Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 23, 1994 TAG: 9406240046
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A joint city-county committee, mandated by citizens' petitions, has a duty to continue in good faith to draw up and present to voters a merger plan untainted by preconceptions or misconceptions about whose ox will be gored.
Even so, the findings of Thomas Muller, an economist and consultant hired by the city, have the ring of objectivity. And if his conclusions are right, it's hard to see why city residents would vote for the merger.
What's in it for them? Higher real-estate taxes for the same level of services they get now, if Muller's calculations are accurate - and if the joint committee can't find a way to jiggle the equation for the city.
Muller reached his conclusions on the grounds that (1) service levels now vary widely between the urban city and mostly rural county; (2) a special service district would need to be formed to cover the area of the former Bedford city, with the higher level of services funded by higher property taxes on former city residents; and (3) sales and utility taxes now going only to Bedford city coffers would be spread over the entire merged city and county.
Muller says county residents would get a sweeter deal: the same or slightly lower taxes, in all likelihood, for the services they now receive, or possibly improved services.
They might also get a measure of relief from fears that the big, bad city of Lynchburg will some day grab land from the county's well-to-do Forest section, exposing suburbanites to the city's ailments and creating a hole in the county's tax base that remaining residents would have to fill.
Speculation - and that's all it is - that Lynchburg would annex Forest, if the state ever again allows city annexations, spurred the consolidation petition drive in Bedford.
No question, merger could bring long-range benefits for city and county residents. More efficient delivery of services, better long-term planning for growth and development, for example. In this case, though, the potential for savings is diminished by the fact that the city and county already jointly provide schools, courts and other services.
And their elected leaders have already demonstrated more regional spirit and cooperative good sense than can be said of many cities and counties (not to mention any names). There's no obvious reason why they couldn't continue working together to serve their constituents without a metamorphosis into, in square miles only, Virginia's largest city.
No reason, that is, unless the consolidation debate turns so nasty, pitting city and county neighbors against each other, that it causes an acrimonious, unmendable split.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. But should it, Bedford wouldn't be the first Virginia locality where regional good will and commonweal either can't get started or suffer lasting damage as a result of an irrational state system of local governments. Bedford's merger move would never have been launched except for the fear of annexation, a convulsion visited upon the state by its one-of-a-kind structure of independent cities within counties.
Until the assembly takes meaningful steps to fix the system, cities, counties and towns must keep attempting reconfigurations - consolidation and otherwise - that are usually destined to fail, and that aren't, in all cases, wise.
by CNB