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NCCF Local Economic Development committee: Labor shortages and career choices

According to summer 2025 statistics from the United States Department of Labor’s Labor Market briefing, Western New York currently enjoys a pretty low unemployment rate of 4.1%. That’s lower than the overall 4.6% rate in the United States. However, over the past year, initial unemployment claims in New York State increased the most in Chautauqua County. Compared to NYS’s increase of 3.6%, our county’s rate increased by 175.0%. That leaves many worried about what is causing this and what the future will bring to those of us living and working here. Plenty of employment ...

Voices matter in global, local concerns

It’s raining in Gaza. It’s winter and it’s cold. As part of the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to allow 600 trucks a day into Gaza with supplies. Gaza’s government says the Israelis have only allowed 28% of them to come through. People are starving. Children are dying every day from hunger. It’s a slow painful death. We paid for the bombs that made 2 million people homeless. We are the only ones the Israelis will listen to. Call U.S. Rep. Nick Langworthy at (716) 488-8111. He is our District 23 representative in Washington. He can put pressure on ...

Hochul keeps eye on affordability

New Yorkers recently saw implementation of the All-Electric Buildings Act temporarily delayed via federal court stipulation as the state faces ongoing legal challenges and concerns about affordability and grid readiness. This delay offers an important opportunity for deliberate reflection and planning, ensuring that New York’s climate goals remain balanced with economic realities. State Gov. Kathy Hochul has shown leadership by listening to the concerns of working families, business leaders, and housing advocates, many of whom have rightly warned about the risk of steep costs and ...

Natural sleep is a sometimes gift

I sometimes have trouble sleeping. I’m blaming lack of sleep for all my bad decisions, and often for forgetting my purse. I need every excuse I can get. Last spring, I finally decided to try the natural sleep supplement Melatonin. Whoa, that’s good! If I needed some help to Slumbertown, 20 minutes after a Melatonin gummy, I was on the path. Zonk. Occasionally I needed two. But it wasn’t until a two-fer night that I finally read the directions. “Thirty minutes before bedtime, take two supplements and allow them to slowly dissolve.” Two Melatonins? The recommended dosage? Wow. ...

Catching up on a movie classic

Today we are going to the movies. One night I had trouble sleeping so I got up and turned the TV on and selected Turner Classic Movies. Happily, the movie was “The Maltese Falcon,” one of my favorites. It was a 1941 production of Warner Brothers directed by John Huston who also wrote the screenplay. It starred Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor. The movie is based on the detective novel of the same name written by Dashiel Hammett that was published in 1930. Hammett worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in San Francisco before turning to writing and said of the main character ...

Peaceful voices don’t need to riot

On Oct. 18, I participated in the “No Kings Rally” in Fredonia. On returning home I was subjected to scorn and derision, which was to me nothing but water off a duck’s back. Meantime the President’s followers are accusing those who disagree with him of being afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS is an imaginary disorder invented by President Trump’s followers because they refuse to admit there may be some reason and logic for objections to the President’s policies and actions. Let us look at the crowd in Fredonia. There were 500 or 600 patriots peacefully ...