Editor:

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month and the Cancer Services Program (CSP) of Genesee, Orleans, Wyoming and Niagara Counties (GOWN) wants to raise awareness that cervical cancer is preventable!

Regular screening is key to preventing cervical cancer or finding it early, when treatment is most effective. Cervical cancer screening tests can find the cells that lead to cancer before it starts, or, find cancer early when it is most easily treated. Our program can help you get screened, even if you do not have insurance.

According to the latest New York State data (2016), women without health insurance are much less likely to be screened for cervical cancer (71%) when compared to women with private health insurance (88%). The CSP can help close the screening gap for women without insurance.

The CSP offers free cervical cancer screening to eligible uninsured women, age 40 or older. Our program also provides free breast and colon cancer screening to eligible New York State residents.

Orleans County Residents can call (716) 278-4898 and if you live outside of the GOWN Region, call 1-866-442-CANCER (2262) today to find out if you qualify for free cancer screenings.

If you have insurance, talk to your doctor about cervical cancer screening. It is a covered service under most health plans, including Medicaid plans and plans participating in the New York State of Health.

You can prevent cervical cancer by getting screened!

Jessica Downey

Program Coordinator

Cancer Services Program of Genesee, Orleans, Wyoming & Niagara Counties

& Community Partners of Orleans Community Health

Editor:

It’s an issue of protecting personal liberty, free markets and the 10th amendment. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Most medical papers don’t combine the word addiction and cannabis. There’s a gray area there, the correct term is “cannabis use disorder.” Also there are already laws for impaired driving.  Legalization doesn’t significantly add to the problem, it’s always been there in the first place and comparatively minuscule to alcohol traffic accidents. Do we need laws to ban Ambien, cell phones etc… as well?

The Federal drug war has failed, prohibition has failed. We need to go back to a constitutional approach. There wasn’t even a law against cannabis use until the Marijuana TAX Act of 1937.  Up until this law was passed cannabis products were legal to sell in pharmacies and drug stores, as long as they were properly labeled and regulated. We’re on the wrong track and we can do so much better by just coming to common sense. The war against cannabis causes so much hardship, costs billions of dollars and has accomplished nothing.

The way the laws concerning cannabis are enforced is also very selective, even discriminatory. Statistics show that the socially disadvantaged, immigrants and ethnic minorities have significantly higher arrest rates.

Drug decriminalization, such as allowing the possession of small amounts of cannabis and possibly its cultivation for personal use, would alleviate these harms. Where decriminalization has been implemented – such as in several states in Australia and United States, as well as in Portugal and the Netherlands – no or only very small adverse effects have been shown on population cannabis usage rate.

The lack of evidence of increased use indicates that such a policy shift does not have adverse effects on cannabis-related harm while, at the same time, decreasing enforcement costs.

Licit and illicit drug use is a part of American society, we should work to minimize the effects rather than condemn them. In my opinion removing cannabis from the black market is an effective harm reduction policy.

Sincerely,

Greg McCarthy

Medina

Editor:

Photo by Cindy Burnside: A bald eagle is in flight last weekend in Barre at a field along Route 98.

I have been watching a Bald Eagle in Barre for over 15 years. I would catch sight of him/her flying very high up in the sky and was able to catch some fabulous photos of him about 10 years ago.

Over the last few years I have caught sight of him/her in various areas in Barre as well as in my own back yard.  A few years ago, roofers at our home were graced with his presence and he gave them a thrill to see his proud and majestic brilliance!

This past weekend, someone in the area, who knows how enthralled I am with this national bird, called me and told me that there was an eagle and a juvenile in a field on Route 98 in the Town of Barre. They gave me the location and I grabbed my camera – not having the best camera, I was able to photograph not only the baby, but its parents as well!

I am so excited that we, in the Town of Barre, can say we have a family of bald eagles living somewhere close by! I have waited years for this to happen and feel extremely blessed that this pair chose our town to live – with the wide open, unaltered, natural habitat, they have found it as lovely a place as we have!

Special notes regarding Bald Eagles from the DEC:

• In 1976 there was only one pair of bald eagles nesting in New York. Conservation efforts have increased that number to 389 territories in 2015.

• Bald eagles mate for life, which can be over 30 years. Nests are reused and added to each year, growing to over six feet across, eight feet deep, and weighing hundreds of pounds.

