Spending $100,000 on murals and the construction of giant chairs sort of reminds me of work art projects commissioned by the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration back during the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

If Chautauqua County was not one of the most impoverished counties in the state, murals would seem a reasonable expenditure of public money but giant chairs no matter how much they depict the region’s connection to the furniture business are accidents waiting to happen. Imagine some old timer like me climbing up on one of those chairs so his wife can take a picture. As he climbs down, he falls crashing onto the pavement and breaks a bone or two. In our litigious times that means just one thing; sue Chautauqua County for half-a-million dollars! Something like that could happen and probably already has somewhere in this nation.

In the end the County Legislature showing common sense voted 17 to 1 to table the proposal. I question if murals and giant chairs would be a tourist attraction. Tourists and vacationers come to Chautauqua County for boating, fishing, and swimming on Lake Erie and Chautauqua Lake, activities at the Chautauqua Institution, the National Comedy Center and winter activities like snowboarding, skiing and snowmobiling. We should play to our strengths.

The Brooks-TLC Hospital saga continues. How many years have we been waiting for the release of state funds and for groundbreaking to occur? The answer is long enough so that in the normal course of human affairs two and perhaps even three hospitals could have been built.

Why is Gov. Kathy Hochul so reluctant to release the allocated state funds when last year she was all for allocating $600 million for the new Bills stadium? It seems to me that a modern rural hospital serving 40,000 residents is just as important as a new stadium and from a moral standpoint there is no comparison.

If the governor has not been sent a copy of the Stroudwater report, a copy should be forwarded to her immediately because it makes as clear a case for the construction of the new facility as anything that I have seen. As the report states, Brooks ran a $55 million deficit from 2018 to 2021 but a new facility would reduce the deficit to $3 million per year. Considering that this is a rural area with a high poverty rate, a state subsidy would be a reasonable expectation for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of New York state and money, a recent story in the OBSERVER was about the state’s continuing loss of citizens to other states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee with low or no state income tax.

According the article, in the 12-month period ending July 1, 2023, New York suffered a net loss of 101,984 residents according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2022 New York’s net domestic migration loss of 1.1 percent was exceeded only by California. These two states were joined by Illinois, and Pennsylvania at the top of the population loss list.

This loss can be attributed to a government that does not know how or even want to control spending. While the situation tends to worsen when progressive Democrats are running things, in the past Republicans have often joined in the spending spree. Added to high state income taxes are high sales taxes, property taxes, and high state fees for just about anything. A tax attorney once said that the tax computation for New York residents is simple. Residents are taxable on one thing: Everything.

There are two groups who are leading the outmigration. First are the young who want a future for themselves, and their families but don’t see that happening in New York. The other group are the very top earners who want to avoid city and state income taxes and New York’s 16% estate tax on estates over $5.5 million. This last group numbering approximately 84,000 taxpayers constitute 1% of taxpayers yet pay 46% of state income taxes. As they leave the state and establish residency in another state the burden of taxation to support out of control spending passes to the rest of us.

Be aware though that even when you move, even if you are not a top earner, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, who conducts 3,000 “non-resident” audits a year, and likely will still consider you a resident if you continue to own a home in New York no matter what else you do to establish residency in another state, according to tax attorneys.

That’s my take on spending and taxation.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com