Editor:

Tuesday as we head to the polls, after casting your vote for the candidates, it is very important to also cast your “no” vote on the back of the ballot regarding Proposal number 2, changing the town supervisor term from 2 to 4 years.

This will keep the town of Shelby government in the hands of the people.

I believe keeping the town supervisor term at 2 years is beneficial to the people of the Town of Shelby. If the Supervisor is doing a good job, he will have no problem getting  re-elected every 2 years.

Please remember to turn your ballot over and vote “no” on proposal 2.

Sincerely,

Sharlene Pratt

Medina

Editor:

We enjoy unsung heroes in life. Some do good deeds because it’s the right thing to do, some do because it’s wired in their DNA. Susan Williams was one of these heroes.

There was nothing she would not do to help the dire situations of dogs. From rescuing unwanted pets in Niagara Falls, to dragging me to the local “pound” to spring a former save-a-pet dog that was ditched by an unscrupulous adopter,  Susan took charge.

I was always in awe of this tiny but strong woman “just getting things done.” Susan told it like it was, and people knew she was relentless when it came to a voiceless dog. If there was no foster home, she took them in to her home until one was found.

I introduced her to Save-a-Pet Niagara and Susan found a place to organize her calling. She became a board member, dog officer and fund raiser. Add caring for her fosters…I was so proud of Susan.

Now what? I can only pray that in her honor, another hero will step up. Susan’s passing brought a flood of tears and a reminder that life is not just about shallow things. It is nothing if you don’t give back.

A glass of wine is lifted to my dear friend. Rest easy, Susan. I see Jersey leaping and running to you, along with so many happy dogs.

Debby Rodrigues

Medina

Editor:

On Tuesday please remember to thank the poll workers.

No one has ever accused them of getting rich for doing their part. The world envies how they run time-proven systems of checks and balances to accurately count ballots with integrity.

Please remember to smile back. Being civil to these our friends and neighbors is not political; it’s a show of plain old American goodness.

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that about 73% of farm workers are migrants and that half of those are undocumented.

Our immigration system is broken and has been for many years. In 2014 a bipartisan immigration bill, supported by John McCain and Lindsay Graham, failed because Republicans in the House refused to bring up the bill for a vote.

President Biden has proposed an immigration legislation on his first day in office but Republicans, like Lee Zeldin and Claudia Tenney, refuse to work with Democrats to fix our immigration system. If voters are truly concerned about our immigration system and the need for farm workers then vote for Democrats this election.

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

The next few days will decide the fate of U.S. democracy. Our nation is at a critical point. We must come together to save democracy as we have known it for the past 250 years or succumb to the hell of dictatorship.

“We The People” must be strong, see past our wallets, rise above our own needs and selfish concerns. Inflation is worldwide, much worse in most other countries.

Basing votes on immediate kitchen table issues like gas and food prices will be more costly in the long run. I would rather pay more at the pump now than lose my right to free and fair elections or bodily autonomy. We can tighten spending; inflation shall pass. The loss of democracy will not fade away.

“If you care about democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand – we all have to understand – that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.” Liz Cheney (R-WY) 10/06/22.

“We The People” can’t take democracy for granted any longer. Democracy itself is at stake. The fate of our nation is in our hands… vote thoughtfully.

Carol Nochajski

Wilson

Editor:

This is an open letter congratulating Congressman Chris Jacobs on his stance with automatic weapons.

Recently we watched a 1970s Gunsmoke episode that depicted the difficult to impossible situations in which we put police: The citizens of a small community passed some regulation that made an influential cattleman angry. He threatened violence with his 30 cowboys, unless it was rescinded.

The banker and big businessmen in town, equally influential, demanded the sheriff protect them. “That’s what we hired you for!”

The sheriff pointed out that he and his one deputy couldn’t prevail against 30 armed cowboys.   Matt Dillon was a visiting marshal. Dillon intervened, recruited help, managed a truce.

But that’s what we do when we ask the police to stop madmen with automatic weapons. Our police can’t arm with automatic weapons. Victims would likely die with the assaulter, and neighbors and fellow policemen. There’s been 417 mass killings thus far this year.

Thank you Congressman Jacobs for your politically courageous stand on what we and many see as sensible precautions on rapid-fire assault weapons. FBI background checks on those applying for licenses, a 5 year term, and allowing for those deemed a danger to themselves and others to lose the privilege.

