THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503190058
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
A thousand work-hours, dozens of political skirmishes and 17 months after a city-county commission began studying a government merger, the bulk of the panel's work still lies ahead.
The group got an official nod Wednesday from a united board of county commissioners and a divided City Council to move from its initial study phase to preparing a plan for blending governments and services.
``It's going to be an enormous undertaking,'' L.P. ``Tony'' Hornthal Jr., chairman of the Pasquotank-Elizabeth City Governmental Study Commission, said Thursday. ``It is my impression . . . that both those boards want us to provide as much detail in those plans as we can.''
The commission includes Hornthal, eight city appointees and 10 county appointees. Also serving are the city and county managers and an local municipal government expert. The group plans to meet Thursday to organize for the second phase.
The commission's original charge was to study the makeup and services of the Elizabeth City and Pasquotank County governments and decide whether a total merger or a consolidation of some services would be feasible.
After a year of study, the group reported that merging was ``feasible and advisable'' and asked for the chance it has now: to prepare a report telling city and county residents how merger can be accomplished for their benefit.
In the coming phase, commission members will gather data and advice from a host of sources and put together a plan for combining service departments and administrative divisions under a single government.
The Phase One report says that such a merger would improve the efficiency and fairness of government and reduce some costs without layoffs or tax increases.
One of the most pressing tasks now before the commission is to address a question it barely touched during Phase One: how a unified governing board would be composed and elected.
Concern that black residents who struggled for years to gain political standing in the city would lose their representative power in countywide elections has fueled the most significant political opposition to the merger process.
The two black City Council members who ultimately voted to continue the merger study did so only after receiving assurances that the issue of fair representation would receive strict attention from the commission.
In the coming months or years - Hornthal would not speculate on a time frame for the second phase - the commission will pore over population and demographic data in a search for the best way to lay out a single government.
The ``No. 1 roadblock'' to a successful merger, Pasquotank County Commission Chairman Zee Lamb said Friday, is ``coming up with a voting system that a consensus in the community can accept.''
A merger could not take place if the second phase report was not approved by the city and county and then supported by a majority of voters in a referendum. The U.S. Justice Department, which scrutinizes election fairness, would also have to sign off on the plan.
Hornthal said he did not yet know how the government or its election districts would be designed to accommodate all concerned. But he noted that commission members in the first phase had reserved judgment on ideas until they had been fully informed.
``They didn't let their emotions develop any point of view for them until they had facts and data to drive their opinions,'' Hornthal said. ``I don't believe one person on our commission has got an agenda about where we should go or what we should do or what the results should be.''
Because there is so much concern about the representation issue, as well as an outspoken group of county residents who fear their taxes might increase to subsidize city services, Hornthal said the commission will make the planning process as open as possible.
``We are committed to trying to maximize public participation and involvement,'' Hornthal said. ``You always have a political process whenever you have the public's business going on in a democratic society. I think there's going to be some competing ideas, and that's why we want to open up the marketplace.
``The most troubling thing to me about the whole process thus far is how much misinformation there is circulating in this community about what merger is likely to result in.''
Though the Phase One merger report says overall taxes would not be raised for city or county residents, its arguments did not convince some county residents.
Many of those residents voiced their skepticism at a public hearing before the two boards voted Wednesday night.
But Hornthal - who noted that residents receiving city-like services under the merger would support those services in an ``urban service district'' - said there is no basis for fear that taxes would increase or be charged unfairly.
Despite the outspoken opposition to the process Wednesday, Hornthal said he has heard from many people who support the merger study. But whether the commission can find common ground on a vast tract of separate interests remains to be seen.
``It's an extremely tough road ahead,'' said Elizabeth City Mayor H. Rick Gardner. ``They will come up with a plan that will satisfy a lot of people. Whether it satisfies a majority of people or not, I can't answer.'' by CNB