Chautauqua County

It's about as easy to put together a county budget for 2021 as it is to figure out how soon there will be enough COVID-19 vaccine around to take care of everyone who wants it. Chautauqua County Executive P.J. Wendel submitted his budget for next year to the County Legislature Wednesday.

Chautauqua County officials say there is a COVID-19 hot spot at a Dunkirk ice cream plant, with 22 new cases and more expected in an all-out push to test everyone connected with Fieldbrook Foods.

Sometime in the near future, county health departments across New York State will be told by Albany what to do if a student, teacher or staff member in a school becomes infected with COVID-19. Until then, many questions remain.

There was a time when the fruits of hot summer misbehavior were hangovers and bad sunburns. Chautauqua County is seeing COVID-19 infections.

Western New York is inching closer to starting the reopening process under the state's seven criteria for starting up. The statewide lockdown order, also called PAUSE, is set to expire May 15.

Some have raised questions on the practicality of grouping southern counties in with Erie County and Western New York, as opposed to the Southern Tier in re-opening plans.

While Chautauqua County sits adjacent to Erie County, the coronavirus has had a drastically different impact on the two entities. Hundreds of Erie County residents have been infected with the virus, with 266 deaths attributed to COVID-19.  In Chautauqua County, there have been less than 40 confirmed cases of COVID-19; three lives have been claimed by the virus. County Executive P.J. Wendel reports four county residents are currently dealing with the virus. "Prior to Tuesday, we had not had a hospitalization for  COVID-19 since the eighth of April."

You have limited advance knowledge of how much money you will get from Washington or Albany, you don't know what your sales tax will be and you don't know what your Medicaid costs will be because there is a pandemic roiling the world. Now, running a local government, town or county.

The blast of winter brought on a Code Blue night. That's not unusual, but what isn't often noticed is that the Code Blue can be declared in places beyond the City of Buffalo.

Child care advocates will gather in Albany Tuesday to call for more state funding amid a growing child care availability crisis, which a new survey found is worst for infants in Western and Central New York.

And the winner is.... Those were the words anxiously clung to Tuesday evening, as "Small Business Revolution" live-streamed which of its Top 5 finalists would receive a $500,000 small business makeover. In the end, there was good news for the packed crowd inside and outside the Fredonia Opera House - and a special live appearance by the television show's co-host.

Chautauqua County Executive George Borrello is moving up in the political world, after his victory Tuesday to fill the State Senate seat vacated when GOP Sen. Cathy Young resigned to take a position with Cornell University.

A lot of Erie County voters took advantage of the new early voting system to cast their ballots before Tuesday's Election Day.

With blasts at Albany for ever-more unfunded mandates, Chautauqua County Executive George Borrello said he still managed to keep the tax rate steady in the budget for next year he presented to the County Legislature Wednesday night.

The decrepit five miles of the New York State Thruway through Seneca Nation land is turning into a political free-for-all, with no immediate prospects the road will be repaired. The road is so bad, the speed limit is down to 45 mph.

There is no plan for wind generators off-shore from southern Erie County, but opponents are organizing just in case. A firm called Diamond Wind is expected to file for at least 50 generators in the lake next month, when as a window for wind farm applications opens.