True leadership from the state would clear up issues like those related to two recently released state Comptroller's Office audits of schools in Cassadaga Valley and West Valley.The audits criticize the districts for using inaccurate spending projections when preparing budgets and thus ...
Just before the old year ended, a federal appeals court judge handed champions of the liberties Americans cherish a stinging defeat.Federal District Court Judge William H. Pauley, in Washington, D.C., ruled the National Security Agency's mass collection of telephone data on tens of millions of ...
Contract agreements between the city of Jamestown and the unions representing its 60 police officers and 58 firefighters are an encouraging development.Salaries for the contracts will include a 2 percent increase for 2012, no increase for 2013 and a 2.75 percent increase for both 2014 and 2015. ...
Thumbs up to an annual winter event that can't help but make you think of spring. On Thursday, the Prendergast Library, Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame and Robert H. Jackson Center teamed together to screen "The Jackie Robinson Story," a 1950 baseball biopic that starred Jackie Robinson as ...
Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address Wednesday puts some meat to his proposed tax relief plan.Area residents should be encouraged by Cuomo's plan to reduce the corporate income tax rate to 6.5 percent, the lowest corporate rate since 1968, to cut the tax rate for upstate manufacturers ...
Most area residents were shocked to learn Sunday night of a fire at Lisciandro's and The Pub on North Main Street in Jamestown.We are pleased to see that Lisciandro's, which opened in 1954 by Sam Lisciandro and is now operated by his son, John Lisciandro, could reopen in the next couple of ...
If you owe the Internal Revenue Service money, chances are you will be harassed until you pay up or at least make arrangements to do so. Unless you happen to be doing business with the IRS.IRS Inspector General J. Russell George revealed Tuesday that nearly 1,200 vendors who have contracts with ...
If Chautauqua County can't privatize the Chautauqua County Airport at Jamestown, then it needs to make the airport profitable.Sam Arcadipane, who took over early in 2013 as Chautauqua County airport and parks manager, knew when he took the job the road to profitability lay in getting more ...
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has released his annual "Wastebook," giving us all a window into the positively absurd ways in which the federal government spends the hard-earned tax dollars we give it. This year's list includes some items that would be laughable, if those who received the funding ...
Bullet dodged. Catastrophe averted. Cliff avoided.All are apt descriptions of the feelings of Chautauqua County, and particularly Dunkirk, residents in the wake of NRG's agreement to repower its power plant in Dunkirk.NRG is the county's biggest taxpayer and is vitally important to the ...
Thumbs up to plow drivers who did their level best clearing area roads during Thursday's heavy snow. Plow crews worked more than 24 consecutive hours to keep traffic moving during the storm, but the bitter low temperatures were as much a hindrance to snow removal as the nonstop snow. As ...
It's not just New York's love of taxation that makes it unfriendly to business.Take the State Environmental Quality Review process, for example.According to a recent Empire Center report, less than a third of all states have as comprehensive an environmental review. Even fewer states have laws ...
If southern Chautauqua County really is on its way up, then Busti is primed for growth.Much of the commercial development that happens in southern Chautauqua County happens in Lakewood, which is in the northern portion of Busti. The southern portion of Busti is largely rural and agricultural - ...
One hundred years ago today, in the midst of the bloodiest war in American history, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.In the midst of the bloodshed and hatred, we're sure New Year's Day 1864 was marked by many as the start of a better year.Therein lies the magic of ...
New Year's Eve traditionally has been a time to let one's hair down and celebrate. Too often, that means drinking too much alcohol, then getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.People can die when that happens. All too often, they are innocent victims of drunken drivers.Law enforcement ...
Christmas is over, and that means many Chautauqua County residents are putting away their altruistic impulses along with the holiday decorations. After all, it's before the holiday that charitable organizations need help, right?Yes and no. It is true the weeks leading up to Christmas are times ...
The "Great Recession" from which the nation still is recovering was sparked in large measure by a massive downturn in real estate markets. President Barack Obama, Congress and the Federal Reserve responded by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on "stimulus" programs that did little ...
Sports has long blazed new paths in American society.Look no further than the importance of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947 or the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team's shocking gold medal for proof.Is it possible sports will show the way when it comes to school mergers in ...
Thumbs up to the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation for its continued support of religious, educational, arts and culture, youth and human service projects and initiatives in our area. The foundation's board recently approved the final 2013 grant awards from the foundation's designated and ...
As general manager of the Gateway Station, and longtime executive director of the former Downtown Jamestown Development Corp., Lee Harkness knows as well as anyone historic renovation projects take some time.It's fitting, then, that it was Harkness who stepped forward with an offer to help ...