It seems to us . . .
MESSAGE FROM ABOVE: We feel for the investors who delivered their delayed down payment for the Statler on Wednesday—just hours before a chunk of the cornice fell off, smashing on the street far below. (Updated: 10/31/09 7:49 AM )
County Legislature races
All 15 Erie County Legislature seats are on the ballot this year, but there are real
contests in only 10 of them. Incumbents Tim Kennedy (D, 2nd District), Barbara Miller-Williams
(D, 3rd), Maria Whyte (D, 6th), Betty Jean Grant (D, 7th) and John Mills (R, 13th) have no
major challenges. (Updated: 10/30/09 12:49 PM )
Kadet for comptroller
The strength of any public comptroller's office flows not only from the hard facts of its
numbers, but from the amorphous quality of credibility. For a comptroller to be effective,
taxpayers need to believe that nothing but sound accounting principals are coloring his
assessment of public finances. Specifically, that means that personal political considerations
can have no role. (Updated: 10/29/09 3:27 PM )
Help on easing blight
Mr. Donovan, tear down this house. And this one. And this one. And that one over there. (Updated: 10/29/09 7:10 AM )
Glascott for county sheriff
The buck stops at Erie County Sheriff Timothy B. Howard's desk. The vote should go to his
challenger, Cheektowaga Police Capt. John A. Glascott. The department needs change. (Updated: 10/28/09 9:36 AM )
Experience a factor in Amherst
There are three candidates for the post of Amherst town supervisor being vacated by Satish Mohan.We recommend a vote for first-term Town Board Member Barry Weinstein. (Updated: 10/28/09 7:11 AM )
Moody's blues
The financial markets didn't just collapse. They were sabotaged. And the people who did it
have names and addresses. (Updated: 10/26/09 11:04 PM )
Consider education reforms
Assemblyman Sam Hoyt’s call for a complete overhaul of education is, on the face of it, a worthwhile idea. But that’s exactly what his reform bill will remain without a realistic chance of getting out of committee in the Assembly or of finding of a sponsor in the Senate. (Updated: 10/27/09 7:10 AM )
Let insurers compete
It is one thing for the nation's big health insurance providers to object to a plan that
would have them competing against a government-owned health insurance offering. It is quite
another to hear them object to the idea of more competition from one another. (Updated: 10/25/09 11:23 PM )
Scare tactics in czar city
One thing we need to remember about all those ominous “czars” that President Obama has appointed, the ones that are causing such concern in Congress and in the blogosphere, is that nobody at the White House calls them that. Not within earshot of the press, anyway. (Updated: 10/26/09 7:07 AM )
Iraq paid a heavy price
Those who favored the war in Iraq are right to claim that, in an important sense, it was a
mission accomplished. (Updated: 10/24/09 4:25 PM )
Post all bills
This is an age of instant global communication, where everything from stupid pet trick videos to the entire text of the Bhagavad Gita (in multiple translations) is available to anyone who can click a mouse. Does it make sense, then, that neither the public nor members of Congress can count on having timely access to bills that may soon become law? (Updated: 10/25/09 7:27 AM )
Reforms for pension fund
New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has put forth a plan to establish a board
of trustees to maintain the state's pension fund. That's not a bad idea — because now,
control over $116.5 billion in one of the nation's largest pension funds rests with one
person. (Updated: 10/24/09 10:07 AM )
It seems to us . . .
AHA!: In the category of “parents already knew this,” word arrives that several national and international musicians, including bands the likes of R. E. M. and Pearl Jam, have joined a campaign to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in protest over the use of music to torture prisoners there. (Updated: 10/24/09 8:24 AM )
Reform — and improve
Sometimes it pays to hear people talk common sense. That's what occurred this week at a
hearing on New York's soon-to-expire Empire Zone program. Developers and other speakers told
Assemblyman Robin Schimminger the truth about what needs to happen. The question now is how
much — or whether — the truth matters in Albany. (Updated: 10/22/09 10:02 PM )
