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A Beautiful Day On The Expressway

Most people now call it I-86, but I still call it the “Southern Tier Expressway.” That expresses what it truly is. On an overcast day last fall, my wife and I were returning from the Syracuse area where one of our kids lives. It is quicker to take the Thruway to get home, but I always opt for the back roads and the expressway that threads through the hills of the Southern Tier. As we came up the big hill heading west from Bath, the clouds were almost touching the ground as we came to the summit of the pass at Howard. When we drove by Hornell, I said to my wife, “I think ...

Blaming New York Won’t Bring Chautauqua County Jobs Back

Bush Industries is closing, leaving more than 200 people without work in the south of the county. In a region that has already absorbed losses from Truck-Lite and Serta, this is not just another closure. It’s a blow to the foundation of our community. And once again, instead of sitting with that reality and doing the hard work to solve it, our Republican leadership is reaching for a familiar script. Blame New York State. Senator George Borrello and Assemblyman Andrew Molitor both pointed to “burdensome regulations” and the cost of doing business in New York as the ...

High Court greatly restricts racial gerrymandering

Let’s pick up where we left off 12 weeks ago. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was before the U.S. Supreme Court again, this time in Louisiana v. Callais. * * * Writing for the six-justice majority, Justice Samuel Alito observes that the court’s first opinion regarding Section 2’s current text issued in 1986. It “was decided at a time when th(e Supreme) Court often paid insufficient attention to the language of statutory provisions ... . Instead of analyzing what the statute said, the opinion simply ...

The Sweetest Sound In Western New York

Every year in Western New York there comes a moment, usually sometime around late April, or in our case late May, when people begin emerging from their homes with the dazed expression of survivors stepping out of underground bunkers. Somebody hears birds chirping again. Somebody else catches the smell of damp earth instead of snowblower exhaust. And all across the region, people begin saying the same thing: “We made it.” Winter in Western New York is not simply a season. It is a test of endurance. It settles in sometime around November and stays so long you begin to forget who you ...

Randolph board member disappointed in superintendent’s comments

I was disappointed that Randolph Central School Superintendent, Kaine Kelly complained about the Amish in our district, about them voting on our budget, May 19th. The Amish Community, in general, are actually reluctant to vote. After receiving Randolph's Budget Newsletter asking for an increase of $2.50 per thousand, clearly, they did the math to realize that equals a 40% tax increase to them! They must have decided to have their voices heard. Randolph's annual tax increase has been staying in the 2-3% increase for many years, which is what New York State recommends school districts to ...

Is One Person/One Vote Rule In Jeopardy?

As the Warren Supreme Court wisely declared in the famous voting rights case Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), which established the One Person/One Vote rule, "the weight and worth of the citizens' votes as nearly as is practicable must be the same.” In other words, the weight and worth of all votes cast in our elections must be, in practice, equal in value. Unwisely, the Roberts Supreme Court has decided all voters and their votes are equal but some voters and their votes ‘may’ be more equal than others. In effect, the Roberts Court turned the One Person/One Vote Rule on its head ...