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In Our Opinion

County isn’t better or worse. It’s treading water

Is Chautauqua County in a worse place than it was 15 years ago, as Democrats in the Chautauqua County Legislature contend? The answer to that question depends on one’s point of view. We've often said the government doesn't, by itself, attract jobs. It does, however, set the stage to attract jobs. The county is in the midst of building two industrial parks - the controversial Ripley site near I-90 and another in Sheridan. We wholeheartedly support efforts to complete public sewers around Chautauqua Lake, a costly project that will help decrease nutrients entering the lake as ...

Republicans have lost moral high ground on redistricting

The redistricting wars are a relatively new phenomenon across the country. What began with President Donald Trump pushing Republican states to redraw their congressional boundaries to keep a Republican Congress has turned into a battle of political oneupmanship that New York just had to get in on. Of course, fighting about redistricting is nothing new in New York, which has seen the battles in the partisan warfare over congressional district boundaries take place far too regularly over the past 12 years for our liking. In our view the state’s political games take time and energy ...

County may get caught up in state’s data center questions

There are a lot of questions regarding the siting of data centers in New York state. It didn’t seem like the questions were local ones until last week when the former NRG power plant in Dunkirk was sold to Genover, a company that repurposes old power plants. One of the uses the company has found in the past for mothballed sites like Dunkirk’s is data centers. We don’t know if a data center is Genover’s end use for the former power plant in Dunkirk, but it is, at the very least, a possibility. That means Chautauqua County now has a very real interest in a one-year ...

Being A Neighbor Should Be Residents’ Responsibility, Not City’s

An initiative like Be A Neighbor JTNY wouldn’t have been needed 20 or 30 years ago. Even if you didn’t necessarily like your neighbor, we could hold polite conversation if we passed on the sidewalk or even simply give a quick wave as we drove by each other’s houses. It’s a pretty sad commentary on the way life has changed over the course of a generation that the Jamestown Development Department feels the need to spend any time whatsoever on something like Be A Neighbor JTNY. “There’s been a lot of talk around the community about the lack of community,” Kasie Foulk, ...

Threats against police are a growing issue

Twice this year we have seen federal charges brought in Western New York over threats to law enforcement officials. It’s two times too many, in our opinion. The most recent case involved threats made against a Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office deputy. Few details about the case that generated the threat have been released, but the background is frankly immaterial in this case. There are legal avenues that can be pursued in instances where a police officer is behaving inappropriately. And, lest we forget, Attorney General Letitia James is certainly not one to shy away from ...

Taxpayers have already won with Brooklyn Square property sales

An entire corner of Brooklyn Square changed ownership earlier this spring. The $2,137,500 property purchase by 716 Rapid Rentals LLC prompts an obvious question - what’s next for an area that has seen its share of disappointment over the past couple of years. Last year the Big Lots store in the plaza closed its doors as the company went bankrupt. Tim Hortons, meanwhile, moved its operation across the street, leaving the outparcel restaurant building on the site vacant as well. We have no doubt that 716 Rapid Rentals has a plan for the parcel, whether it’s a new type of use or ...