Chautauqua County Legislative District 3 includes part of the village of Fredonia and town of Pomfret. Incumbent Bob Scudder is running on the Republican and Conservative lines. He is being challenged by Nevin Eklund, who is running on the Democratic line.

The Post-Journal/OBSERVER invited all candidates who are running for the Chautauqua County Legislature to answer two questions:

1) What do you believe that Chautauqua County government has accomplished in the last two years?

2) What are your goals to improve the county?

Nevin Eklund

Scudder’s response to the two questions is as follows:

1) “The biggest accomplishment is continuing to lower the property tax rate for our county residents. When the tax bill arrives in January and people see a decrease in their bill, that is what matters to them. When I took office years ago, Chautauqua County had the highest tax rate in Western New York. Now, we are the lowest, or close to the lowest in Western New York. That’s good news!”

2) “I think we all have the goal of more jobs in Chautauqua County. Attracting businesses to the county has always been the discussion and effort across the county.

If we can land some businesses with larger work forces we all win. Let’s keep tourism and farming strong in the county and the future looks bright for all our current and future residents of Chautauqua County!”

Eklund’s response to the two questions is as follows:

1) “Our current legislature has an over-sized emergency fund balance of $37 million. This equates to 13.6% of the county budget. According to the state’s recommended maximum reserve for a fiscally conservative and healthy fund balance that is between 10% and 12% of a budget. Hence: We have room to decrease taxes, while providing better services to the public.

It does not make sense to expand public employment in a county losing population, which thereby has a shrinking tax base. The legislature approved the creation of a Media Information Officer position for the County Executive’s office, resulting in an annual expense of approximately $100,000. According to the Post-Journal, the county has expanded tax-funded staffing by 19.6%.

The legislature has a duty to oversee the operations of the Industrial Development Agency. Yet the agency made $130,000 of “questionable” purchases, including $18,000 at local golf courses. And such wasteful spending has not resulted in a significant increase in jobs, as most of these projects are creating far fewer jobs than the numbers that get publicly announced to the press.

It is a good thing to help provide housing for people in need, but it is not a good thing to ignore finding a long-term solution to a chronic problem. Last year, the county had more than doubled its spending on temporary housing. They have put people in need of shelter, including those released from jail and homeless residents, in local motels. For example, their failure to implement a viable long term plan has placed a burden on the people of the village of Falconer. The legislature needs to put a plan in place to establish adequate supportive and transitional housing. The taxpayer would get more for their bucks, if we use our county funds to put a plan in place to provide housing, case management, and skills development for people in need.

The current legislature may have fallen short in some significant areas, but there are areas where they did well to serve the people of this county.

The legislature has prioritized taking care of Chautauqua Lake, which is a worthwhile effort, as long as the other lakes are not forgotten, and other issues don’t get ignored.

The Legislature passed a cap on the county’s gasoline tax. This was initially proposed by Legislator Susan Parker, D-Fredonia. However, the Republican majority in the legislature did not extend the tax cap beyond Dec. 1, 2022. Its purpose was to reduce the burden of inflation on the county’s consumers. It was lifted too early given the continuing burden that inflation is causing our consumers.

The legislature passed a motion denouncing racism. We can praise the passage of such a motion. While it is good as far as it goes, such a resolution needs to be followed up with actual action or the resolution becomes nothing more than a set of nice sounding words.”

2) “The main theme of my campaign is to strive to create prosperity for working people. On a more general level, I would like to:

1) see more businesses attracted to the county.

2) Better maintain our county roads.

3) Protect all of our lakes.

4) Bring regular commercial air traffic back to the airport.

5) Find ways to attract more tourists.

6) Establish more places of recreation for our youth.

7) Establish a proactive plan to maintain a healthy agricultural industry given the challenges coming their way. I would strive to seek these goals in a reasonable and financially responsible manner.

On a more specific level, I would: 1) seek shovel ready sites to attract those businesses, 2) provide better oversight of the IDA to keep the focus on job creation, 3) support the use of county resources to improve access to our Interstate highways by our industries, 4) encourage our colleges to strengthen their effort to train workers currently needed by local businesses, 5) focus on gaining more federal financial help for economic development projects, 6) focus on only hiring county employees for positions that are truly and reasonably needed, 7) work to achieve a fund balance that is within the state’s recommended limits, and not bloated way beyond the current recommended maximum “emergency slush fund” by returning a portion of the fund to the taxpayers to bring the amount in the fund down to the state’s maximum recommendation. 8) We need to take proactive steps against invasive species that could undermine our agricultural industries. Specifically, the development of a plan to deal with the coming threat of the Spotted Lanternfly. This fly may look pretty, but it eats many varieties of fruits as it swarms after the crops. The grapes and other fruits of the North County are being threatened by this pest, as the pest is coming closer and closer to Chautauqua County. It is a clear threat to the county’s agricultural industry, but it also can threaten almost any type of vegetation as this fly can also go after trees, including the maple tree. 9) We need to improve road safety on our roads, including the safety of less traveled roads that regularly become occasional detours for our most traveled highways. When anything blocks travel on Route 60 between Cassadaga and Laona, the traffic is detoured onto Glasgow Road, which is a county highway. Glasgow road is narrow, with many blind spots created by the curves and knolls along the roadway. It is only common sense that one should try to keep as close to the right edge of such a road as they travel. But it can and does occur, that one can suddenly come upon oncoming traffic that one could not see until they were quite near, and the oncoming vehicle is too close to the center of the road. This is very dangerous when semi’s have been rerouted along this road. I suggest that Glasgow Road should be widened on each side by about one foot, especially in the section that contains these curves and knolls. Similarly, when driving on Water Street after just leaving Fredonia at night, and one plans on turning left into Laona, the driver can be and often is blinded as they make the turn. Even though the driver of any car on Webster Road leaving Laona is in low beam, the angle of the road glares those headlights into the eyes of anyone driving on Water Street attempting to make that left turn. In effect, the driver enters Webster Road blind to any thing that may have gone into the roadway such as an animal for a small segment of about a dozen feet. And what if the animal was a person? This intersection needs to be studied to improve nighttime safety.

No individual legislator can accomplish any of their goals without working with the other legislators to achieve their goals. I promise to work toward these goals by seeking common ground with the other legislators. I also promise to show up for both legislative and committee meetings.”

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