It’s a start. It should help save lives. It possibly would have stopped the Buffalo Tops murders.

Also, it has the added benefit of protecting our police. They found themselves outgunned in the

Buffalo store and in many other instances.

To us, this is another Life issue.

Robert E. Golden

Waterport

Editor:

I attended the most recent village board meeting, Oct. 26, in the village of Albion. I asked a few questions, mostly directed towards the mayor.

The mayor definitely mislead board members and the taxpayers into believing that it was necessary to hire a firm to do an “audit” of the last police contract signed by both parties. The contract was negotiated in good faith. There was no intentional misleading involved at all.

The mayor spent thousands of dollars hiring an agency to conduct, what he calls, an audit. Then, he spent more money on attorney fees? The report came back that the village overpaid the police by over $200,000 over the past five years.

However, it turns out that this was not an audit at all, but only a report based on information given only by the mayor. And to make things worse, the mayor went to the press before even talking with the police union, current and past board members to possibly figure out a solution to a so-called problem. Huge mistake.

As I said back a few months ago, “the mayor will have egg on his face.” And that is coming to fruition as we speak. The village attorney admitted that the counsel for both the police union and the village were currently negotiating a settlement agreement.

Mr. Mayor, make sure you have all the facts before you jump to conclusions.

To the Village Board, please don’t ever mess with public safety. We are the public and we want to feel safe.

Thomas K. O’Hearn, retired lieutenant Albion Police Department

Albion

Editor:

A recent letter to the Hub conflated illegal drug smuggling with migrants crossing our southern border.

Let’s be clear; the amount of drugs entering the country by migrants is very small. The vast majority of illegal drugs enters the border at ports of entry. Brian Sulc, executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Transnational Organized Crime Mission Center, testified to a congressional committee in May that it is very rare for migrants or undocumented immigrants to bring in illegal drugs.

Furthermore, he testified that most fentanyl smuggling is done by U.S. citizens at ports of entry. Conflating migrants with the illegal drug trade is both ignorant and racist.

William Fine

Brockport

Editor:

Last week Rep. Katie Porter (D), a first-rate cross examiner, showed why witnesses shake in their boots at the prospect of her precise questioning. But did you hear about it? She exposed how some think freedom is meant to serve their own needs and wants.

She extracted admissions in Congressional testimony that half of all inflation is due to increased corporate profits by Republican donors. They are picking voters pockets.

In fact some inflation is due to Ukraine and Russia cutting off gas and grain supplies, some is Chinese factory shut downs, and some is our historically low unemployment, and some is the War in Ukraine. But half is greed and none due to Biden’s budgets.

Some of the numbers on total price increases feeding corporate profit are:

1. Medical insurance – $69 billion more profit despite COVID;

2. Gas – the biggest five oil companies at $59 billion dollars with another $89 billion in stock repurchase to increase stockholders’ equity;

3. Food – agribusiness an extra $389 billion.

In fact polls which show that  Republicans are more trusted with the economy reflect 50 years of repeating out-of-date data and political dogma. Democrats have to find a way to strip these lies bare in less time than it takes Republicans to tell them. None of the following facts seems to be enough.

Fact: The country’s deficits have only increased under every Republican president since 1982.  They have  gone down under every Democratic president since 1990.

Fact:  Three people have more wealth than the bottom half of our nation.

Fact: Republicans have three proposals to cut or eliminate social security.

Fact: Before it goes into effect in January, Sen. Rubio has now sponsored a bill to reimpose price fixing for our medicines which will cost us the trillion dollar savings on drugs Biden pushed through.

Faced with facts like these it’s legitimate to ask if voters stuck in the ’80s have any savvy. Or is it a case of CPAC and MAGA adapting Russian, Brazilian, Turkey, and Hungarian economic and racist propaganda? They do support each other’s conventions and rallies.

In our best, most prosperous times, both Democrats and Republicans understood that economic prosperity depends on is keeping democracy healthy. MAGA types and CPAC were simply not allowed in the Republican Party.

There is extensive history from the ’40s to ’70s detailing how conservative Republicans kept them in their place – on the margins as mere nuisances spouting unhinged, unworkable, wild-eyed, fact-free conspiracy theories.

In a serious world Rep. Porter’s dissection disclosing corporate greed would put Democrats in the lead in this election.

