I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. To paraphrase the late Frank Zappa, I realize that stupidity is indeed the building block of the political universe. Thanks to a long line of political careerists at all levels of our fair land, we now have speed limits laws that encourage a lack of respect for the law and a strong hatred for governments. We also have thousands of police officers who aren’t pursuing bad guys anymore. They’re busy being meter maids for the state. The same is true for code enforcement officials, toll booth collectors, and the ever lovable camera brigade. What’s the solution to all these unproductive resources that are used to subsidize our government’s (cross out safety) activities?
Well, let’s start with the hee-haws of small town life. It’s always struck me as downright goofy that in the United States, a town can be incorporated one time and stay that way forever. They can completely control those roads. They can completely control the police force. In fact, they can virtually be laws unto themselves. With subsidies! But what about the folks who actually live in those towns? Can they get anywhere beyond being a revenue source at the town hall meeting? Well, in a republic that actually tests a government’s worthiness . . . yes.
If citizens could vote every four years as to whether the incorporated town (or city) they live in should continue to exist as such, that would be a great start. In my home state of Georgia, it would eliminate a hundred or so podunks and about fifty Barney Fife-doms. Nationwide it would probably eliminate billions in wasteful spending. The only losers I see are taxicab companies, the Cooter contingencies, and aspiring small town Kennedys.
New Jersey is chock full of tiny little towns. It is so out of control that the Governor is pushing hard to get small towns and municipalities to merge with one another is search of efficiencies. So far, the big news is that a few towns are considering it. Local residents take an inordinate amount of pride in their little dutchy and are loath to give it up.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/nj/20090529_N_J__town_mergers_could_start_in_18_months.html
This is a great idea. Those of us in the Free State Project are trying a similar thing here in New Hampshire. Too bad we can’t vote out the government in one fell swoop, as you suggest – it’s a slow process trying to whittle it down.
The short answer is that even though there are lots of little fiefdoms, smaller units of government should be more responsive to constituents than larger units of government. If your local town council has passed a bunch of local ordinances or laws that you don’t agree with, it should be easier to mount an electoral coup and throw those bums out than to throw out a county government or a state government.
I’m torn about whether or not some of this consolidation should occur. In Kentucky we have 120 counties and I think a lot of those should be merged. But you would lose some responsiveness.
Getting townships to merge and reining in their often (but not always) ticket-happy departments are two related but not necessarily linked goals.
You want to cut down on ticket machines? Put a law in place that no more than X% of a towns safety budget can come from traffic fines (Missouri did something like this (25%) back in the early 90s). Most smaller townships share fire departments (because it’s the only way to afford it), why should the police be different.
The alternative is to crack down and audit the crap out of the worst offender “pour encourager les auts”. Problem is, that takes forever. The state of Ohio finally shut down New Rome (half a square mile, 60 people, 2 police cars, and mysterious holes in the budget). But it took YEARS to do it.
You could also try to spin it as an inpediment to commerce, good luck. Great slogans, zero chance of getting a binding court ruling (and that would take even longer).
This is a difficult situation you posit.
If you leave it up to others within the county, state or whatever the next-largest electorate after incorporated towns happens to be, then you’ll be leaving the generally uninformed citizens to decide whether a small town needs a police force and governing body of its own. It’ll take a lot of persuading in most cases, and you’re going to be trying to persuade the folks who know relatively little about the area that wants to incorporate: Those who don’t live there.
If you leave it up to those who live there, you’re far more likely to get incorporation– even when it is unwarranted– if they perceive a need. This leaves them vulnerable to scare politics. The local wannabe Kennedy can scare locals about how their property values will plummet unless zoning regulations are enforced via an incorporated town government. Or they can scare them about the need for a police force to combat the “100 percent increase in break-ins and drug crime in our area last year,” even though the increase might have been from two incidents to four. Hey, what Joe Voter don’t know won’t hurt him– and it just might get you elected once the town incorporates.
It would seem, then, that the best thing to do is to put it up for county-wide vote INCLUDING those in the affected town. If a majority of those within the county want the town to incorporate, it will be left up to the town’s vote count. If the town then voted (at the same time) to incorporate, congrats– you’ve instituted yet another level of government upon yourself. But if, say, the town votes “yes” and the county votes “no,” then sorry, no dice. Likewise, if the county votes “yes” and the town votes “no,” no incorporation.
