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Opinion

Is now the time for police merger?

The OBSERVER’s View

Across Dunkirk and Fredonia – the north county’s two largest municipalities — there are a total of five law-enforcement agencies that can oversee the city and village. Besides their own departments, University Police, New York State Police and the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department are always nearby. This for a total of 22,000 residents, that includes a State University campus. With financial troubles evident in the two governments, something has to give. Population continues to decrease while costs keep going up. On the positive side, both municipal departments have ...

U.S. needs to take threats seriously

Commentary

Imploring a young audience to “discard the stuck-on-stupid card,” retired Lieutenant Colonel Alan West then quoted poet Maya Angelou, “When people show you who they are the first time, believe them.” Spoken not just once, “Death to America” has been bellowed a gazillion times by Islamic Shias in Iran and elsewhere including Dearborn, Mich. Do you believe them? If not, you own a “stuck-on-stupid” card. In New York City, Muslims on Times Square incessantly shouted, “Allahu Akbar.” The leader addressing the hyped-up horde said sarcastically, “Don’t scare ...

People’s column

Peoples column

The OBSERVER’s View (July 30, 2026) states that “… no state official has indicated how struggling SUNY institutions are supposed to pay for these generous increases” in State University of New York salaries. In the midst of an international infectious epidemic in 2009, President George Bush recognized that the U.S. did not have sufficient vaccine production facilities to inoculate its own citizens. Overseas facilities were committed to the vaccine production for their own citizens. I suggested to then-Chautauqua County Executive Mark Thomas that the north county would be an ...

The OBSERVER’s View: Bottom line closes another church

The OBSERVER’s View

Another incredibly important parish in the history of northern Chautauqua County learned of its fate this weekend. During the 9:30 a.m. Mass, it was announced that St. Anthony’s Church in Fredonia would be closing. Members of the church’s finance committee made the announcement, citing declining attendance and donation rates. The closure will leave Fredonia without a Catholic church. St. Joseph’s on Main Street closed as of Jan. 1, 2025. As sudden as the decision seems, there is no question the tumult in the Buffalo diocese has a lot to do with all of the transitions. Facing ...

A challenging year in grape country

Commentary

Alarm bells went off earlier this year, when Refresco Company announced that it was cancelling grape contracts in this area. It had been a large purchaser of Concord grapes here in Chautauqua County. I have not been privy to the decision of Refresco but am assuming that at least part of its decision was based upon the fact that grape processing was a small part of its overall international operations, and corporate big-wigs decided to focus company efforts more on its core businesses. Whatever the reason, it left some grape growers without an immediate market for their grapes. For ...

The OBSERVER’s View: Important addition to county business

The OBSERVER’s View

It was roughly six years ago that Chautauqua County made a pitch for an Amazon regional distribution center that, when completed, would have been one of the largest in the world. County Executive PJ Wendel, Mark Geise, county IDA director and former U.S. Rep. Tom Reed all advocated for Amazon to consider Chautauqua County, which was pushing land the county owns in Ripley as well as the Mason Industrial Park in Ellicott. The project never came to fruition, but there was a lot of genuine excitement around the possibility at the time. Last month, Amazon made a quieter entry into ...