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DA: Appeals Court Takes Important Tool From Counties

I write to clarify and correct the public record created by recent reporting and editorial comment on my efforts to obtain “Sexually Violent Offender” designations for certain convicted sex offenders under New York’s Sex Offender Registration Act (“SORA”). In my view, your coverage loses sight of what is and must always be my number one priority here, to do everything and anything I can under the law to protect our community and its residents from the obvious risks and concerns associated with convicted sex offenders living among us. Part and parcel of this responsibility is to ...

Songs About Feather Beds

I have always loved songs by John Denver. A while back I purchased two CDs of his greatest hits. I knew many of them, but not all of them. Some of the newer ones have become my favorites. I especially love “Some Days are Diamonds, Some Days are Stones”. That song has come to mean so much to me. I remember having days that were diamonds while others were stones. At any rate I survived them all. Another song that I like is “Grandma’s Feather Bed”. While I never slept in a feather bed, I do remember sleeping three in a bed at my aunt’s house. The song says “nine feet high ...

Presidential Election Is Trump’s To Win

Let’s pick up where we left off last week. Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris made a closing argument for the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by answering a single question: Q: “Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the last four years?” A: “There is not a thing that comes to mind, and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” No sooner had last week’s column been submitted to newspapers than Harris provided additional material for the Trump campaign, this time by ducking ...

A Mini Reunion

Yesterday I journeyed over to Dunkirk to attend a mini class reunion. I say it was a mini reunion because this group meets for lunch once a month. I had never been invited to attend before I guess because I live more than a few miles away. It was well worth my effort. There were four people who I attended elementary school with there. One girl I went clear through college with. It was nice to meet informally and just chat about what we were doing, what our families were doing, and how we were feeling. I guess in years past many others attended this reunion. I was always envious of ...

Going All-Electric Is Slowing Down

Recently Ford Motor Company announced that it was canceling its plans to build a large, all-electric SUV. It is just one more indication that the push to go all-electric is slowing down. There are, of course, reasons for this—and it has to do primarily with cost and reliability issues. Having everything become electric sounds good from an environmental perspective. But, now, people are coming to grips with how much that will cost—and the fact that it may not be as reliable as advertised. National Grid is now asking for a big rate increase before the Public Service ...

It’s Time To Stop The Budget Insanity

In the 2021-2022 Legislative Session the New York State Assembly Bill A7072 was passed. The bill was called the 2% “two percent property tax cap act”. However we are facing almost a 8% increase in our taxes. How can that possibly be? The law states that the tax levy cannot exceed the 2% cap unless 60 percent of voters (for school districts) or 60 percent of the total voting power of the governing body (for local governments) approves the increase. The law is as useless as a Russian Visa Card and here is why. There are almost 28,000 people in Jamestown give or take. Kim Ecklund ...