• An eagle’s 2-inch-long talons can exert 1,000 pounds of pressure per square inch

• Harassing, disturbing or injuring a bald eagle is a federal offense and carries a penalty of up to $20,000 and/or one year in jail. Remember that bald eagles should remain undisturbed, and it is important that they conserve energy during the winter months.

Please remember, it is a federal offense to harass or disturb them or their nesting area. Enjoy from a distance and love what you can see! Welcome to the neighborhood, Mr. & Mrs. Eagle and Baby!

Cindy Burnside

Barre

Editor:

One of the worst ideas ever to come out of Governor Cuomo’s office and to be proposed to the Legislature is the idea to legalize the use of recreational marijuana. What made our Governor change his mind?

Perhaps it was the lure of additional tax money that can be used to influence and control people’s lives. Society does not need another addictive substance to be freely available. While we crack down on the use of tobacco in order to promote good health, the door will be opening wide to the use of another addictive substance that is equally as bad, if not worse.

More “driving under the influence” will be one of the immediate results along with the attendant human suffering that accompanies it. This is well documented in states that have already legalized. Then there are the other addictive substances alcohol and opioids that are creating huge problems within our society and another will be added.

We are told the “benefits” outweigh the negatives. Have the negatives ever been honestly and openly discussed? No! The Governor’s Study Commission dutifully did his bidding to obtain more tax money.

Perhaps Albany has come to the realization that the free things so lavishly bestowed upon some, such as “free” college tuition are really not “free” and somehow have to be paid for. There is no free lunch! Consequently, the main motivation behind legalization is pure and simple greed. Albany does not need any more money to spend but certainly needs a truck load of spending discipline, and honesty to boot. “The power to spend is the power to destroy.” This cliché is most appropriate at this time. Let us come to our senses and drop this dangerous idea.

We will all be the better for it.

James C. Hoffman

Somerset

Editor:

Since Mr. Ray Burke publicly found it “hard to believe” I can have an opinion regarding what is going on in the Town of Gaines, I thought I would take the opportunity to politely remind him that the crux of my complaint was the negative tone of Gaines politics.

Mr. Burke responded by attacking mine and another letter writer’s character and credibility-which has become par for the course when a certain segment of the Gaines community is questioned. In many ways Mr. Burke proved my point even better than my own original letter did.

In his retort to my letter, Mr. Burke asked how many Gaines town board meetings I, and other people have attended and concluded his letter stating, “It looks to me that the only way to find out what wrong in the Town of Gaines (and it looks like other towns), is to go ask questions and demand answers rather than sitting back and writing Letters to the Editor.”

That sounds impressive, but there is a small fact that Mr. Burke omitted, according to the meeting minutes for the 2018 calendar year, Mr. Burke only addressed the town board once the entire year. He may have attended more Gaines town board meetings than I did last year, but we addressed the board the exact same amount last year. I addressed them in February, and from what I can gather, Mr. Burke does not live in Gaines year-round, so he was not at that meeting.

It should not matter how many board meetings I have attended, there is no prize. And while it may just look like I “sit back” I can assure you Mr. Burke, I am a very active member of this community and volunteer my time for multiple organizations and have paid taxes in Gaines for over 20 years.

I will conclude by saying that Mr. Burke, I respect your right to express your opinion, and I am happy you find time to attend meetings at your convenience. In the future I think we would all be better off if you stuck to the facts and left those of us who you think just “sit back,” out of your attacks.

Thom Jennings

Gaines

Editor:

Analysis of the fourth quarter 2018 comments to the state Department of Public Service regarding the proposed Lighthouse Wind project in Yates and Somerset continues to show overwhelming opposition.

In the quarter, there were 125 public comments received. Of these comments, 50 were found to be in favor of the project, 66 opposed, and 9 comments were actually found to reference the Heritage Wind project in Barre. In percentage terms, the comments related to Lighthouse Wind were 43 percent in favor, 57 percent opposed.

Since the inception of tracking the public comments, 339 comments, or 21 percent are in favor of the project, 1,260 comments, 79 percent, are opposed.

It has been suggested by other parties that multiple comments submitted by the same person be discounted, that is, each person’s opinion should be counted only once, not multiple times based on the number of comments submitted. Using that argument, during the fourth quarter of 2018, there were 43 commenters in favor of the project (45%) and 52 commenters (55%) opposed to the project. If anyone would care to go back to the beginning of the comments and perform a similar analysis on all 1,600+ comments, please feel free. I have better things to do.

