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Spending hikes prove county’s growing footprint

Commentary

Chautauqua County's government spending has steadily increased every single year since 2020, and the 6.5% spike for 2027 is a stark departure from the smaller, incremental increases of prior years. The year-over-year spending reality includes: — 2020, $263 million — baseline when Executive PJ Wendel took office. — 2025, continued multi-million dollar incremental growth. — 2026, $309.7 million. — 2027, $330 million — an abrupt, massive $20.3 million single year spike. Despite blaming external economic pressures like unfunded state mandates, the Legislature has not ...

The OBSERVER’s View: DiNapoli keeping entities in check

The OBSERVER’s View

Incumbent state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has a strong challenger this year in Republican challenger Joseph Hernandez. Hernandez has raised questions about DiNapoli's role in the growth of the state's debt load, wants to create a Medicaid Fraud Strike Team as Medicaid spending increases and fraud convictions decrease and proposes additional checks on $21 billion in state aid to New York City. Hernandez, like past challengers to DiNapoli, also wants to pull back from investing state pension funds in accordance with the state’s environmental, social and governance goals and invest ...

Life's not all doom, gloom if surrounded by love

Commentary

To turn a phrase from the great blues artist Albert King, “if it wasn’t for bad news, there wouldn’t be no news at all.” A friend recently confided in me that she never watches the news because it makes her feel frightened and hopeless. The world is so full of violence and hate, and she can’t bear the sight of one more mass shooting or suffering animal or school bombing (she is a teacher). It’s hard to find a silver lining inside the stormy clouds of the modern world. It’s hard to believe in Abraham Lincoln's appeal to the “better angels of our nature” when the ...

Golden days of Dunkirk are long lost

Commentary

I am looking at all of Dunkirk’s problems, including the current mayor and her support staff, the Democratic leadership, and the deep despair of a city that appears to have lost its way. I grew up in a community surrounded by neighborhoods and churches, corner stores, a thriving downtown, and factories that provided blue-collar families with jobs and hope for the future. Today, I see a city struggling with desperation and decline. The delicate fabric of our community is being erased and forgotten. Neighborhoods where scores of children once played outside, participated in playground ...

Have IDA take on city’s development efforts

The OBSERVER’s View

Since Vince DeJoy was hired as Dunkirk’s Director of Planning and Development, the landscape of the city has changed greatly. One of DeJoy’s greatest successes in the role was New York state’s awarding of $10 million in funding for the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. That money remains an important piece to the downtown puzzle, but Dunkirk is treading water. Due to years of poor financial planning and thievery, the government is on the brink. DeJoy, the current administration and council had no part in putting the city on this path. But at the moment, things just do not ...

State’s current path is familiar — and crippling

Commentary

We do not need a crystal ball to see the future of New York state if things don’t change soon. Merely observe what has happened in places with similar policies. England is a Leftist economic disaster, and so is France, but let’s look at Germany. Germany was Europe’s industrial heartland. It was a world leader in technology and engineering. It anchored the European economy since World War II. But Germany is now crippled by a bloated and self-defeating Welfare State and irrational Green Energy policies. Their industry is leaving, their economy is retracting, and young Germans ...