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In Our Opinion

Mural Projects Are Putting Cart Before The Horse

Jamestown officials are applying for a portion of the county’s 3% occupancy tax for a project to install a mural on the east side of the Washington Street Bridge on Harrison Street. A week ago we noted there was opposition to a county-backed program to install four murals in Falconer, Dunkirk, Sherman and Westfield through the Paint CHQ program. Legislator Fred Larson of Jamestown disagreed with the mural program moving forward with outside funding after county legislators tabled the program, a sign legislators didn’t want to spend any county money on the project. We agree with ...

Lighting Under The Viaduct Should Be Top On The List

Like a bad penny, the idea of a public parklet underneath the North Main Street railroad viaduct keeps finding its way onto City Council agendas. City officials are asking for the council’s approval to apply for a grant to go along with money the city has already received. The city is looking for $100,000 to go along with $143,000 in BPU/CCPEG/HUD funding and $67,175 in ARPA funding. The first phase, which is lighting on the site, is the first priority for the project. Improving lighting in the area makes a lot of sense for public safety. Of course, the best thing for public safety ...

A Third Strike For Gus Macker In Jamestown

The news that Collaborative Children’s Solutions needs to take a two-year pause from hosting the Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament is disappointing for some, but shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. We’ve been doing this particular dance with Gus Macker since The Resource Center decided years ago to start its own tournament rather than host the Gus Macker tournament because the costs were simply too high. The Post-Journal, Warren Times Observer and Dunkirk OBSERVER had the same experience. Now, Pat Smeraldo is having the same experience. The Macker is a fun event for ...

Taking Another Excuse To Avoid Shared Services

There’s a lot to County Executive PJ Wendel’s 2026 budget that should sound familiar to county residents. The county needs more money. It needs to increase the amount it’s taking from taxpayers even as the tax rate goes down by a nickel. We’ll spare you financial gloom and doom speech about what happens when property values stop going up every year and those low tax rates no longer support the county government’s appetite for new revenue. We’ve sounded that alarm enough over the years. Just remember that eventually the bubble will burst. There’s a lot to unpack in ...

We May Be On A Long-Awaited New Path For Chautauqua Lake

There’s often little agreement when it comes to Chautauqua Lake. This year, in our opinion, most reasonable people agreed that conditions on the lake were a mess, particularly in the south basin. The rise of elodea,which is not classified by the DEC as an invasive plant, was a particular problem in the south basin. It’s worth noting that A.J. Reyes, the project lead on Chautauqua Lake at GEI Consultants, didn’t think issues in the south basin were caused by any particular management decisions or actions, though he did say the large amount of elodea growth seems out of the ...

Nixing Annual Hunger Survey Won’t Mean Fewer Hungry Children

President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is anything but for the nation’s poorest families. Among the numerous cruel elements to the new spending plan are food-program cuts that are expected to increase “food insecurity” — also known as hunger — for millions of Americans, including children. What terrible optics going into the midterm election season. But no worries. Trump’s administration this month announced how it intends to address the politically inconvenient specter of coddling billionaires at the expense of impoverished Americans who will go hungry: It’s ...