I don’t want to get into a conversation about tolling a community that has no recourse, as do other communities, but to drive over a bridge to work, worship, go to school, go to the emergency room, schlep the kids to their various events or shop at the Target — basically, live our lives — as enough of you are very eloquently putting the unfairness of the looming tolls into words, and hopefully action.

What I would like to address is the premium we already pay when we purchase gas on the Island. We’ve read before that Island gas prices are not determined by the individual station owner, but by the oil companies, so apparently they look at the ZIP code and decide we can afford to pay more at the pump.

The truth is, we consistently pay 20 to 30 cents more per gallon to fuel up on the Island than any of our surrounding communities, including 98039 — Medina. In this situation, we are not a captive audience. Use your wheels, use your Gas Buddy app, and fuel up on the other side of the (currently free) bridge.

Unless and until we send the station owners and oil companies a message by impacting their sales, they will continue to rip us off with inflated gas prices just because they can.

Holly Levin