It is interesting to note that only a few of the 50 fourth quarter comments in favor of the project contained any meaningful, substantive content.  Most of the in-favor comments were in the form of pre-printed postcards.

Also of particular notice during this quarter were the number of comments from persons living outside the project area and the immediate surrounding area, or who had no stated familial or recreational ties to the two affected towns. Strong weight should be given to the voices of those most impacted by this proposed project. Those living in other parts of New York State and even in other states may have their opinions, but those outside opinions cannot be given the same value as the opinions of those of us who would have to tolerate these industrial machines for the next 20 or so years.

Local comments in favor of the project numbered eight from seven individuals. Notable in this number is the fact that these in-favor comments came from four households, of which two are leaseholders who stand to profit from the project. A third is a relative of one of those two leaseholders. Of course these commenters would be expected to be in favor of the project.

Local opposition to the project was expressed in 60 comments from 50 individual commenters. In terms of percentages, 12 percent of local comments were supportive of the project, 88 percent opposed.

Whether or not you believe that climate change can be resolved through installation of hundreds of thousands of wind turbines across the country, and whether you support Governor Cuomo’s ambitious 50 by 30 plan or believe that it is a politically motivated, unattainable, unrealistic, economically wasteful boondoggle, the will of the members of the communities which would be affected by Lighthouse Wind remains clear. This project is overwhelmingly opposed.

Steve Royce

Appleton

Editor:

I will address some of Mr. Kent’s questions, having grown up in towns that bore the impacts of the Somerset power plant, but received none of the economic benefit. I only found out recently it was slated to be a nuclear plant, and in hindsight maybe that would have been better built then, than what we received instead.

In Newfane, for my childhood, we received a rumbling, noisy train… and no one complained incessantly about property values decimated or “infrasound” causing every manner of ailment imaginable. Behind my house was a creek so polluted from Lockport’s industrial “revolution” we couldn’t even swim in it. Down the road a chemical plant that regularly exploded, a saw mill that’s no longer there, and a harbor with a luxury hotel that ceased to exist long ago.

During my teenage years, I lived on 150 acres of naturally recovered farmland with woodlots dominating the center of the “block” in Hartland. During those years, Dutch Elm disease went through decimating the elm tree populations. No one told us what we could or couldn’t do with our trees, and no one complained when woodlots were turned into farmland or home sites either. Now our area, the entire Midwest through New England is seeing all the ash trees devastated by the Emerald Ash Borer, a beetle, that spreads faster as our winter’s warm.  Hundreds of millions of trees will die, without public outrage.

Recent fires in California were intensified by climate change aggravated droughts, beetles that thrive on weakened trees, and enormous fuel loads that resulted. We’re lucky in our area, due to regular moisture, incidental contact of trees with power lines (which is the norm driving around here) does not ignite fires, burn thousands of acres and kill people, albeit recent snowstorms did a number taking down dead elms and some residents’ power for over a week.

This region is in economic decline, honestly it has been for decades. I don’t know about Albion, but in Lockport the downtown has been in economic decline for decades (only recently we’ve seen some businesses take hold with focus on restoring the historic Erie Canal Locks area), while one discount store after another cleared woodlot after woodlot for ever bigger retail space, leaving empty buildings in their wake. I have seen nothing to indicate woodlots would be decimated by wind turbines.  Surely, nothing more than what has been accepted for decades without outrage or concern.

I reference Ms. Nacca, having watched some of the presentations she organized in Albion offering “alternatives” to wind turbines such as telling the audience nuclear fusion power is “just around the corner”. No it is not. It is 20 years out, just like it has always been since the promise of fusion power was first brought to us before I was born. Then, the same presenter claims he knows people whom have been killed by wind turbines. Prove it, would have been my response, at a clearly premeditated attempt to scare the audience with “little green men”.

For my mention of Ms. Nacca, she threatens legal action against me in her submission to the NYS DPS website? Are you kidding me?!

So what answer would satisfy you about setbacks (that have no data-derived merit to their determination), woodlots, street layouts or Warblers? I suspect there are none. Simply put, yourself, members of Save Ontario Shores, vocal town board members, etc., don’t want any economic development in these towns and unfortunately for other residents and our youth, their opposition to any and all projects in the area are dooming this area to continued economic decline.

