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What Speech Are Chautauqua County Legislators Getting Tired Of Hearing?

In Our Opinion

What opinions, exactly, are the ones the Chautauqua County Legislature is tired of hearing in its second privilege of the floor during monthly legislature meetings? Is it federal matters that could impact the county or its residents? Is it local residents’ opinions on energy policy? Is it Chautauqua Lake? Are they tired of Legislator Tom Nelson, D-Jamestown, using time at the end of legislature meetings to speak about federal issues as he did five times in the first six months of 2025? We ask because those were the most common topics addressed by the public during the second ...

Surviving Olympic Glories

Local Commentaries

The Olympics have barely begun and I’m almost comatose. Coverage from Milan and Cortina during the afternoon, prime time, and late night have my eyeballs operating in the glued position. Holy biathlon. I’d forgotten how many events are covered. For the first time though, while watching these Olympic Games, I realized that I don’t envy any of the beautiful young athletes anymore. I absolutely, positively cannot imagine attempting any of those death-defying sports. Every surface they challenge is hard. My firm mattress is as far as my imagination can take me. Either they are ...

Why Young New Yorkers Can’t Afford To Live Here

Local Commentaries

Americans want to help people in need, but when government does that, about 500 billion taxpayer dollars get stolen. It’s how the system is designed, says the United Council on Welfare Fraud’s Andrew McClenahan in this new video. “You’re measuring success by the amount of money you put out.” Because of that, government agencies rarely check whether their handouts go to the right people. Minnesota is just the latest example. Government officials didn’t uncover that fraud -- YouTuber Nick Shirley did. I say to McClenahan, “It’s weird that a kid did what government ...

Remain Connected To The Truth

Local Commentaries

Do your eyes lie or is it your mind struggling to erase what your eyes have seen? If you never saw the videos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti’s deaths, you could just accept the news that they were provocateurs and deserved to be shot. You could choose to believe what you hear. The operative word here is choose, but your mind can’t erase what your eyes saw, you don’t have a choice to unsee what you saw! That is a hard mental disconnect! Our pledge of allegiance says, “we believe in one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Justice begins with us ...

Resurrecting the Dunkirk Power Plant

Local Commentaries

Our State Senator, county officials and others have advocated that the old NRG power plant in Dunkirk be reopened as a natural gas/electric plant. It is a proposal that should be considered. I can still remember the day when then Governor Andrew Cuomo went to Dunkirk and promised a big crowd that the plant would be converted from coal to natural gas...a plan that never got off the ground. What you see now, still looming over the Dunkirk harbor, is the shell of the former coal/electric plant. It is doubtful that a natural gas plant would need be housed in such a big structure...but ...

Affordability Always Makes Sense

Local Commentaries

Last weekend’s papers had the County Legislature’s Republican majority leader, Jamie Gustafson, critical of the three provisions of the “Affordability Act of 2026” introduced at the January County Legislature meeting by me as the assistant minority leader and Bob Banksoski, the minority leader. Our legislation would first make more senior citizen homeowners eligible for a partial property tax exemption, second, reduce the County’s property tax by $2,000,000 for 2027 and, third, support a County sales tax reduction from 8% to 7 3/4%, with more of the sales tax revenue going to ...