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The OBSERVER’s View

The OBSERVER’s View: Another football season almost underway

Don’t look now, but there’s a hint that summer is coming to an end. The good news, however, is many in the region will embrace the reason. On Monday morning, the Buffalo Bills unveiled a new look — their “Nickel City” alternate uniforms, an all-gray pant and jersey combo featuring "The Charge" helmet — an all-blue base bolstered by the iconic red charge. On the team’s website, the design is considered a tribute to the strength, grit and authenticity of Western New York's hard-working people throughout history. In addition, this week marks the beginning of training camp ...

State’s data center moratorium is reasonable – for now

It’s reasonable to see Gov. Kathy Hochul’s one-year moratorium on data centers as a reasonable delay in order to develop appropriate protections and guidelines in state law to govern data centers. What the governor has done is no different legally than what local towns and villages have been doing over the past year by enacting - and in some cases extending - moratoriums on wind and solar projects and on battery energy storage systems. It’s reasonable to see data centers as an emerging issue that requires a pause to manage the development appropriately. Our concern is that ...

The OBSERVER’s View: Moving on with Jamestown airport

It should come as no surprise to anyone except the most ardent supporters of the Jamestown Airport that the federal government has once again declined to restore the airport's Essential Air Service subsidy. We noted last year that the number of passengers had decreased in the latest Essential Air Service proposal while the amount of the federal government's subsidy was projected to increase. That was hardly the best way to show the federal government that there was so much pent-up demand locally that the Jamestown airport would be able to average 10 passengers per flight and a federal ...

The OBSERVER’s View: More requests require legislature guidance

State lawmakers, largely Democrats, want to increase Open Meetings Law and FOIL request training requirements for local government officials. Given the recent altercation in the Chautauqua County records room involving a self-proclaimed First Amendment auditor, the training likely isn’t a bad idea. Local public records officials need to be the experts in the room when it comes to releasing records, and too often that isn’t the case. But in our opinion the legislature should also help local governments driven to the point of frustration by bot-driven FOIL requests and local ...

The OBSERVER’s View: No stopping rising power prices

Every month, the electric bill brings a bit more pain to New York state residents. According to the Empire Center’s Energy Data Bulletin, households are paying the fourth-highest electricity prices in the country. In April 2026, residential electricity prices in New York averaged 29.45 cents per kilowatt-hour – 56 percent above the national average of 18.83 cents. New York’s electricity costs rose 3.1% from March and were 14.6 percent higher than a year earlier – nearly four times the rate of inflation, the Center reported. Since 2019, the state’s average residential ...

The OBSERVER’s View

An artist’s rendering of the former Third Street post office features a big Chautauqua County logo on the building’s wall facing Jamestown City Hall instead of the Lucille Ball mural that was also used as a U.S. postage stamp. We’re sure it’s artistic license as part of a sales pitch rather than a serious proposal to actually remove the mural, but the artist’s rendering raises a question that we hope Chautauqua County legislators keep in mind before they vote on a proposal to consolidate the county’s Jamestown offices into the post office building - what else looks funny ...