more year.

“I don’t like it and I would have preferred it didn’t happen but I generally think tuition is going to the right things,” he says.

Chenille Morgan, an incoming freshman from outside Arizona, doesn’t think that the tuition increase will bode well for the university. She says it will discourage out-of-state students from coming.

“I feel I pay enough now, and I want to know where the money is going and I think my scholarship should be increased to account for the rise in tuition,” she says.

With the tuition increases of the last few years – along with increased state funding – ASU has been able to hire and retain more faculty, decrease class size, extend library hours, buy new educational technology and generally improve its academic quality, which is reflected in the increase in student retention and graduation rates, according to a press release from the university.

ASU officials say the plan will cap the increases at 5 percent a year so that families can prepare and budget ahead for the new costs.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Gas prices may tumble to $1.50 in ‘09

TEMPE — In the last seven weeks, gas prices have been experiencing a double-digit drop, causing the average national gas price to tumble below $2 a gallon, a AAA spokeswoman says.

Michelle Donati, Public Affairs supervisor for AAA in Arizona, says gas prices will continue to decline throughout the remainder of 2008.

“Prices will continue to decline due to the weakened economy, eventually prices will bottom out but once the economy stabilizes; we will eventually see a price increase,” Donati says.

Just this past July crude oil prices had reached on average $147 a barrel, while the national price of gasoline was on average $4.11 a gallon.

But the current price for oil has fallen below $50 a barrel, which is a record low for the first time since May 2005, according to Bloomberg.com, a business website. National gas prices have dropped an overall 90 cents over the past month.

For the East Valley, the current average price for gas is $2 per gallon. And consumers are responding.

“Just this past Tuesday on my way to work, the Circle K on Lindsay and Baseline [roads] had gas for $2.09 a gallon,” says Kim Cook, a nursing student who lives in Gilbert. “By 5 p.m., the same Circle K was down to $2.03 a gallon…. I couldn’t believe it.”

Yet even on the low end, there is some speculation about where the decline will end. Some estimate the average price of oil will drop to $40 a barrel and gasoline will be below $1.50 per gallon. The U.S. Department of Energy, meanwhile, is estimating that the average price per barrel of oil will be around $63.50 in 2009.

Either way, SUV-driving consumers are happier. Phill Liberatore, a Nevada native, says that with gas prices declining, he’s more likely to travel this holiday season.

“Where as I was paying $100 a week to fill up my Suburban, now [it] only costs me almost half of that,” Liberatore says. “It definitely relives some of the stress during the holidays.”

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

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