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Facing the Challenges of Local Government

We tend to forget that it takes dedicated people to run our local government institutions. One of my earliest memories of politics was observing my Dad’s duties as Supervisor of the Town of Kiantone. It was not a job that he really wanted—he was plenty busy running the farm—but the Republican Committee asked him to run for the position, so he did. After a couple of terms, a neighboring dairy farmer, a Democrat, Frank Bratt, decided to run for the job. My Dad’s reaction was: “Well, if he wins, he will do a good job.” Bratt did win, and I remember my father saying shortly ...

Finding clarity in protests over ICE

By THE REV. MEL McGINNIS “We are seeing two movies on one screen,” the late Dilbert creator Scott Adams once said. Minneapolis is exhibit one. One side calls it murder, the other, self-defense. One side says, “ICE is causing chaos.” The other side says, “ICE is there because of the rampant chaos there already.” I’m not a law enforcement expert, but you don’t have to be an expert to have common sense. Do you listen to an officer giving an order to exit the car or do you follow your lawbreaking partner saying, “Drive baby, drive?” Renee Good listened to her ...

Natural gas best option for facility

In early 2013, New York’s then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo showed up in Dunkirk on a wintry day to announce with great fanfare that the NRG power plant in Dunkirk would be converted from a clean-coal facility to natural gas-fueled power production. I was a Chautauqua County Legislator at the time and I was there that day to experience the community’s collective sigh of relief that the county’s largest property-taxpaying entity would continue to operate. However, everything changed as the governor pivoted and decided he would bow to political pressure from the advocates on the far left ...

Freedoms being lost right before our eyes

I am Antifa. I have been writing these commentaries for at least a decade and in that time I have consistently put forward the “Liberal Agenda.” We want a single payer plan for healthcare. We want everyone to have a good education and employment opportunities. We want clean water and clean air. The minimum wage should be a living wage. All of these things go against Project 2025. Why do conservatives oppose these things? They claim we are trying to take from the rich to give to the undeserving poor. If we adopt a single-payer health plan, health insurance companies will still exist ...

Pegula opens up to Bills’ fans

ORCHARD PARK—Let’s pick up where we left off 50 weeks ago, at the conclusion of the Buffalo Bills’ 2024 season. That season ended in the American Football Conference championship game with bad officiating favoring what this column called the Kansas City “Chief Referees.” This followed a divisional-round-playoff game between the Houston Texans and the Chiefs for which referees were themselves called for bad calls favoring the Chiefs. ≤ ≤ ≤ Fast forward to the divisional-round playoffs following the 2025 season, with the Bills playing the Broncos in Denver on Jan. ...

Three sheets to the wind

I’ve missed that wonderful aroma of sheets and towels coming in from the fresh air. Sadly, my house deed states, “no clotheslines,” meaning no tee shirts flapping in the wind on a sunny day. Generations X and Y have probably never inhaled that glorious smell. Now all our sheets come out of the dryer. The manufacturers have tried, but there is still money to be made by the person who gets that little delight just right. Yesterday, I had reason to mourn the loss of that washday joy – the only good part of the laundry process I remember from being a kid. I was sorting sheets – ...