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In Our Opinion

BPU Has Long Been Cheaper Than Alternatives. That Must Remain The Case

Jamestown Board of Public Utilities officials are testing the water on the idea of charging for yard waste stickers that allow city residents to dump their yard waste. The service has long been free to those who make the trip to the BPU’s headquarters on Steele Street and get the free sticker. Those who want to bag their yard waste and have the BPU take it away pay for a yard waste bag. Reaction to the idea has not been supported by city residents, but at least the BPU has been up front with its users by broaching the idea more than a year before changes have to be made. Nothing is ...

Questions To Answer Amid Good News Of UCAN/St. Susan’s Collaboration

It stood to reason that there would be interest in the Jamestown Business College site once the college wound down operations next spring. That interest ended up coming from an unlikely source - the St. Susan Center and United Christian Advocacy Network. The Conklin family has selflessly donated the college land and buildings to the non-profit agencies to allow them to focus on the homeless population and expand operations. It makes sense. The St. Susan Center has seen expanded need for its services, and needed additional and updated space, for years. UCAN officials have long ...

Regents Eyes Shared Services – But Its Goal Is Unclear

Taxpayers should want to see the state Board of Regents’ latest push for collaboration succeed. But we fear the Regents aren’t seeing the big picture with the push announced by the Regents in September. A proposed amendment creates a new section of state Education Commissioner’s recommendations regarding BOCES and a separate subsection for regionalization plans. Each school district that is part of a BOCES district will work with the BOCES superintendent to develop and implement a regionalization plan at least every 10 years. Plans have to include initiatives to increase ...

DEC Shows Common Sense With Clean Truck Decision

We agree with state Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, in his opposition to the state’s Advanced Clean Truck regulation. For starters, the requirement is bad news for a border county like southern Chautauqua County because trucking companies, if they so choose, can simply move across the Pennsylvania border and not have to change their fleet at all. For some companies, that may be a better option than investing in both more expensive electric trucks and the charging infrastructure to power them. Companies that comply will pass the cost of the charging infrastructure on to customers ...

Incidents Show Room For Improvement Protecting Children

Twice in less than a week we were reminded that we still have a long way to go when it comes to protecting children. City police responded to one home for a report of disorderly conduct and found a residence in deplorable conditions with a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old child sleeping on a mattress covered with garbage and insects. There was no food in the home and drug paraphernalia all over the apartment. The children were turned over to Child Protective Services. In an unrelated incident, police responded to a home for a report of a child bleeding from the mouth after grabbing a ...

Cleaning Up The City’s Budget Mess Will Be Painful

Mayor Kim Ecklund has been warning all year that the city budget is a mess. Now, we see just how bad a mess the budget really is - and how much it’s going to cost taxpayers to clean up the mess. Ecklund is proposing a 7.79% tax levy increase, which equates to a $1.82 per $1,000 of assessed valuation increase to the city’s tax rate. That money isn’t paying for anything new - it’s paying for overdue bills or increases tied to employee benefits that weren’t properly budgeted for in previous years, though the problems became more acute in last year’s budget. City ...