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In Our Opinion

Jamestown Should Think Bigger With DRI Application

It will be interesting to see how Jamestown’s second Downtown Revitalization Initiative application is received by state Economic Development Council officials. No city that has received a DRI award has received a second one. Will Jamestown’s application be seen as gluttonous by asking for a second bite from the DRI apple before some cities have gotten a first bite? Will state officials view the application as a continuation of the 2016 DRI funding? Or, will state officials take a look at the results of the 2016 DRI project list and turn Jamestown away until better projects are ...

Drug Boat Strike Raises Questions

Congress is mostly a media circus these days, so credit the members who take their duties seriously. Lawmakers are doing a public service by trying to get to the truth on whether the Trump Administration killed defenseless survivors of a drug-boat strike. The controversy involves a Washington Post report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that no one survive a Sept. 2 missile strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. The story cites unidentified sources claiming that the U.S. military, on Mr. Hegseth’s orders, conducted a second strike to finish off survivors clinging ...

Reconsideration Of NC State Lake Proposal Is Interesting

We had all but given up on the five-year Chautauqua Lake Management Plan proposed and developed by Dr. Robert Richardson of North Carolina State University. NC State’s Aquatic Plant Management Program officials propose, for those who have forgotten, a staged plan that deals with the entire lake rather than the 2017 Chautauqua Lake Macrophyte Management Strategy’s approach that divides the lake into subsections based off of shoreline use and the need to balance human interaction with environmental considerations. University officials said the approach is good for small areas but ...

City’s Actions On 2026 Budget Speaks Volumes

It’s obvious from the way the City Council split $786,450 in changes to the 2026 budget that council members are more concerned about the city’s fund balance than they are the city’s tax rate. Sales tax trends convinced city officials that increasing the sales tax budget by $348,857 was achievable. While we are typically wary of increasing the sales tax, both Mayor Kim Ecklund and Comptroller Ericka Thomas have shown themselves to be conservative when it comes to the sales tax in the past. At the same time, new information allowed the city to decrease its health insurance fund ...

JCC’s Business Decision Has Impact On Community

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jamestown Community College will close JCC Total Fitness to the public on Feb. 1. Many city residents likely have no idea that the little marketed service is available on the Jamestown campus. It hasn’t been well advertised, and public habits changed after a lengthy state-mandated closure during the COVID-19 pandemic. College officials say they spent three years trying to rebuild membership, but participation remains too low to pay the costs to keep JCC Total Fitness open to the public. While Total Fitness had increased membership by 50 ...

Jackson’s Legacy Became Global Eighty Years Ago

Robert H. Jackson had already etched a lasting legacy in United States history before November 21, 1945. Up to that point Jackson - who mind you never attended college before becoming a lawyer in 1913 - had already served as general counsel for the Bureau of Internal Revenue, argued 17 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during two years as Solicitor General and then defended many of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and argued other federal matters during two years as U.S. Attorney General. Jackson argued 44 cases in front of the Supreme Court, losing only six before ...