Several things caught my attention in recent days.

The old high school on Main Street in Silver Creek is finally coming down and surprisingly not under the weight of its decaying structure. When the Kirkpatrick family arrived in Silver Creek 45 years ago it had already stood abandoned for several years and in the ensuing years various plans for repurposing it were floated but nothing ever came of them. Over the years more windows were broken and as the years passed a deteriorating roof allowed rain and snow melt to enter the building hastening its decay.

In times past travelers coming from the south on Route 20 would probably have entered the village and thought “What a nice village with well-kept homes and yards” that is until they saw the crumbling old school on Main Street. Now it is coming under the “wreckers ball” but I won’t believe it until the last vestiges of the building are gone.

Now a tip of my hat to Silver Creek Mayor Jeff Hornburg and the trustees for the time and effort given to reducing the tax burden on residents because in these times every little bit helps. Our village stands in stark yet happy contrast to other municipalities that for a variety of reasons have seen substantial increases in property tax rates.

It’s unfortunate that Rite Aid is closing all of its stores in Western New York particularly for those of us who get our prescriptions at Rite Aid. Over the years even before recent bankruptcy filings the company went through shaky periods with often repeated rumors that management in the Philadelphia home office was a large part of the problem. Because Rite Aid was the only drug store in town and for several miles around for that matter, perhaps a competitor will buy the Silver Creek Store, but who knows.

On the state level, I now have proof that downstate Democrats see the New York State Assembly as a place where their less intellectually gifted offspring can have a job for life once they get elected. The case in point is the work of Assemblymen Brad Hoylman-Sigal (never trust anyone with a hyphenated name, it’s too British) and Micah Lasher, both of whom represent some portion of New York City who have introduced legislation that would instigate an investigation of Elon Musk’s contracts with the State of New York to root out waste, fraud, and abuse of state resources by him.

The young gentlemen say that “New Yorkers have had enough of Elon Musk using his influence to buy control of our federal government and slash critical spending under the guise of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. Well boys, not all New Yorkers agree with your opinion of Musk because any reduction DOGE can make on my Federal tax bill will ease some of the pain I experience when I get my exorbitant state tax bill that has institutionalized the meaning of wasteful spending here in New York. I think that New York should create its own DOGE but as long as Democrats control the state that will never happen.

Now on the Federal level, with the exception of Fox News, no news agency has given positive coverage of the actual work of DOGE as a way to assure the American people that Elon Musk and DOGE do not constitute an evil presence in Washington rashly closing down programs and agencies and seeking to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Affairs, scientific research, medical research, or just creating chaos as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a man who has never held a job in the private sector, constantly tells us. I think that one reason Democrats are so upset about Trump’s desire to make government efficient and responsible to Americans is because Democrats might be protecting certain individuals and groups. In interviews DOGE employees told stories about agencies granting low interest loans to both the dead and those still not born with the checks direct deposited in private bank accounts. Has our government become a piggy bank for others?

Musk, the guiding spirit behind DOGE, is not in this to line his own pockets. He is the world’s richest man and one of the smartest. Anyone who says he is out to buy the U.S. government has drunk the Democratic Kool-Aid.

After having watched several interviews on Fox News with DOGE employees, who by the way are employees of the government departments they are working in, rest assured that they are all smart, inciteful, and experienced individuals who have left high level, well-paying jobs to do something for their country working along with a group of younger computer experts. They are not “know it all kids” out to destroy programs and departments although the national media would have you believe that

Finally, I want to admit that I may have been wrong in saying that some national Democrats and progressives hate Trump because he is a pragmatist. I will now agree with a recent contributor who made it quite clear in an article, which was in fact a litany of everything they hate about the President, that their feelings toward President Trump are actually nothing more than hate, the same blind and unreasoning hatred we see directed toward Jewish students on college campuses today.

Thomas Kirkpatrick is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com.