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In Our Opinion

It’s Time To Recognize Panama’s Championship Athletes

Panama Village Board members are discussing the best way to honor a boatload of Panama athletes who have won state championships over the past several years. It’s good to see that board members are pushing to bring on-again, off-again discussions to a close in the wake of the Panama boys basketball team’s 2025 state championship and the Clymer/Sherman/Panama football team’s 2024 state championship. It’s the football team’s third championship after back-to-back wins in 2018 and 2019 to go along with the Panama volleyball team’s 2016 state championship and state champion ...

Residency Requirement Can Be Changed, Within Limits

For more than a century Jamestown has required that its department heads live in the city. For decades the residency requirement wasn’t a problem. That has changed over the past 20 or so years, as it has gotten more and more difficult to find department head candidates who either already live in the city or are willing to move into the city. So it wasn’t a surprise that Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5, proposed changing the city’s residency requirement to more closely resemble language included in the state’s Civil Service that would require department heads live in either ...

Lack Of Support For Lake Lawsuit Highlights A Need

The Chautauqua Lake Property Owners Association is having a hard time finding local government backing for a lawsuit it plans to file challenging the state’s Freshwater Wetlands Act. Three local governments - the Bemus Point Village Board, Busti Town Board and Ellicott Town Board - have decided not to sign on to the CLPOA’s lawsuit, which Jim Wehrfritz, the association’s executive director, said in late March will be filed by the end of April. The town of Ellery has signed on, according to Wehrfritz, as has the Builders Exchange of the Southern Tier. To be honest, the local ...

County’s Shelter Supplement Should Be Short-Term Program

For the second time in two weeks, Chautauqua County officials have announced a program that will help deal with the county’s homelessness problems. The county Social Services Department last week announced the Public Assistance Shelter Supplement initiative in an attempt to bridge the gap between public assistance shelter allowances and real-world rental rates. The supplement temporarily solves one of the issues that has helped drive the number of families struggling to stay in their apartment to all-time highs. By reducing reliance on emergency hotel placements and supporting up ...

Deficits, Energy Independence Must Remain Priorities

As time passes, the excesses of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act become more and more clear. Recent analysis by the Competitive Enterprise Institute confirms that the cost projections for the law when it was passed were woefully — perhaps even deliberately — inadequate. The institute’s studying of the costs places its expense to the American taxpaying public at between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over 10 years and between $2.04 trillion and $4.67 trillion by the year 2050. For a nation already struggling with a national debt of $34 trillion, we believe this ...

County Legislature Is A Day Late, Dollar Short On Wetlands Regs

Chautauqua County legislators have finally taken a firm position on the state’s Freshwater Wetlands Regulations. Let’s be clear from the outset that legislative resolutions carry no weight and, for the most part, do absolutely nothing. We hold no illusion that the state would have reversed course on its Freshwater Wetlands Act had the Chautauqua County Legislature passed a resolution last January opposing the regulations or asking for a delay in their implementation. But, waiting until three months after the regulations took effect to pass a resolution asking for a delay in ...