Opinion

The OBSERVER’s View: Labels bring a negative view

The OBSERVER’s View August 26, 2026

Since becoming governor, Kathy Hochul has made a push to increase housing statewide. Earlier this month, she came to the north county to hail The Homesteads at Dunkirk Landing Project, which is being built by Regan Development. Overall, the $37 million project will consist of two new buildings located within two blocks of one another on Washington Avenue and on East Fourth Street. The Washington Avenue building will contain 48 apartments, while the East Fourth Street building will contain 30 apartments. Both sites are located within Dunkirk's Brownfield Opportunity and Downtown ...

Club important supporter of sale

Peoples column August 25, 2026

Editor, OBSERVER: A special thank you is offered to The Moniuszko Social Club for its continued support of the Lakeshore Humane Society annual yard sale, which is held annually at the Chautauqua County Fairgrounds in August. LAKESHORE HUMANE SOCIETY, Dunkirk

The OBSERVER’s View: Fraud numbers show county troubles

The OBSERVER’s View August 25, 2026

It is shocking, though not surprising, that two county Social Services Department employees have been charged in the theft of money from the people they were supposed to be helping. Amounts weren't disclosed during a news conference earlier this month and neither was the name of a second person allegedly involved in the alleged theft, but we've seen enough thefts of public money in the past to know that where there are large sums of money being passed around someone will eventually try to take some for themselves. We've been through this a time or two over the past couple of ...

West Side Phase II Sewers ready to go

Commentary August 25, 2026

This past week, a ribbon was cut and the county officially announced that the Sewer Extension Phase II for the West Side of Chautauqua Lake is now ready for hook-ups. If this had been a church setting, you might have been tempted to shout “Hallelujah!” or “Amen!” but, in any event, it was an important occasion. I don’t think that the general public realizes what it takes to bring such a large project of this type to fruition. A Sewer District expansion requires the approval of the municipalities involved. It also requires the creation of or expansion of sewer district ...

Historian saves voting machines from scrap yard

Commentary August 24, 2026

Chautauqua County is about to lose another piece of history and nobody except County Historian Norman Carlson seems to know about. The 21st Century history of voting winds through western New York and most specifically Chautauqua County’s Jamestown where the world headquarters for the now defunct Automatic Voting Machine (AVM) was once located. An erected historic marker on the city’s Jones & Gifford Ave. states, “At this site from 1895 to 1993, Jamestown-based companies pioneered in developing, manufacturing and servicing of mechanical-lever voting machines and electronic ...

The OBSERVER’s View

The OBSERVER’s View August 24, 2026

We'd say New York should throw out its recycling data, but we're not sure if the paper would be recycled or end up in a landfill. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office found the state DEC lacks reliable information on how much material is recycled across the state. Part of the problem is recycling facilities have submitted only about two-thirds of the required annual reports from January 2021 through December 2023. The facilities that did submit reports couldn't always verify the information they did report. And, perhaps most troubling, of the reports that were submitted, nearly ...