We tend to forget that it takes dedicated people to run our local government institutions. One of my earliest memories of politics was observing my Dad’s duties as Supervisor of the Town of Kiantone. It was not a job that he really wanted—he was plenty busy running the farm—but the ...

In early 2013, New York’s then-governor Andrew Cuomo showed up in Dunkirk on a wintry day to announce with great fanfare that the NRG power plant in Dunkirk would be converted from a clean-coal facility to natural gas-fueled power production. I was a Chautauqua County Legislator at the ...

I’ve missed that wonderful aroma of sheets and towels coming in from the fresh air. Sadly, my house deed states, “no clotheslines,” meaning no tee shirts flapping in the wind on a sunny day. Generations X and Y have probably never inhaled that glorious smell. Now all our sheets come out ...

“We are seeing two movies on one screen,” the late Dilbert creator Scott Adams once said. Minneapolis is exhibit one. One side calls it murder, the other, self-defense. One side says, “ICE is causing chaos.” The other side says, “ICE is there because of the rampant chaos there ...

Five years ago, on January 6, I became a naturalized citizen of the United States. It was COVID times, so the ceremony was very uneventful. It was just me and the immigration officer on the other end of the plexiglass at the USCIS office in Buffalo. That same day, the Capitol was attacked, ...

New York’s health insurance premiums have risen well above the national average, imposing a huge financial burden on New York residents. Unfortunately, the New York government recently approved another round of substantial premium rate hikes for almost all private health insurers operating in ...