There are lots of claims made, as to the importance of maintaining the “charm of rural life” for potential economic value in tourism. Gotta be honest, there’s a fine line between “maintaining” and “just letting things go”… tourists are not going to come to see the latter, and those that came to enjoy Golden Hill State Park all these years, didn’t turn around once the Somerset Power Plant’s smoke stack came into view, now did they? Claims that wind turbines in Somerset, Yates or Barre would drive tourists away are equally hollow.

It’s been over 25 years since I used to wait for the school bus along Route 104, watching “acceptable” economic development for the county pass by me one after another. Does Rochester still export its garbage to Niagara County, one tractor trailer after another? I don’t know. If they don’t anymore, maybe they should start again… need to bring money in one way, given all others are off the table.

As I wrote before, I have no interest in this area other than bringing to the attention of the readers the impasse and opportunity we have to bring energy projects to the area and benefit economically.

Respectively,

Hans Hyde

Lockport

Editor:

In response to Hans Hyde and Thom Jennings in the Letters to the Editor, I find it hard to believe that both of you (and I’m sure a lot more) have their own opinions of what is going on in the Town of Gaines.

But you won’t find the whole truth in the Letters to the Editor. My question to you is, how many Town Board meetings has you and other taxpayers gone to in the last year? I think most of the taxpayers will say none. And I say that because when I am home, I go to almost all of them.

It seems the same few tax payers are there consistently, and one or two will show up for their own issues. Such as one taxpayer asked a question as to why her water levy was always changing significantly, and so, the last Town Supervisor looked in to the situation. And I’m sure you’ll remember she found that the town was over levying the water districts more than the debt amount. The amount was $205,000 over an 8-year period.

One water district was so extreme the extra money paid off the whole debt and paid down the others. Then there was the 60 million gallons of water loss. No one to bill $170,000 worth of use and no one was looking. What is going on now without that watchful eye?

It seems to me that there’s a lot going on in the Town of Gaines that needs looking into. And now we find out there is over $250,000 owed to the Town of Carlton, so you’re right, there is something going on in the Town of Gaines – it looks like Carlton too and of course there is Murray. I’m sure there are a lot of questions that need to be asked by you and all taxpayers but, you need to get involved to find out the whole truth.

It looks to me that the only way to find out what wrong in the Town of Gaines (and it looks like other towns), is to go ask questions and demand answers rather than sitting back and writing Letters to the Editor. Of course, it is your Town and your money, but we will all pay the price.

Ray Burke

Gaines

Editor:

When Mr. Hyde addresses the question raised in my letter, perhaps his response to it will warrant further comment.

The question, essentially, is what price we are willing to pay for what he may think of as “progress”. And the issue is not nearly as complicated as some would have us believe.

Has Mr. Hyde witnessed the warblers in migration? Does he have long term trend data on our resident and seasonal bird populations?

It may be that his research is theoretical and technical in the extreme and inhibits his ability to reach conclusions about real places that are not found in reams of data. Has he mentioned the typical setbacks for what would possibly be perhaps the tallest wind turbines in the nation?

Has he looked at our road layouts and where woodlots typically are located? Does he realize, or care, where the turbines would have to be located as a result? Has he any calculations about the amount of farmland, wetland and woodland habitat that would be lost in the name of renewable energy generated by wind turbines more than three times as high as the Presbyterian church steeple in Albion?

As I noted in my earlier letter, he has valid points. Would it be asking too much to have equally serious environmental issues considered?

Sincerely yours,

Gary Kent

Albion

Editor:

New York State leads the nation in population loss. The net loss is 48,510. Out-of-state migration actually approached 200,000.

Governor Cuomo blames the weather on this population loss. It has nothing to do with his progressive policies which leads to an unfair tax burden to those who happen to bear those costs.

Many families and young adults are forced to leave the state to find employment as companies relocated away from NYS. Those who can vote with their feet with the help of the moving companies.

Now with a majority in both the Assembly and Senate, these progressive politicians will find more ways to fund their brilliant ideas. Enter the new carbon tax which is now being contemplated. This proposed legislation sets CO2 emission goals at 0% by the year 2050.

A tax will be imposed to force compliance with these standards. Rural areas will be faced with an unfair burden. Manufacturers will look to more business friendly states that don’t impose a tax which could be as high as 25%.

This will only increase the migration away from this state. I only hope these politicians observed the events in France before imposing this burdensome tax.

Ed Urbanik

Lyndonville