I’ll keep saying it but the Republican Party will only be cleaned up and democracy preserved if it loses and is forced to again respect facts and the lessons of history. America was founded on an idea they do not understand. Time has not changed that. Being persuaded by self interest and heavy-handed anti-democratic foreigners and economics geared to profit cronies is too dangerous to tolerate. MAGA and CPAC dogma is antidemocratic and hurting peoples’ wallets.

K. Porter just gave a Master’s Class in keeping your money in your wallet and everyone was too wound up to notice it. She understands democracy is selfless and wages of idealism are universally tangible.

Conrad F. Cropsey

Albion

Editor:

In response to Mr. Mundy, I will not disagree completely with your letter. I do wish to direct you to a DEA report (click here) about fentanyl flow to the United States that show Mexico and China are primary sources of fentanyl trafficking with India an emerging source.

If you read that report and “China Primer: Illicit Fentanyl and China’s Role,” you see fentanyl is coming from China and India! The Biden administration is taking a hard stance on China.

The flow is across both borders and has been since 2014. The current Administration has taken efforts to control this flow. Making assertions to impeach a President and adjudicate for accessory to murder are very serious statements.

The border issue is serious. It has not been controlled for many years. Multiple administrations have tried various attempts and no one has been entirely successful.

I do agree that something needs to be done. It needs to start by immigrants remaining in their counties and applying for entry from there. It needs Mexican intervention at entry points to Mexico and on the US southern border. Walls and closing legal crossings will increase other methods of illegal entry.

People fleeing bad living situations will continue to try any method of entry to what they perceive to be a utopia. The US also needs to not have use for illegals in the labor force. Unfortunately, cheap labor and jobs that are seemingly beneath current US citizens make this impossible to control. A recession coming, war in Europe and the possibility or war in the Far East also will increase illegal entry on all borders!

While there is much rhetoric, neither party seems to give us an answer to solving immigration or illegal transportation of drugs. Opioids are a serious problem, being tough on crime does not solve the opioid problem.

Closing the border does not stop the demand for the drugs. We have a crisis that needs leadership, not words. I do not see that leader in the many candidates for office now, currently in office or future candidates front running for 2024.

I do thank you for speaking out.  We as citizens need to be vocal for change in a positive direction to allow our democracy to survive and be a beacon of light in the world.

I remind all to remember Emma Lazarus’ poem beneath the Statue of Liberty and the fact that the majority of Americans are descendant of immigrants.

Thank you.

Dayton Hausman

Medina

Editor:

Note: Monday, April 8, 2024 is a total solar eclipse crossing Orleans County and much of Lake Ontario.

Preparations should be better publicized (how about an Orleans Hub special section?).  Will State and local campgrounds be open? Can our marinas handle the demand? Can spots in the Erie Canal be rented to boats for this?

I am sure there are plans but the community needs to be better informed.

Gerard M. Morrisey

Albion

Editor:

This letter is directed to Governor Hochul.

I write to express my ongoing concerns about the flawed and failed bail reform laws which were passed in this state and signed into law by your predecessor in January 2020. Violent crime committed by repeat offenders in New York State is at now epidemic proportions, especially with such crimes as domestic abuse, that put women and children in our communities at grave risk.

I implore you to immediately call the legislature into emergency session to make the necessary reforms to this failed law to ensure public safety for all New Yorkers.

Just last week in Buffalo, NY – our shared hometown – a mother of three children was murdered by her estranged husband who was released on his own recognizance without bail, despite being brought in on domestic violence-related charges. This murder is yet another case of preventable death in our state.

It is unacceptable that a man with a record of violence and domestic abuse, one who had been recorded just days before beating his wife in their home and who was arrested on multiple domestic violence-related charges, could be released on his own recognizance because his charges were deemed “bail ineligible.”

Numerous studies have shown domestic violence incidents are not isolated, and escalation is highly probable. According to a 2016 study, 10 to 18 percent of those arrested for domestic violence are arrested again within six months, 15 to 30 percent face a second arrest within 28 months, and up to 60 percent are rearrested within 10 years. Had the judge been afforded judicial discretion in this case, this man would have not been released, and a life may have been saved.

This is one of many instances of a police officer making an arrest for a serious crime only to have that offender back in the community committing more violence. In August 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams released a study detailing how a group of career criminals has accumulated hundreds of arrests yet are still roaming the streets, free to commit additional crimes, due to our failed “bail reform” laws.

