Jamestown is losing quite an asset at the end of the year when Judge Frederick Larson reaches the state’s mandatory retirement age.

Larson’s time as a City Court judge was a relatively short seven years, but the longtime city resident made the most of his time on the bench, bringing a firm and fair approach to the cases he heard.

Larson did a particularly yeomanlike job handling the city’s Housing Court, a docket that doesn’t come with the fanfare of major criminal cases heard in Chautauqua County Court but which affects thousands of people in the city each year who need the city’s judicial branch to provide either an olive branch or a swift kick in the behind to clean up neighborhood eyesores.

When he was sworn in as the second full-time City Court judge in 2014, Larson mentioned both Judge Joe Gerace Sr. and Judge Samuel Alessi as role models. Larson’s tenure has lived up to those examples.

While it is sad to see Larson retire, his seat is in good hands with the City Council’s approval of Mayor Eddie Sundquist’s nomination of George Panebianco. Panebianco held the seat when it was a part-time position before focusing on his private law practice in 2013. He brings a different viewpoint to the job than Larson, but has proven himself both as a lawyer and as a judge to be fair and firm.

In our view, Panebianco will serve, as Larson did, as a worthy complement to Judge John LaMancuso on the City Court bench.