Breaking News

The OBSERVER’s View

COUNTY : Grape success worth celebrating

Over a span of 10 days, there has been plenty to celebrate when it comes to Chautauqua County’s most significant crop. Just this past weekend, Silver Creek held its annual Festival of Grapes that included numerous events downtown — and the always popular parade. Not to be outdone, the village of Westfield will celebrate the fruit in the coming days. As noted in an article on Monday, grapes and the grape industry, from winemaking, to table grapes, to juices and jellies, have been instrumental in Chautauqua County in general and Westfield in particular for a very long time. ...

State: Balancing privacy issues with doorbell camera usefulness

It’s easy to lampoon many proposals coming out of Albany as soft on crime. It would have been easy to do so with a proposal introduced recently by Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz, D-Corona, that would place limits on police departments’ access to doorbell camera footage as part of crime investigations. We have concerns with Cruz’ proposals, but we can understand what is prompting her to act. Look no further than the situation in China right now to see just how much unchecked camera surveillance can curtail the civil liberties of someone with whom the government doesn’t agree. ...

FREDONIA: Water vote is just the start of the process

The Fredonia Village Board has voted on a water plan – but nobody in the village should expect that the issue is going away anytime soon. Village Board members made a difficult choice on Thursday in the face of loud opposition to seek out a deal to buy water from the North County Water District, to decommission the village’s treatment plant and reservoir and share a new water tank with the town of Pomfret. It sounds straightforward, but given the history of water service in Fredonia, we have a feeling this process will be anything but quiet after Thursday’s vote. Water ...

9/11 A day we must never forget

Americans today tend to have a short attention span. Important news often is quickly overshadowed by the latest nonsense posing as news that captures the nation’s attention. Yet some events are of such a magnitude that they remain seared in our memories. The attack at Pearl Harbor. Troops storming the beaches at Normandy. The fall of Saigon. And the events of Sept. 11, 2001. For those old enough to understand what was happening 24 years ago, when terrorists hijacked four planes — two of them brought down the World Trade Center, one smashed into the Pentagon and the fourth crashed ...

Serta Closure: Need for constant development efforts

There is no smoking gun that explains why the Serta Simmons Bedding plant at the Mason Industrial Park in Falconer is closing. The plant’s closure is the confluence of factors far beyond local control. Serta has been in the midst of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization over the past two years after taking on some $2.5 billion in outstanding debt. Falconer isn’t the only Serta plant to close over the past two years, and it likely won’t be the last. Additional competition in the marketplace isn’t helping Serta, either, nor are tariffs that are increasing costs for finished ...

Airport: Finally someone questions financing

It strikes us as a bit funny that fiscal common sense is finally starting to dawn on some county lawmakers when it comes to spending on the Chautauqua County Airport at Jamestown. Fred Johnson, R-Westfield, questioned the $212,000 cost of designs for a terminal apron and $469,920 for 34 new airfield guidance signs, both at the Jamestown airport. The projects come with a local share of $5,300 and $11,748, respectively. We give Johnson credit for his opposition. Most local officials would look at the relatively low local share of these projects and rubber stamp the receipt of federal ...