Whitesboro voters choose to keep village. Now what?
The problems and concerns of the substantial number of residents who forced this vote still remain.
Frankly, I think the Whitesboro voters made the right choice. There were too many unanswered questions that would get answered only AFTER voter approval is given. That's like buying a pig in a poke.
Although the question of dissolution cannot come up again for another vote for four years under the legislation that was used, it does not stop Whitesboro from using the intervening time to study other options.
Village residents should be concerned that dissolution into a Town could result in (1) loss of services that the village has the population density to support or (2) village residents subsidizing extension of the same services into the Town. To some extent, number 2 is already happening.
Other options for consolidation could be looked at. As alluded to in the last post, local government is at its best when it is from the "bottom up," where people with common interests join themselves together to achieve a common goal. Dissolution of the Village into the Town would combine village residents with residents of outlying areas who have different needs.
How about a Whitesboro-Yorkville-NY Mills combination?
The three are roughly the same. They are about the same size geographically, appear similar demographically and in population density, housing stock appears similar. Their services are similar. They share the same combined sewer overflow and have similar sewer issues. They are contiguous to each other. In fact, driving from one to another it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Drawing a municipal boundary around these 3 Villages would seem to link people with common interests. They could combine into a new village . . . or, perhaps better, combine into a new Town. That would eliminate the Village to Town subsidies that seem to occur all too often where the Town merely duplicates a service and village residents wind up paying for both (like the NYM and NH Town libraries). Whatever the future holds . . .
Bottom up government incorporated by the people works best.
Read more about the Whitesboro vote on "GCN" (Welcome Back, GCN!)
6 comments:
What next? The status quo stays in place. It's nice to hear that the elite will continue to hold on to their little fifedoms.
Sometimes the status quo is better than the currently available option - especially when the currently available option has yet to be defined.
The idea that consolidation should be instituted on the come is like Nancy Pelosi saying that we can fugure out what's in the takeover of one sixth of our national economy after legislation has been passed. Government consolidation has not been a pancea in all place it has been accomplished. That is why a good deal of time must be taken to define a plan prior to a voting initiative. It is unfortunate that the seat of the pants effort probably set back a proper course investigation.
Yea, we need a myriad of police depts. within a 5 mile radius of each other. Who pays for all this? The suckers.
And I was thinking of Ms. Pelosi when I thought of Whitestown!!!
Yea, & I thought of George W. Bush who said WMD's would be found in Iraq. "Once we start looking around further". Heh, heh, heh.
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