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Opinion

New York State: Passing the buck to municipalities

The OBSERVER’s View

New York state officials are good at writing blank checks with your state tax dollars. New state regulations that take effect this year are writing more blank checks – this time with your local tax dollars. Town of Ellicott officials recently approved a contract with an emergency vet while also setting a maximum amount of money to be spent on the care of animals picked up by the dog control officer in need of treatment. The purpose of the secondary shelter is to have an overflow location if the Chautauqua County Humane Society is too full to take in dogs from the town, something ...

County doesn’t need nuclear NRG

Commentary

George Borello wants you to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for electricity you don’t need. NRG shut down the Dunkirk plant in 2016 because there was no market for the expensive electricity it generated. George now wants to re-power the NRG plant but his recent editorial promoting the idea was filled with half-truths and misinformation. His claim that then Governor Cuomo bowed “to political pressure from the advocates on the far left” ignores the fact that the original repowering project was placed on hold in 2015 when another power company, the Entergy Group, filed a ...

Affordable health care is a human right

Commentary

Patients at Roswell Park Cancer Institute are offered financial counseling to help them figure out how they are going to pay for their care. I was blessed with excellent health insurance coverage so I declined the counseling. As the statements from Roswell and Highmark Blue Cross and Blue ...

Musician always displayed spirit, soul

Commentary

Soul. I’m writing about this because a friend of mine, who embodied the essence of soul, recently passed away. To me, Rob Scheuer was the epitome of soulfulness, both as a performing musician and a human being. In music, Soul suggests the ability of any musician, black or white or whatever, to play with emotion, or “feel.” Performing music soulfully takes more than technical ability. It requires the musician to seize the opportunity to express his or her love of music and to do it with conviction – purposefully, consistently, joyfully or painfully, as if every song might be the ...

Loyalty syndrome grows in nation

Peoples column

Editor, OBSERVER: A recent (Feb. 6) commentator proposed his theory of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and theorized symptoms of the condition. The writer supports President Trump while applauding Trump’s “persuasive” message. I don’t share that support, but I do seek common ground with conservatives. We can agree, for example, on the need for immigration reform. But the sight of masked and armed men assaulting citizens is going too far and is a valid cause for my “derangement.” President Trump assured us he’d go after the “worst of the worst.” Instead, his actual ...

Plate fraud driven by New York City

Commentary

When I was on the campaign trail for Chautauqua County Clerk, the news stories about possible wrongdoing at our county DMV locations were impossible to miss. County residents were receiving toll charges, in some cases thousands of dollars, for tolls and speeding infractions on license plates they’d surrendered to one of our DMVs. This was a terrible situation for the victims spending countless hours fighting fines and fees they weren’t responsible for. When I was elected, tackling this issue became my top priority. After taking office Jan. 1, I visited all three county DMV ...