Your office’s defense that this problem was fixed or that these incidents are not data, but rather anecdotal evidence, disregards the countless families whose lives have been upended by violent crime committed by offenders who would otherwise be behind bars.

Our Erie County Democratic District Attorney John J. Flynn said after this needless murder, “This could easily be solved with one sentence in the bail law.” That one sentence would provide judges with discretion to consider “dangerousness” when determining bail.

We have a serious problem in New York State, and there is an immediate need for reform to our failed bail laws. I implore you to call an immediate special session of our legislature to first address the need for increased judicial discretion to limit the release of individuals who are arrested with domestic violence charges; and second, to reform the entire law to give judges the authority they previously had, and now desperately need, to keep dangerous individuals in custody. No family should have to suffer the pain of losing a loved one to a violent criminal who was set free under your failed system.

Congressman Chris Jacobs

Orchard Park

Editor:

I drive down various roads and I see signs using profanity to express a resident’s thoughts about Joe Biden. Instead of using profanity to express your thoughts use an active verb like “impeach” in reference to Joe Biden.

I will give one example of why he should be impeached and then be tried for accessory to murder.

Drug overdose deaths have increased to over 100,000 in the 12-month period ending February of this year. A large portion of these deaths are due to fentanyl coming across our southern border.

Although Biden and his minions keep telling us the southern border is secure it is clear to anyone with eyes and a brain this is not true. The latest is fentanyl-laced rainbow pills to tempt and deceive our young people.

The Constitution says a President can be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. Dereliction of his duties to defend the United States by not securing the southern border and allowing fentanyl into the United States and accessory to murder for the resulting overdose deaths fit the definition of high crimes.

Considering this he must be impeached and removed from office. Once removed from office he must be tried for multiple counts of accessory to murder.

In this country we are seeing 300 unnecessary drug overdose deaths per day so every ten days we are killing as many people as died in 9/11. The New York Post published an interesting opinion article on this topic (click here). Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has taken up this issue by deeming the Mexican cartels terrorist organizations.

Forget “cruelty” of Martha’s Vineyard: Biden’s open border has let cartels kill more Americans from fentanyl than any terror org.

Voting for the status quo will only perpetuate the crimes and make you an enabler of the crimes.

Harold E. Mundy

Clarkson

Editor:

The goals and objectives of the New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (The Act) passed in 2020, and subsequent supporting legislation needs to be reassessed, along with the parallel legislation at the Federal level.

The Act, contrary to its benevolent sounding title, offers anything but community protection. The Act is an assault on our  communities and our freedoms. The Act is having a dramatic effect on our lives, our economy and our security. The public needs the assurance that the cure is not worse than the disease and that the Climate Change Movement has not disintegrated into an elite socialist one that ignores science, damages our economy and restricts our personal freedoms.

An example of the economic damage of The Act  is the goal to make all new passenger cars and trucks sold in New York State zero emission by 2035, zero emission essentially meaning electrically driven vehicles that are no cleaner than the process by which the energy they consume is generated.

Ultimately The Act will outlaw or tax out of existence all fossil-fueled vehicles. Studies have shown that side by side in the showroom electric vehicles are more expensive to build, “dirtier” to construct and their clean benefits may show up only after many thousand miles of driving. Issues such as  range problems, lack of fueling stations, fire safety, battery recycling and disposal, excessive consumption of critical materials such as copper, and huge losses of tax revenue are not being honestly addressed.

Without heavy government subsidies, both state and federal, there is no market for electric vehicles. In order for them to be competitive with fossil-fueled vehicles a breakthrough in battery technology is necessary. That breakthrough has yet to materialize!

Realizing the legislation to ban the purchase of fossil-fueled vehicles was a “non-starter” for the public, The Act calls for the development of a marketing strategy to promote them, i.e., A government super propaganda blitz, that has already begun. Further the automobile industry and the fossil fuel industry are being relentlessly attacked placing tens of thousands of good paying jobs at risk.

Other issues abound with The Act as the public will be forced to electrify homes and forced to  give up clean burning natural gas and propane appliances. No clean energy projects should be undertaken without an in depth cost-benefit analysis. Sadly, this is not being done as the Climate Change Movement continues to drive up costs across the board.

The Act denies Home Rule to our communities as the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) created by The Act, was given the authority to overrule local law if found to be “unnecessarily burdensome.” Further the ORES is staffed by unelected officials that are not accountable to the public.

“Clean Energy” projects must be under local control, not dictated from Albany or Washington as it is the local community that bears the scars of those projects. ORES regulations are currently being challenged in court and hopefully will be significantly revised in the near future.

Solar and wind energy are being relied on to arrive at a carbon free future. They are being heavily subsided to achieve that end. Without subsidies both federal and state the solar/wind industry would disappear. Solar and wind energy are highly unreliable as they are dependent on the unpredictability of the weather. Reliable and diversified sources of energy are a must for economic and national security reasons. Nuclear energy and clean-burning natural gas must be in the mix. Research into clean-burning coal and carbon capture must be continued. Where is diversity when it is desperately needed?

In summary, a reassessment of our state energy policies as well as those on a national level must take place as neglecting to do is having a detrimental effect on our lives and our economy not to mention our national security.

New York can lead the way. Voters should insist.

James C. Hoffman

Town of Somerset

Editor:

I have been an amateur birdwatcher my entire adult life. I have birded extensively in western New York and have volunteered for various agencies and non-profits including the US Fish and Wildlife at Iroquois NWR, the DEC at Oak Orchard and Tonawanda WMA, Buffalo Ornithological Society and Buffalo Audubon Society.

The loss of bird life is widely noticeable in western New York. While I support renewable energy and reduction of greenhouse gasses, I am opposed to the Borrego wind turbines that are proposed for our township directly 4 miles north of Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.

While renewable energy development that reduces warming of the atmosphere is critically important to our move away from fossil fuels, unfortunately it is known that wind energy development has a substantial negative impact on birds. The American Bird Conservancy has averaged the results from a trio of studies done in 2012-2014, the latest data published, and arrived at the number 366,000 birds killed by wind turbines in the US in 2012.

American Bird Conservancy looked at data from the US Wind Turbine Database and wrote that in 2021 there were 65,548 wind turbines, a 47% increase in the industry, and by projection estimates that there are 538,000 wind-turbine caused bird deaths in the US each year.

ABC then projected mortality based on energy produced by turbines, since that accounts for the size of the turbines as well as their numbers. This increases the bird mortality to 681,000 birds currently killed by wind turbines in the US each year.

A recent study of bird death detections also shows that searching with dogs detected up to 2.7 times the number of small dead songbirds than were detected by humans. This would translate into 1.17 million birds killed by wind turbines in the US each year.

If new turbines are located far from existing power grids and require constructing new powerlines, the indirect effect of those powerlines are another source of bird mortality incurred when turbines are installed.

Wind energy companies conduct their own mortality studies but are under no obligation to share this data with the public, which would provide a clearer picture of the cost to our birds. We should be asking our representatives to require this information be made public so that conservation efforts could be enhanced to mitigate the loss of bird life.

Regardless of mortality numbers, birds are already facing many threats, and should not have to also be threatened by wind turbines. In the publication Science, September 2019, we learned of the alarming warning that the US and Canada have lost 3 billion breeding birds since 1970, a loss of 1 in 4 birds. Even worse, State of the Birds.org just published their 2022 appraisal of the steep population losses in virtually all habitats. They identify 70 tipping point species that “have lost half or more of their breeding population since 1970 and are on track to lose another half or more in the next 50 years.”

Of those 70 tipping point species, fourteen have been seen and utilize Iroquois NWR, directly south of Medina. They are American Golden Plover, Bobolink, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Chimney Swift, Evening Grosbeak, Golden-winged Warbler, King Rail, Lesser Yellowlegs, Whimbrel, Stilt Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone and Pectoral Sandpiper, one-fifth of the species at a tipping point.

Mid-Atlantic Flyway species’ migratory pathways are shown on the MOTUS.org website, moving through the range of the proposed 633-foot-tall turbines proposed for Shelby. We know that birds have traveled incredible distances to rest and refuel at Iroquois NWR each spring and fall, before continuing to either their northerly breeding sites in the boreal forests of Canada or the Arctic wetlands or on their return trip to wintering grounds in central and South America.

There is no dispute that we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but without adequate study of the costs to wildlife or consideration for using the least disruptive renewable method to the natural world, actions like rushed installation of wind turbines in sensitive areas becomes our own loss. Birds belong to all of us. Their loss has much larger ramifications to the ecosystem.

Therefore, I ask that residents of Orleans and Genesee counties voice their opinions and reject the proposed Borrego wind turbine installation between South Gravel Road and Salt Works Road.

Respectfully submitted,

Celeste Morien

Medina