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In Our Opinion

Is This The Time To Worry About Non Fred Fest?

Trust us, we can understand Fredonia Mayor Mike Ferguson’s feelings regarding recent comments made by State University at Fredonia students regarding the village’s handling of water issues and non Fred Fest. Fredonia students quoted in the student newspaper and an editorial written by a Fredonia student weren’t complimentary of village government. We’re sure Ferguson and other Fredonia Village Board members felt like they were wearing pork chop underwear in a dog park before reading The Leader story and editorial. The exercise is a good lesson for the Leader editorial writer. ...

State’s Prison Crisis Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon

Is the state’s early release of non-violent inmates going to immediately create a public safety issue throughout the state? Of course not. But state officials are deluding themselves if they think this won’t be the only time the state’s lack of corrections officers is going to mean releasing inmates early in order to maintain safe staffing levels in prisons unless something changes. State officials are also deluding themselves if they think they can continue paying the National Guard tens of millions of dollars a month to maintain what were already poor staffing levels in the ...

Developer’s Forum Should Be Two-Way Street

There is no downside to the developer’s forum being hosted by the city’s Board of Public Utilities next week. City officials hope to have about 65 developers, commercial bankers and those interested in housing development visit the city as part of an effort to drive interest toward vacant or underutilized commercial buildings while also setting the stage for housing redevelopment in city neighborhoods that Crystal Surdyk, city development director, hopes is a step in creating more affordable housing in the city. Part of the Developer’s Forum will be to have the people who ...

Even Flawed Fiscal Stress Monitors Could Have Helped Fredonia

As Fredonia village officials struggle to whittle down a 65.3% tax levy increase, it’s interesting to note the village was also found not to be in fiscal stress in a state Comptroller’s Office review of village budgets released last week. We’ve said before that we think the Fiscal Stress Monitoring System is flawed, particularly when looking at Jamestown’s finances in the past. We still think the system is flawed, but perhaps the biggest flaw is that local governments have to submit paperwork to the state in order to be included in the rankings. Fredonia didn’t do that in ...

Assembly Speaker’s Budget Impasse Bill Is Misguided

We have finally found a point of agreement with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie - policy issues don’t need to be included in the state budget. That doesn’t mean we agree with his recent proposal to allow state lawmakers to be paid when the state budget is late because the governor inserts policy in the budget, a process that has led to late budgets the past few years because Hochul and state legislative leaders struggle to find compromise on the policy issues. We have long preferred that policy issues get hashed out on the Senate and Assembly floor where there can be an open and ...

It’s Hard To Believe Air Service Will Fly This Year

Chautauqua County officials are on board with trying to restore Essential Air Service at the Jamestown airport. We remain unconvinced that passengers, not to mention the federal government, are ready to climb back on board passenger service at the Jamestown airport. We haven’t yet seen anything that says the federal government is about to open the federal spending floodgates, nor have we seen anything that says ridership at the airport is going to explode if an Essential Air Service subsidy is reinstated by the federal government. County lawmakers are bound and determined to ...