One thing is for sure, though– this should not be left up to uppity county commissioners with visions of becoming mayor or Chief of Police in their new little “town.”
For an example where small-town incorporation has gone horribly wrong (as relates to drivers, especially,) see here about a recently-dissolved police force of seven officers (in a town of only 174 residents!)
A small town is the easiest place to change leadership.
The solution is passive non-compliance. Contest every suspect ticket, especially civil fines. Even if you know going in you are going to lose, showing up at a court/hearing takes a huge amount of money out of it for the ticket writers. Look into delaying tactics and represent yourself (why spend more money?), you’re probably going to lose anyway, the point is they don’t win.
I agree with Juniper>
I just moved to a small town (pop 27k) and I MUCH prefer it over living in Chicago (pop 3MM).
Now if large-city residents can vote to consolidate small towns, can small-town residents vote to separate large towns?
Fair is fair, right?
IMHO, “Englewood” & “Back of the Yards” are 2 parts of Chicago that should probably be their own towns. Let them deal with their own violence problems. Perhaps Lincoln Park should be it’s own town as well and then people there can pay for their own policing as they think they deserve.
There have been a lot of complaints recently from Lincoln Park residents where there were a bunch of people mugged between 12am-6am or so about a month or two ago (almost nightly) until it finally tapered off. The residents in LP pay a very high tax amount due to property values being high, yet didn’t receive (what they thought) was adequate investigation in the beatings/muggings. They were notable due to the incidents not just being people pushed down & robbed, but beaten bloody with random weapons.
I care less about the bureaucratic excess caused by too many small town govts. That’s finally a small-bore problem.
Rather it’s too many cops. Each police dept is in an arms race with the neighboring dept for the latest and most expensive equipment and ever larger payrolls.
Here in WashDC, I see the Capitol police with equipment the Marines lacked at Fallujah. Why does the Capitol need a SWAT team?
Taxpayers have to fund all this equipment and bloated payroll.
And if we’re not funding it, it’s because some cops have figured out that asset forfeitures will do in a pinch.
And when you have lots of cops needing to justify their existence, you start seeing them enforce chickensh*t ordnances.
Monroeville, OH
Woodville, OH
It’s about money and/or power, big (GM) or small. Try to tell and remove someone who has it good (even you at your co.) and they’ll fight nearly to the death to keep the status quo.
AndrewDederer:
Put a law in place that no more than X% of a towns safety budget can come from traffic fines (Missouri did something like this (25%) back in the early 90s).
+1.
Also, mandate that towns post crimes AND traffic ticket info / locations on an online map. States could team up with Google Maps.
Of course, this assumes one’s state isn’t also a POS kleptocracy with it’s hand in the traffic-enforcement jar.
It’s an interesting idea Steven. The 4 year cycle reminds me of term limits (town limits?), but you know how far that got. But I also agree if residents can vote to disband their town then they ought to be able to vote to incorporate and break off from a larger entity as well.
JT Horner is right about New Jersey. Every couple of miles and you’re in a new town.
I disagree.
Having lived many years in Australia where centralized government is the norm, I prefer the local control option.
For example. In Oz, there is one police department for the whole state. There are no local police. In the name of saving money and being efficient, the Western Australia PD shut down most of their stations and consolidated everything to their HQ in Perth.
What this created, IMHO, is a massive, unaccountable, and totally unresponsive and corrupt government bureaucracy. As a citizen, you can’t walk into the police chief’s office and demand better. You don’t even know who he/she is.
Honest police can’t report internal corruption because they know (a) it will end their career, and (b) they will be assigned to the equivalent of Siberia. So the corruption and incompetence gets institutionalized.
Same thing with the schools, the townships (like US counties), tax collection, etc. I number of years ago the commonwealth (like the US federal) gov’t eliminated local (state) sales taxes and replaced it with a nation wide GST. They promised the states that they would get their fair share of the taxes collected. They lied.
They collect taxes, send it to either Canberra or the state capital, and you have no control over what happens to it.
