Breaking News

Reason for hope in SUNY numbers

This Valentine’s Day has brought some great news to love with an increase of 1.2% in spring enrollment for the SUNY Fredonia campus under the leadership of the current administration. This is indeed very positive news amid the nationwide enrollment crisis, especially for the regional ...

Resurrecting the Dunkirk power plant

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 ...

Legislature owes relief to residents

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 ...

No affordability when government spends

The latest political rage is the “Affordability Crisis” – which basically means inflation is eating away at your paycheck. Ironically, the people who most loudly proclaim the Affordability Crisis are usually the ones who caused the problem in the first place by supporting over-spending and over-regulation by the Government. They also think the answer is (curiously) more spending and more regulation. Under President Joe Biden, inflation averaged over 5% per year, with one year being over 9%. By comparison, Trump 47 reduced it to 2.7%, but still more must be done to reverse the ...

Chautauqua Gorge a winter treat

CHAUTAUQUA GORGE STATE FOREST — It’s one thing to see the Chautauqua Gorge in the summertime. It’s another thing entirely to see it in the wintertime. If you haven’t seen it in the wintertime, you might consider putting it on your list. It’s spectacular. Just spectacular. High walls along the deeper parts of the gorge surround snow-covered pines and hardwoods. In the middle of a sunny afternoon, the blue sky is overhead. Later, as the sun sets, the sky turns dark blue and the brightest stars begin to fill the sky. More stars join them as the sky turns dark blue, then ...

Surviving Olympic glories of past

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 ...