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Role models for young people need to be closely examined

Letters To The Editor

To The Reader’s Forum: I'm a proud graduate of Cornell University, and a member of a fraternity still active on campus. I lived in the fraternity house for three years while an undergraduate at Cornell. So I know first-hand what kind of culture can exist in both fraternity and sorority houses on college campuses. Much has been written and said the past several days about the alleged heinous gang rape of "Jane Doe" that took place at another fraternity house at Cornell in 2024. I'm as concerned, if not more concerned, than most because of my long association with this ...

A suggestion to honor the President’s legacy

Letters To The Editor

To The Reader’s Forum: I read with interest the letter to the editor on September 5th on a great way to honor the president's memory. I am in total agreement with the writer but I also have a way of honoring him. Go to a beach, work area, recreational facility and what do you see? The little grey buildings that come in very handy for visitors or workers. They are called Port-A-Johns. My thought is they should now be called Port-A-Dons in honor of our president. They could all have gold handles, as gold means nothing but great things to look forward to when entering. So either ...

Don’t be fooled by promised Trump payments

Letters To The Editor

To The Reader’s Forum: As I write, there are about 53 days from Election Day, 2026 and the Republicans are holding a “convention” in Texas. Trump spoke yesterday and offered every adult citizen $5,000 if the Republicans continue to hold majorities in both the House and Senate in the 2026 elections. Not to spoil the party for Republicans, but there are a few reasons why the offer is unlikely. First, Trump has made at least 3 other offers of substantial payments to American adults that have fizzled over time. Second, it should be no secret that the offer will cost $1.3 trillion, ...

It's time for fiscally conservative Chautauqua County legislators

In Our Opinion

Republicans in Chautauqua County may have made a decision that we will all regret - perhaps not tomorrow, but at some point down the road - by agreeing to mandatory yearly cost-of-living raises for the salary ranges for county managers at the top and bottom of the salary scale. It’s the sort of decision a county can make when it has a fat pile of cash in its savings account. And it’s the sort of decision that can come back to bite you when that fat pile of cash isn’t quite as fat. In 2013, Chautauqua County's unappropriated fund balance was $12,600,000. Do you know what you ...

County’s 2027 budget isn’t prudent

Local Commentaries

A recent Observer/Post-Journal editorial asked if the Chautauqua County 2027 budget is realistic. I think a better question is: “Is the 2027 budget prudent?” The answer to that question is “No.” I was the County Budget Director from 2017-2023. I worked for three county executives, including Executive Wendel. The executives and the Finance Department agreed the budget should be structurally balanced, the tax levy should not exceed the levy limit, and general fund balance should only be used for unusual or unexpected expenditures. In this year’s tentative budget, two of those ...

It’s all downhill from here

Local Commentaries

When I sit down at the end of the day and look out upon Chautauqua Lake, it reminds me of the colloquialism that “it is all downhill from here.” That is, the water that I am looking at is flowing south toward the Allegheny River, then the Ohio and finally down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico (now called by some the Gulf of America.) In further reflection, this phrase about going downhill could also describe me at my age... but I resist that description. Getting old is not so much about going “downhill” as it is about being on “cruise control.” It doesn’t take much ...