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State makes right call delaying robot teacher in Salamanca

In Our Opinion

The state Education Department was right to ask the Salamanca City Central School District to pause its plan to launch a pilot program featuring a Realbotix educational robot and digital avatar in its high school STEAM program during the upcoming school year. There are a lot of unanswered questions that should be answered before this newest bit of technology is used in local classrooms. Concerns raised by parents and educators prompted Betty Rosa, state education commissioner, to send a letter to Salamanca school district officials requesting the pause. The pause prompted the New York ...

Money isn’t the sticking point for JHS kitchen issues

In Our Opinion

Change orders are nothing new in construction projects like the one taking place now at Jamestown High School. The Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education held a special meeting on Thursday to approve a $260,000 change order for the renovation project at JHS after two unforeseen issues were found in the JHS cafeteria kitchen. The problem the school district faces isn’t financial. The district had set aside $3.6 million for change orders on the project, with $1.2 million remaining. The additional money won’t be coming out of local tax dollars. There won’t be a future tax ...

In Our Opinion

In Our Opinion

Many readers of a certain age probably remember the famous public service announcement at the start of the late-night news asking parents if they knew where their children were. It was a staple of Buffalo news stations in the 1980s and into the 1990s. The genesis of the “"It's 10 p.m.; do you know where your children are?" began as far back as the 1960s by WNEW-TV in New York City as a nightly reminder for parents to enforce the Big Apple’s curfews and to know where their children were at night. Fast forward 60 years, and it’s obvious that some parents in Jamestown need that ...

Good news, bad news when it comes to population loss

In Our Opinion

The hollowing out of New York state continues largely unabated despite years of warnings about the state’s loss of population. While the state pays lip service to doing more to make New York a less expensive state in which to live, people are still leaving in droves. The net outflow of New Yorkers to other states has topped the 1 million mark since 2020, E.J. McMahon, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote earlier this year for City Journal. While the state has seen more migrants come to New York than estimated following the COVID-19 pandemic, even that positive ...

Trump whacks Canada again

Local Commentaries

You have to think that President Trump must have had a bad trip or unpleasant vacation in Canada, as I can’t think of any other legitimate reason for why he keeps attacking the country. This past week, he announced two major policy decisions/complaints relative to Canada: - he announced a new 50% tariff on many of the goods Canada sells to the United States; and - he blamed the Canadian government for the smoke-filled skies coming from forest and brush fires in that country. It is always interesting to me that our President never seems to accept responsibility for much of ...

Tony Dolce, ever the teacher, leaves a lesson for Jamestown

In Our Opinion

It’s been a difficult week for many in leadership positions throughout the city after the sudden passing of Tony Dolce. Today, Ss. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church will be filled with family and friends saying their final goodbyes to a man who worked both publicly and privately for the good of the community. Dolce was a devoted family man, a teacher who was ingrained in the fabric of Jamestown High School, was heavily involved in his church - including helping save it from extinction, was an institution on the City Council and devoted his time on countless volunteer boards and ...