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Today's Poll: Should all of the town, village, city and county government of Genesee County be consolidated?

By Howard B. Owens
Sean Valdes

I think everyone can agree that municipalities should share services to reduce costs..but consolidation scares me. It dilutes the democratic process. If you live in the Village of LeRoy, your vote might be one in a total of 300 votes. Consolidate the Town & Village and your vote might not have the same amount of 'pull' since the pool of voters is larger. We should be very careful to make sure that we keep what little voice the average American has left.

Jul 30, 2009, 12:23pm Permalink
James Renfrew

County government doing what village and town governments do around here - schools, fire, police, assessments, roads, etc. is normal in many places around the country. There is a county in Maryland that I know of that has a single Superintendent for schools, not the nine or twelve we have in Genesee County. My sister who lives there has not complained to me about higher taxes, deficient education for her sons, or distance from district officials. It's just the way it works there. The sky has not fallen there as far as I know. Yes, that is anecdotal information, but it suggests to me that there's no harm in looking at that model if it's working well somewhere else.

Of course, if you want local goverment at the town and village level then be prepared to pay for it. In Holley they put the idea of discontinuing the village police up for a vote recently (to save money) and it was soundly defeated. People seem to vote for services they like, even if the taxes might be greater.

I like government as local as possible, of course, but all I am saying is that I am willing to consider proposals for shared services and even consolidation of towns and village government if reasonable cases can be made for doing so.

Jul 30, 2009, 3:13pm Permalink

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