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Opinion

Local Theater Deserves Better Than Copy-Paste AI

Letters To The Editor

To The Reader’s Forum: A recent post from the Jamestown Lucille Ball Little Theater has created a lot of buzz regarding the use of AI in the theater’s promotion and marketing. While the post was meant to explain the “minimal use” of AI in its content, it feels quite tone deaf coming from a community that supposedly promotes local artistic expression. To be fair to the theater, it can be difficult to find volunteers, but rather than use AI as a solution, perhaps the board should look internally at why they cannot find people to give their time to the local arts. Many ...

Wealth Inequality Is A Problem Worth Addressing

Letters To The Editor

To The Reader’s Forum: Wealth inequality in the United States has reached levels that should concern every American. While millions of working families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, childcare, and higher education, a small percentage of the population continues to accumulate enormous wealth at a historic pace. Hard work should provide stability and opportunity, yet many full-time workers live paycheck to paycheck. At the same time, large corporations and the wealthiest Americans often benefit from tax loopholes and economic policies that widen the gap between ...

High Court greatly restricts racial gerrymandering

Local Commentaries

Let’s pick up where we left off 12 weeks ago. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was before the U.S. Supreme Court again, this time in Louisiana v. Callais. * * * Writing for the six-justice majority, Justice Samuel Alito observes that the court’s first opinion regarding Section 2’s current text issued in 1986. It “was decided at a time when th(e Supreme) Court often paid insufficient attention to the language of statutory provisions ... . Instead of analyzing what the statute said, the opinion simply ...

Homeless situation is getting worse rather than better

In Our Opinion

County lawmakers learned recently that the county’s Social Services Department is being forced to move the homeless to neighboring counties as portions of hotels the county uses to house the homeless have been closed due to code compliance issues. In April, the Ellicott Code Office had to shut down the portion of the Clarion Pointe Hotel, formerly known as the Comfort Inn on Route 60 just outside of Jamestown, that houses Department of Social Services clients.Then earlier this month, the former Econo Lodge on Route 60, Fredonia was completely shut down. It, too, had been housing DSS ...

Taxpayers Continue To Be Squeezed By Taxes, Fees

In Our Opinion

Jamestown Public Schools District voters last week overwhelmingly approved an increase in the 529 tax revenue that will be provided to the James Prendergast Library. It’s the first increase in 529 funding for the Jamestown library since it was first approved by voters in 2020 as a way to replace funding that was being cut from the Jamestown city budget. The library hasn’t sought an increase in funding in the ensuing six years before asking for a $70,000 increase from school district voters last week. That request was approved as expected. It’s worth noting that the vote ...

Blanket BESS Prohibition May Not Work In Ellicott

In Our Opinion

There is a lot of unease regarding the idea of Battery Energy Storage Systems, so we can certainly understand the town of Ellicott taking the first step on a blanket moratorium on BESS systems in the town. In August 2024 the county IDA sold about 12 acres of vacant land on Dow Street, south of Allen Street, in Ellicott to Granite Source Power. Granite Source Power officials told IDA officials the company wants to install a 100-megawatt battery storage project on the site. Essentially, the project is described as a shipping container one would see on a freightliner filled with racks of ...