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The OBSERVER’s View

EARTH DAY: Best practices for environment

For more than half a century, the United States has been celebrating Earth Day. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it was in the spring of 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson created Earth Day as a way to force legal and regulatory mechanisms to protect our natural world. Today, our environment is consistently at the center of attention when it comes to the use of water, recycling and energy. As part of Earth Day, which is celebrated Wednesday, the EPA recommends ways residents can lower their carbon footprint. Those include: bike or walk; carpool or take public transportation; ...

NEW YORK STATE Wetlands Act delayed, not dead

The more time one gets to look at the judge’s decision in local lawsuits challenging the state’s Freshwater Wetlands Act regulations, the more it is clear that the regulations are likely merely delayed, not dead. Judge Richard Platkin’s ruling last week in state Supreme Court in Albany didn’t strike at the heart of issues the local challenges to the regulations raised. Platkin found that the Freshwater Wetlands Act changes and the Part 664 regulations don’t violate landowners’ due process rights, that the challenges didn’t prove that the 2022 amendments and Part 664 ...

PORTLAND: Data center talk brings responses

Portland town Supervisor Richard Lewis in March set the ball rolling. In an interview with Dunkirk OBSERVER reporter Braden Carmen, the elected official noted there may be some interest in the former Sugar Hill golf property by a data center. Within a month, the board meeting saw attendance numbers that had not been that high since the solar discussions took place before the COVID pandemic. On April 8, about 50 residents came to voice their opposition to the center. Days later, a petition began filling up online. There are now more than 2,000 who have signed it with the intention of ...

Dedicated group sticks to its mission

Revitalize Dunkirk has made a call to the community. Help the group of volunteers in a spring cleaning mission that is slated for Tuesday with a rain date of Thursday. Held in conjunction with National Fuel’s “Days of Doing,” in which employees are given release time to engage in community projects, the event is from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. To its credit, these individuals are committed to promoting and bettering the city. Founded in 2013, one of the major priorities for Revitalize Dunkirk is beautification. This effort hits on that item. Before beginning work at any site, all ...

Blakeman pays price for rhetoric

Democrats spend so much time blustering about fair elections, we had assumed they actually believed in the concept. They proved last month they do not. That is when the state’s Public Campaign Finance Board chose to deny the application filed by Bruce Blakeman, Republican candidate for governor, to receive six-to-one public matching funds for individual campaign donations up to $250. Were the application fundamentally flawed, we could see denying the application. But that’s not what happened here. In December, the board created a joint filing requirement that both the governor ...

Celebrating village icon’s 100 years

Gowanda’s Historic Hollywood Theater in the heart of downtown is giving the community a reason to celebrate. Three days of festivities, beginning Friday, have been planned to celebrate 100 years since the Hollywood Theater was first opened in 1926. “There will be lots to look at to see where we were and where we are now, so we made it into a three-day event,” said Deb Harris, Project Coordinator at Gowanda’s Historic Hollywood Theater. Friday’s happening includes a Centennial Gala while Saturday is the Centennial Hollywood Happening – a throwback to pay homage to the ...