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In Our Opinion

County’s Support Of Local Corporate Ownership Is A Positive

County IDA officials recently announced their support of the purchase of Dahlstrom Roll Form by two members of the company’s leadership team. The sale comes at a time when the company’s foothold in Chautauqua County was weakening. Robert White, the company’s previous owner, had decided to retire and put Dahlstrom Roll Form up for sale. There had been at least one serious offer from a German company that could have ended up moving the local company to Kentucky. So kudos to Jeremy Blum, current Dahlstrom Roll Form CEO, and Brad Renwick, current Dahlstrom Roll Form COO, for ...

State Of The City Is Murky

Mayor Kim Ecklund’s first State of the City address is very much the new mayor in a nutshell. It’s a 20-page document full of Joe Friday, “just the facts” statements of what Ecklund’s administration has done over its first four months. There isn’t a lot of flowery rhetoric, nor is there page after page of lofty goals and ambitions that Ecklund wants her team to achieve this year. The mayor notes the administration’s work setting a final cost for the Washington Street fleet maintenance facility - a bigger undertaking than one would think - as well as administrative ...

We Need Long-Term Answers To Energy Needs

We find the news that President Joe Biden is releasing a million barrels of gasoline from a federal reserve more of a frustration than a relief. Releasing petroleum from reserves is a short-term band-aid that carries real risks. If a crisis or prolonged economic downturn comes, the U.S. may well regret tapping into this supply. The United States instead should be pursuing long-term solutions — promoting or incentivizing the production of domestic oil and gas and investment in increased refinery capacity. As we have editorialized before, the benefits of developing domestic energy ...

Voters Keep Approving Runaway School Spending

It should come as no surprise that all local school budgets were approved last week. There wasn’t much controversy on the ballot. Thanks to continued state aid increases and aid remaining from the federal government’s COVID largesse, there weren’t huge tax increases to be voted on. That meant there weren’t major layoffs of teachers or staff, nor were there program cuts - all of which are usually what drive people to vote down school budgets. Eventually, that will change. Gov. Kathy Hochul tried to begin tightening the public education spending belt this year with a focus ...

Voters Keep Approving Runaway School Spending

It should come as no surprise that all local school budgets were approved last week. There wasn’t much controversy on the ballot. Thanks to continued state aid increases and aid remaining from the federal government’s COVID largesse, there weren’t huge tax increases to be voted on. That meant there weren’t major layoffs of teachers or staff, nor were there program cuts - all of which are usually what drive people to vote down school budgets. Eventually, that will change. Gov. Kathy Hochul tried to begin tightening the public education spending belt this year with a focus ...

Jail Nurse Pay Hikes Signs OfA Bigger Issue

Given the current state of addiction treatment in Chautauqua County, county legislators didn’t have much choice but to increase the pay for nurses who work in the Chautauqua County Jail. In addition to medical and mental health assessments on the roughly 170 inmates housed in the jail each day, the jail also runs a Medicated Assisted Treatment program for those battling drug addiction. Last year the nurses in the jail’s health clinic saw 9,500 patients. Pay increases approved last week by county legislators will impact the budget around $26,000 this year and around $53,500 in ...