LETTER What will you choose?
Over this 4th of July weekend, I received a text message from "actmaga" offering me an "Alligator Alcatraz" shirt. Let's see: Our tax dollars paid to build an inhumane prison camp for brown-skinned people.
Opinion
Read MoreLETTER What will you choose?
O'MARA: 'Summer Project No. 1: Reading List'
The great American author Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "There is no friend as loyal as a book." Once again this summer, I am happy to be joining my colleagues in the State Senate, in partnership with the New York State Library – and together with so many local libraries across our region and statewide -- to help promote summer reading. This year's theme, "Color Our World," stresses the lifelong value of reading and pays tribute to the key role libraries and library staff play in our communities.
O'MARA: 'Latest Albany mandate sets its sights on dairy industry'
"To say that I'm a frustrated dairy farmer in New York State would be an understatement. I don't understand how a bill like this even gets remotely this far." That was the reaction of just one New York State dairy farmer at the Capitol last week where a proposal coming out of New York City stirred a rallying cry of Upstate opposition from the New York Farm Bureau and many others, and rightly so.
GUEST ESSAY The impact of Medicaid and SNAP cuts on Yates County
Finger Lakes Community Health is a community health center program with nine health center sites that serve 29,000 patients annually. About 36% of our patients have Medicaid, and it is a lifeline for them and for our ability to provide them with comprehensive care.
AFTER THOUGHTS Be civically obsessed. Be+
After spending two weeks out of the area, just driving along the familiar roads in Yates County is a comforting experience. It's so good to be home, where there are friends and neighbors around every corner.
'How Can we Save Democracy?'
PENN YAN - All community members around the region have a rare opportunity to attend a presentation on 'How Can We Save Democracy?' by David Cay Johnston. Please mark your calendars and cell phone reminders for at 7 p.m.
O'MARA: 'New state budget not guided by affordability'
Albany Democrats across the board started this year seemingly guided by one priority: affordability. At least that was the constant word coming out of the Capitol in January and if statewide polling and national rankings were any guideposts, it's easy to understand why.
AFTER THOUGHTS Yates Community Endowment shares the wealth again
After a recent visit with a few members of the Yates Community Endowment committee, I left thinking, "These folks really like to share their wealth!" The best thing is, they have found a way to bring many thousands of dollars to Yates County organizations that make life better for residents. Well, just so you know, their kind of giving isn't something that is reserved for the very wealthy.
O'MARA: 'Taxpayers haven't reached the finish line under new state budget'
Governor Hochul and the Legislature's Democrat majorities may be touting that they've finally finished work on a new state budget. Make no mistake, though, we haven't heard the last word about New York's new fiscal plan and taxpayers sure haven't reached the finish line on it.
Yates Legislature Chair Leslie Church chosen as 'Woman of Distinction'
ALBANY — At a ceremony in the Legislative Office Building in Albany Tuesday, State Senator Tom O'Mara (R-C, Big Flats) and his Senate colleagues honored Yates County Legislature Chair Leslie Church as a 2025 "Woman of Distinction." Over the past nearly three decades, Church has become widely known and respected as a leader in Yates County and throughout the Finger Lakes region in public service, volunteerism, and community development. She began her distinguished career in local government in 2000 when she was appointed to the Town of Milo Planning Board.