Breaking News

Opinion

Our opinion: Will billing change have benefits?

Our Opinion

It made plenty of sense from a cash flow perspective for Warren County officials to split tax billing rather than send one bill later in the year for county, school and municipal taxes. There’s a reason why every other county in the state had made this change before Warren County - it helps with county budgeting. But discussion during a recent Warren County Commissioners meeting shined a light on another potential benefit - fewer tax delinquencies. In 2013 Warren County had about 11% of tax bills end up being delinquent. Now, that number is 8.78%, a number that ends up equalling ...

Readers Speak

Letters To Editor

Pumped up prices Dear Editor, I was in Erie last week, gas was less than $3.19 per gallon at most stations. Jamestown is $3.39 and Warren is $3.69. What a ridiculous difference. Maybe we should all go to Erie or Jamestown for our gas. Bob Silzle, Russell Selective Due Process? Dear Editor, By now, primary votes have been cast for a new District Attorney for Warren County. I have no dispute with outgoing District Attorney Rob Greene or assistants Cody Brown or Casey Strickland. I think all have served us well regardless of personal opinions. One issue, however, keeps ...

Editor's corner: Etiquette can go south fast during town halls

Our Opinion

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Reed of New York knew he would be walking into a buzzsaw in 2017 during town hall meetings with constituents. In a New York Times video taken in North Harmony in February of that year, Reed stood calmly — and composed — while listening to concerns of those in ...

View from Hickory Heights: Two-wheel riding

Local Commentaries

Do you remember learning to ride a bicycle? When I was about eight years old, I got a bicycle for Christmas. Since we lived where we had snow, it sat in the garage until Spring. I was not a natural at riding a bike. It took days for me to learn the balancing technique. My mother and my grandfather took turns holding me steady and running along. I had no training wheels. Finally, one night I took off on my own. I did not realize I was on my own until I got way down the street. I was on the sidewalk by the way. My only problem was I did not know how to stop. I ended up in someone’s ...

Our opinion: Rethinking reassessment

Our Opinion

We hope that the current and future Warren County commissioners have been taking notes as the county’s property reassessment process drags on. Making the decision to finally undertake a property reassessment was necessary and correct. But postponing the decision for decades has created so much uncertainty among Warren County property owners that the process is far more difficult for taxpayers than it should be. No one is familiar with a process that should be at the very root of governance - making sure properties are assessed fairly so that taxpayers are paying a fair amount of ...

Another Memorial Day remembrance

Local Commentaries

Memorial Day was always a special day for me, even as a child. It was a particularly important day of remembrance for my mother. Every year, she made sure we wore the commemorative red poppies to honor her youngest brother, the family hero. Kenneth Arthur MacMillan was the youngest of four children. When their mother dies, my mother, Alberta, was 6 and the siblings were 4, 2 and baby Kenny was 14 months. He never knew his mother who spent the last months of her life in a tuberculosis sanitorium. Alberta remembered the four children gathering below their mummy’s window to wave and ...