Bucks
Consolidate Municipalities, Plus Potpourri
Dear Friends,
Good morning. When you read four newspapers every day, ideas for columns flow. Before I get to an editorial I read about the need to merge Pennsylvania municipalities, here are a few articles, which caught my eye.
First, I was happy to read that Shirley Sherrod has decided to sue the pants off Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear to be a racist.
“Sherrod was forced to resign as director of rural development in Georgia after Breitbart posted an edited video of her speaking to a local NAACP group,” the Associated Press reported (July 30). “In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer while working 24 years ago.
“He [Breitbart] had to know that he was targeting me,” Sherrod said.
Sherrod’s firing was rescinded when the Obama administration realized that Breitbart was a right wing nut that wanted to stir up racial trouble by taking Sherrod’s comments out of context.
There are plenty of crazies on the far right and left of the political spectrum. What we all of us should do is to identify them and urge our friends, neighbors, and colleagues to pay them no heed.
Item.
Did you read that a couple of drinks daily extends life and prolongs brainpower? Stanton Peele is an addiction and alcohol expert who authored “7 Tools to Beat Addiction” and wrote an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times. He noted (July 25) that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has done an about face from its 1990 conclusions.
“The 2010 Guidelines indicate that the lowest mortality risk for men and women occurs at the average level of one to two drinks per day and is likely due to the protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on coronary heart disease, diabetes, and ischemic stroke,” Peele began.
“In other words, people who have a couple of drinks daily live the longest” Peele wrote. “Adding what for some is insult to injury, the group also noted: “Moderate evidence suggests that compared to non-drinkers, individuals who drink moderately have a slower cognitive decline with age. Moderate drinkers not only live longer; they are more alert while doing so!”
Who would have thunk it? I just thought that you’d want to know.
And now for some
serious stuff.
For years,
I’ve been writing that
Only three states have this myriad of municipalities: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Michigan. Bucks County has 54 municipalities and 13 school districts. Montgomery County has 62 municipalities.
Believe it or not, prior to the mid 1950’s Pennsylvania had 2,600 school districts too; one in each municipality. Tiny Haycock and Bridgeton Townships had their own school district, for example. It was such an inefficient hodgepodge that the Pennsylvania legislature, in a fit of unusual bravery, consolidated the 2,600 school districts into 501.
Unfortunately, the legislature didn’t consolidate the municipalities too.
If the legislature is gun shy about consolidation, what prevents municipalities to merge on their own? There are several answers. First local leaders like control. Second, so do the lawyers, engineers, and accountants who advise these municipalities. Mergers would put many of them out to pasture.
However, the economy is influencing mergers. Falling tax revenue is forcing municipalities to consider consolidations. Across the Delaware River, tiny Merchantville is thinking about merging with Cherry Hill Township.
Here’s another example.
Maywood, California fired all of its employees and outsourced their jobs. “While many communities are fearfully contemplating extensive cuts, Maywood says it is the first city in the nation in the current downturn to take an ax to everyone,” the New York Times reported (July 20).
“The school crossing guards were let go,” the article continued. “Parking enforcement was contracted out, City Hall workers dismissed, street maintenance workers made redundant. The public safety duties of the Police Department were handed over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
And the sky didn’t fall. Apparently, Maywood residents are happy with the change.
But the article didn’t disclose whether Maywood reduced its taxes. Did it?
There is a counter argument to the consolidation theory. Michael Pakenham penned an interesting op-ed piece in the Inquirer on August 5. The former associate editor of the Inquirer and former editorial page editor of the New York Daily News wrote that the two bills presently in the Pennsylvania legislature would balloon the payrolls of the state’s 67 counties; obliterate more than 2,500 local governments; and generate massive new state and county agencies.
“The grab is contained in Senate Bill 1357 and House Bill 2431,” Pakenham opined. “Its intent is to decapitate and bury local governance.
“In essence, the legislation would do away with virtually every township, borough, and other form of municipal or local government in the commonwealth,” Pakenham continued. “It would replace them with a new structure of county-mega-bureaucracies- most probably politicized, unionized, pensioned, overpaid, and under worked.”
I doubt that either bill has a chance of passage. Having Bucks County in charge of the governance of 54 separate municipalities and 13 school districts is too big a mouthful to digest. But I do think that consolidating the 54 municipalities into 13 does make sense.
Please tell me what you think?
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith