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Opinion

Adjusting county tax auction process

The OBSERVER’s View

The OBSERVER’s View: Adjusting county tax auction process Chautauqua County has approved the tax auction sales of 130 properties throughout the county – but the decision wasn't unanimous. Nor, in our opinion, should it have been. There were enough complaints from property owners of properties ending up at the tax auction with a lack of notice or other issues that property owners say they weren't aware of to raise questions. The property sale the legislature didn't approve last week involved a property in which one of the bidders alleged the original property owner, who shouldn't ...

Democrats ran up the tab we’re all paying for

Commentary

This election season, Democrats have latched on to the issue of affordability, a problem that the Biden administration did much to cause and which the second Trump administration is working to correct. It is important for Americans to understand that price increases due to inflation do not ...

Major consequences in this election

Commentary

The Democratic Party is not the same party it used to be. The Socialists are taking over your party. You have Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Kamala Harris, Hakeem Jeffries, Hasan Piker, and Abdul-El-Sayed who have taken over the moderate Democrats. They are all socialists-communists. They can’t beat us on the battlefield, so they decided to bring our country down from within. Look what’s happened to California with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom in control. Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden said Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, but never did ...

Crisp weather, colors dazzle in season

The OBSERVER’s View

It is beginning to look a lot like autumn. Take a drive on the New York state Thruway to Buffalo or Route 5 — or even Route 39 — and the natural display of colors will dazzle. Each week, the I LOVE NY tourism campaign offers updates. The most recent noted “gorgeous fall colors … with near-peak and some peak foliage expected in parts of the Adirondacks this weekend, along with leaves at midpoint of change throughout much of the mid and upper Catskills, and many Capital-Saratoga region locations.” Changing seasons are what make our region special. You do not get that same ...

The continuing importance of public education

Commentary

Recently, a friend gave me a book, “Sketches of the History of Chautauque County” written by Emory F. Warren and published in 1846. It traces the earliest history of our county including the establishment of school districts. Each school constituted a district. In 1835 the New York state Legislature passed a law to provide funding for books in school libraries around the state. “School District Libraries have thus become objects of profit and a just pride to all,” wrote Mr. Warren. “The choicest productions in literature and science are placed in the hands of every person who ...

People's column

Peoples column

Lack of answers in water commentary Editor, OBSERVER: Trustee Paul Wandel's recent commentary (Oct. 3-4) provides a notable case study in the deployment of self-aggrandizing trite platitudes within localized political discourse. By attempting to map the individual, athletic variables of marathon endurance onto the institutional, financial, and legal complexities of a multi-million dollar municipal water infrastructure project, the text constructs a fundamentally flawed parallel. This reliance on recycled idiomatic tropes — “such as crossing the finish line” — functions ...