COMMENTARY
Bruce Andriatch: Surrendering of identity is test for reform
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The voters in Limestone know a thing or two about merging. In 1995, residents of the small community in Cattaraugus County narrowly approved a measure to merge their school district with neighboring Allegany’s.
Last week, voters had another chance to consider consolidating and again said yes, approving a plan that will see the village incorporated into the Town of Carrollton. Town Supervisor David Frederick said residents of the soon-to-be-former village stand to see their town property taxes drop by 40 percent as a result of the vote, while town residents outside the village will spend about 4 percent less on taxes.
While the debate rages in Erie County about downsizing town boards from five members to three, Limestone residents are debating what they’re going to do with the money they will save by getting rid of their village government.
“Efficiencywise, I think it’s going to be for the better,” Frederick said Monday.
Although Limestone has become the second local village to do away with its government in the last two years (voters in the Wyoming County village of Pike voted in March 2008 to take the same step), this is not a movement in the same way that town board downsizing is. But it still might become one.
Officials in the village of North Collins, population about 1,000, announced last year that they were looking into merging with the town of the same name. Mayor John Mrozek said that it no longer made economic sense for a community that small to have two governments. A public vote on the question could be held as soon as next March.
It could be the first of many such votes in coming years. Village dissolution is on activist Kevin Gaughan’s reform agenda, and a new state law makes mergers between towns and villages simpler.
No village in Erie County has ever voted to merge itself out of existence. The last one to try and fail was Alden in 1996.
You can be sure that any future vote on whether to merge a village with a town will be even more controversial and emotional than the downsizing votes. The downsizing vote comes down to a question of whether you believe that three people or five are necessary to oversee a town government. But a vote on whether to keep a village government will be about something much more intangible: identity.
There was a small taste of what is to come last week from the Williamsville Village Board, when “dissolution” was a topic on the agenda after Gaughan was quoted as saying Williamsville will be the first village he targets for merger. One trustee said the village needs to talk about this soon to combat misinformation.
Gaughan has argued that a village is not defined by its elected officials, but by its people, its businesses and its neighborhoods. He’s right. Snyder in Amherst, LaSalle in Niagara Falls and South Buffalo are among dozens of places in Western New York that are still very identifiable communities in spite of a lack of a separate government representing them.
The downsizing votes have been interpreted in a variety of ways—that they’re “anti-government,” or they’re a product of Gaughan’s media-disseminated propaganda, or they’re a sign the public has had enough with high taxes.
Critics say that if this is reform, it’s not enough. Real reform will come when people will vote not to downsize a town board, but to eliminate an entire layer of government.
It can be done. Ask some people in Limestone. They’re practically experts.
bandriatch@buffnews.com
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