Oregon Public Broadcasting

Drivers in Central Point could pay more for gas – starting on March 1st. Residents and city councilors are considering whether to raise gas taxes to pay for street repairs and reduce street utility bills. Ethan Lindsey reports.

Central Point is a bedroom community north of Medford.

The city has just six gas stations. And one, a truck stop near the freeway pumps by far the biggest chunk of the city’s gas.

The city council has given initial approval to an additional 3 cents per gallon gas tax. The final vote is scheduled for next week.

Steve Plunk owns a trucking company just outside the city limits. He says the gas tax is unfair because it would tax truckers driving down Interstate 5 to pay for the city’s street repairs.

Steve Plunk: “They will sell less gas. Trucks will go down the road a little bit, to where it's cheaper. The other effect that it will have is, if you are a trucking company, that’s just going to come off your bottom line. And if there is one industry that was hit hard last year, it was trucking.”

Oregonians pay 43 cents per gallon in gas taxes, much lower than most neighboring states.

And Governor Ted Kulongoski has asked the new state Legislature to approve an additional 2-cent-per-gallon gas tax to pay for infrastructure projects.