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In Our Opinion

Even Small Unfunded Mandates Add Up For Local Taxpayers

The city of Jamestown will be hiring part-time, on-call matrons to work in the city jail when the city is holding women until they can be arraigned in Jamestown City Court. The issue arose after an inspection of the city jail from the state Department of Corrections. The position isn’t a new one, but it hasn’t been filled for years because it was deemed unnecessary to the operation of the jail. Matrons won’t be uniformed police officers, but civilian employees who will work on an on-call basis. If the uniformed officer overseeing the jail during a shift is a woman then there ...

State Must Balance Doorbell Cameras’ Privacy Concerns With Usefulness

It’s easy to lampoon many proposals coming out of Albany as soft on crime. It would have been easy to do so with a proposal introduced recently by Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz, D-Corona, that would place limits on police departments’ access to doorbell camera footage as part of crime investigations. We have concerns with Cruz’ proposals, but we can understand what is prompting her to act. Look no further than the situation in China right now to see just how much unchecked camera surveillance can curtail the civil liberties of someone with whom the government doesn’t agree. ...

It’s Time For Funding To Find New YMCA Building Project

Whether one is a member or not, we think most city residents would agree that the Jamestown YMCA serves an important function for many city residents - particularly youth. So it’s concerning to see that a second project to replace the YMCA’s historic Fourth Street headquarters is falling prey to the same problem the first proposed new YMCA building fell victim to - lack of capital investment. We thought it was a heavy lift for both the YMCA and Jamestown Community College to be asking for community support for two big ticket building projects located a stone’s throw away from ...

9/11 Is A Day We Must Never Forget

Americans today tend to have a short attention span. Important news often is quickly overshadowed by the latest nonsense posing as news that captures the nation’s attention. Yet some events are of such a magnitude that they remain seared in our memories. The attack at Pearl Harbor. Troops storming the beaches at Normandy. The fall of Saigon. And the events of Sept. 11, 2001. For those old enough to understand what was happening 24 years ago, when terrorists hijacked four planes — two of them brought down the World Trade Center, one smashed into the Pentagon and the fourth crashed ...

Serta Closure Shows Importance Of Constant Development Efforts

There is no smoking gun that explains why the Serta Simmons Bedding plant at the Mason Industrial Park in Falconer is closing. The plant’s closure is the confluence of factors far beyond local control. Serta has been in the midst of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization over the past two years after taking on some $2.5 billion in outstanding debt. Falconer isn’t the only Serta plant to close over the past two years, and it likely won’t be the last. Additional competition in the marketplace isn’t helping Serta, either, nor are tariffs that are increasing costs for finished ...

Opposition Shown For Airport Resolutions

It strikes us as a bit funny that fiscal common sense is finally starting to dawn on some county lawmakers when it comes to spending on the Chautauqua County Airport at Jamestown. Fred Johnson, R-Westfield, questioned the $212,000 cost of designs for a terminal apron and $469,920 for 34 new airfield guidance signs, both at the Jamestown airport. The projects come with a local share of $5,300 and $11,748, respectively. We give Johnson credit for his opposition. Most local officials would look at the relatively low local share of these projects and rubber stamp the receipt of federal ...