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Show In Your Opinion the "owner only rule." Utah's own LPG Board consists of seven members, three of whom are representatives rep-resentatives of the propane industry. in-dustry. I hope Utahns throughout the state who are concerned about the consumer impact of this issue will contact their legislators urging support sup-port of Rep. Jerrold Jensen's bill which would prohibit Utah's LPG Board from adopting the rule. But for now, legislators are hearing hear-ing only from the propane industry. Paul Van Dam Utah Attorney General Fink is not fink in roofing conflict Editor; In recent months I've been reading about the controversy between be-tween Jim and Shannon Miller and the Home Owners Association of the Ridges area of Maple Hills. In particular, I am concerned that the president of the Association, Mr. Bill Fink, has had to bear the brunt of the criticism that has arisen over this issue. There are many different opinions opi-nions in our neighborhood about the covenant that deals with acceptable types of roofing material. In fact F many homeowners believe that it should be changed and that would be great if changed through the proper channels but most of us also, believe that to simply make an exception ex-ception to this rule would weaken all of the covenants that have helped help-ed make our neighborhood the wonderful, beautiful place to live that it is and possibly make all of them unenforceable. As for the "Black Eye" that Mr. Fink has taken over this issue, it should be noted that most of us, if being totally honest, would have to admit that we do not have the fortitude for-titude to do what needs to be done to protect our beautiful neighborhood. More often than not, Mr. Fink has borne the expenses of the Home Owners Association out of his own pocket I've met Jim and Shannon and am excited to have them as neighbors. They are great people but if anyone wonders if Bill Fink is one of the good guys, they only need to be awake at 5:30 a.m. on the day of a snowstorm to see him driving driv-ing around in his truck, plowing the driveways of his neighbors, again at his own expense and often without thanks. Robert L. Tew Bountiful Propane prices need to be low Editor: Many products we need in our daily lives cost too much-there is no denying that. Sometimes there are good reasons for the high cost of consumer products. But when high prices are the result of needless government regulations which eliminate elim-inate free competition-that is not a good reason. Such is the case with the retail sale of propane to persons who lease tanks generally to heat their homes and businesses in rural areas. For years, the propane industry has been successful in getting federal and state regulators to impose a so-called so-called "owner only" filling rule, which prohibited consumers from having their leased tanks refilled by a propane seller other than the lessor (owner) of the tank. The purported reason for the "owner only" rule was to ensure safety during the refilling process. The fact is the rule has nothing to do with safety those concerns were addressed year ago with specific legislation. The real reason was to remove competition from the refilling refill-ing business, and in the process keep prices artificially high. Consumers Con-sumers had no choice but to have tanks refilled by the lessor (owner) of the tank located on the consumer's con-sumer's property at prices unaffected unaf-fected by competition. My office issued a legal opinion in 1991 that the "owner only" rule violated federal and state antitrust laws and hurt consumers with unfairly un-fairly high prices. Based on that opinion, I was able to persuade Utah's LPG Board to drop the rule. But the Utah LPG Board has balked at removing the rule, voting on separate occasions to suspend enforcement of the rule, then to delete it, and on Feb. 6, 1992 to put it back in the rulebook with instructions instruc-tions not to enforce it The risk now is that the propane industry is fighting back to reinstate i |