Despite the inefficiencies of small local government, in the long run, you are far better served by them.
I’m neither a Republican nor Democrat either. I’m a conservative! :-)
Stage Coach, Texas. One main drag that winds through an area with old homes and trailers that sit on acreage. The entire city is perhaps 4 square miles. The only use of the road is for Magnolia residents to pass through to Tomball for shopping. They have a posted speed limit of 35 on a road that would be 50 anywhere else. They have a couple heavyset officers that are probably named Billy Bob and Bubba that sit all day long in their mostly hidden police cars holding their radar guns. They have been known to ticket people for 36 mph. The police chief is a 70something year old cooter that wanders around Tomball and Magnolia with his perfectly tailored and pressed uniform, looking like he is on his way to a press conference or an officer funeral. He drives a brand new Lincoln pick-up with extensive aftermarket work. One cherry vehicle if you like upmarket pickup trucks. Everytime I see the Chief I think about how he is living off traffic citations that are completely unnecessary given the remoteness and sparcity of the population in Stage Coach. Every time I see Billy Bob or Bubba I hope that they don’t shoot themselves in the foot with their weapons because they don’t look fit enough to be a law enforcement professional anywhere else on this earth. I also wonder if Billy Bob and Bubba aren’t the Chief’s sons.
Remember this discussion the next time your town or city asks for more tax dollars to balance the budget, folks…either they get it through the front door, or they’ll use back door methods like these.
Whats that picture?? A ’64?? Ford just like Barney had? Amazing that in almost 50 years not all that much has changed in US police cars. We still have virtually every police and muni fleet driving V8 Fords cuz theyre so cheap and reliable??. How ironic that on 9/11 we(or Cheney) has added even more layers of donut-chompers. The question is…Do you feel safer?? Well, DO you…PUNK?
Hell with Cash for Clunkers…whats really needed is Cash for these Relics. NO cops or cabbies NEED 4.6L V8s anymore and havent for DECADES.
In Maine, towns get zip, zilch, nada, not cent one of ticket revenue. It all goes to the state government. So oddly enough, we tend not to have much in the way of overzealous local enforcement, other than in a few very wealthy coastal towns with very bored over-staffed police departments. Our State Police force is too small and spread out to be too awfully obnoxious too. Though they do run “fleece the tourists” speed traps on I-95 in the summer. MA, NJ, and NY plates are especially loved, from what I have seen. Of course, those people generally drive like idiots anyway.
Maine, the way life should be. :-)
Illinois has something called Home Rule. Basically, any city over 25,000 residents gets the power to tax, regulate, and borrow money without a vote. Perhaps an expansion of this existing policy is in order.
fred d, that 63 Galaxie is a tour car around Mayberry aka Mt Airy NC. The local gendarmes drive Chargers.
It seems some of these towns actually make an industry of issuing tickets.
Atoka, OK comes to mind.
Too bad when your town sucks so bad its the only way you can make any money.
fred diesel: “A ‘64?? Ford just like Barney had? Amazing that in almost 50 years not all that much has changed in US police cars. We still have virtually every police and muni fleet driving V8 Fords cuz theyre so cheap and reliable”.
More like 75 years.
In the older areas of the country, many towns were set up in the Horse and Buggy era. While there might be efficiencies of scale with less political subdivisions, ask yourself this question:
If there is a pothole in your street, will your local town or village fix it faster, or would the City of New York, Boston or LA be more responsive ?
Exactly. Here in Westchester NY, we have local police agencies on a town level. There is a County Police agency. Finally, State Police also patrol. Why three agencies ? They parcel out roads based on a few things. Interstates are State PD. Most Towns are primary in the Town, unless a highway passes through. Last, County cops patrol parkways. This makes no sense, but is the result of history.
Other counties have local PD, Sheriffs and State.
There have been moves to consolidate cops, fire and schools. While all of these agencies are ridiculous duplications, no one wants to give up THEIR agency, and likewise, no one wants to give up control of their town, police, etc to a large agency. Think of that pothole again.
There have been multiple studies here in New York State. They all recommend multiple levels of consolidation. They all sit on shelves.
Want blood sport ? Suggest consolidation of affluent suburban school districts !