There is no tax increase in Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi's budget proposal for next year, which totals just under $36-million...
Teresi spent nearly an hour laying out particulars of the 2019 spending plan during Tuesday afternoon's presentation at City Hall. He says the budget is balanced, thanks in part to another commitment by the state for an additional one-million dollars in aid. Teresi says there are three reasons the city receives the aid, the biggest likely being that most municpalities got two-percent cuts in state aid when the state was running deficits in 2009-2010.
The Board of Public Utilities Electric Division budget is included in the formula for Jamestown, thus reducing it's Aid and Incentives to Municipalites -- or AIM payments. Teresi says the proposed tax levy, or the amount of money to be raised by taxes, would remain the same in 2019 at $16,011,000. However, the tax rate would decrease by 13-cents per thousand full value. Teresi adds the budget also comes in $470,000 under the state's two-percent property tax cap.
A Forestville woman has been arrested for allegedly operating an illegal methamphetime lab in the village following a raid late last week...
Agents with the Southern Tier Regional Drug Task Force say they arrested 28 year-old Tinesha Kenny on an arrest warrant issued out of Hanover Town Court. Task Force members accuse Kenny of manufacturing meth while living at the Pearl Street home, and then had unlawfully disposed of the toxic byproducts and laboratory materials that resulted. She is charged with one count each of third-degree unlawful manufacture of Methamphetamine and, unlawful disposal of Methamphetamine Laboratory Materials. Kenny was arraigned in Hanover Town Court, then released to the Erie County Sheriff's Office so that she could be taken to Erie County to be arraigned on additional warrants there. The task force urges residents who see or hear about illegal drug activity to contact them at 1-800-344-8702.
Republican U-S Senate candidate Chele Farley knows the odds aren't in her favor, but believes she can make a race of it against a well-known incumbant....
Farley's effort to upset Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand came to Chautauqua County for the first time yesterday and was on the offensive against Gillibrand. The New York City businesswoman says -- first of all -- New York needs a Senator who will push for the state to get it's fair share of federal aid.
In 2017, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli noted that New York gets back 84-cents on the dollar from the federal government, but noted it was many policy matters that led to that short-changing. Farley says New York's federal tax issues could be exacerbated by the new cap on the State and Local Tax Deduction, otherwise known as SALT. However, she says Gillibrand should have done more than just call it a bad bill. She says the Democrat should have tried to negotiate something better. Farley and Gillibrand have both agreed to a one-on-one debate on October 21 that'll be televised on Spectrum Cable and New York-One from Skidmore College.
There will be a new head of the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation - starting today - after the resignation of Executive Director Lisa Hatch....
JRC Spokesman Zach Agatt says Peter Miraglia will be the interim Director. Agatt says Miraglia has been an active member of the JRC board of directors for the past three years. He also serves on the Mayor's ad-hoc downtown parking study committee. Back in 2001, he purchased and began renovations to the former Nelson's Department store building located on East 2nd Street in Jamestown. Miraglia was born and raised in Jamestown and, has worked more than 30 years in project management and supervisory capacities. In 2012, he and his wife, Melissa, moved back to the area.
A state transportation official says the owner of the limousine that crashed and killed 20 people in upstate New York was warned not to operate the vehicle after it failed an inspection...
Department of Transportation Spokesman Joseph Morrissey said Tuesday that the 2001 Ford Excursion that crashed Saturday was placed out of service after a September inspection and was subject to additional inspections. Lee Kindlon, attorney for Prestige Limousine, says code violations cited in a September 4th inspection had been corrected and the limousine cleared for service. Morrissey says that's "categorically false." The limousine ran a stop sign and crashed on a rural road 25 miles west of Albany on Saturday, killing the driver, all 17 passengers and two pedestrians. State police and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating what caused the crash.
The attorney representing a man accused of killing his wife and tossing her body into Lake Erie is arguing that she killed herself because she was upset that her husband had been having an affair....
The Erie Times-News reports that defense attorney Bruce Sandmeyer argued Tuesday that 49-year-old Christopher Leclair was "overwhelmed" and "simply did not want people to know" that his wife had taken her own life. Sandmeyer conceded that Leclair was cheating on 51-year-old Karen Leclair in the months before she died in the summer of 2017, and he also acknowledged that his client bound her body with rope and dropped it into the lake from their commercial fishing boat. But, he says a forensic pathologist will testify that the gunshot wound is consistent with a self-inflicted wound.
