Va. isn’t well-served by independent-city structure
September 15th, 2009
Va. isn’t well-served by independent-city structure
Richmond Times Dispatch
HOLLISTER LINDLEY GUEST COLUMNIST
Published: September 14, 2009
I grew up in the city and county of Honolulu in Hawaii. We moved there from Chicago in 1954, several years before Hawaii achieved statehood.
I was a keiki (little kid) so I certainly wasn’t thinking about the structure of my local government and how it affected my day-to-day life.
After college, I followed a career path that took me to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Delaware and then on to the great commonwealth of Virginia. Yes, it was my choice. I actually pursued a job here to enable the relocation.
When I moved to Richmond in the early 1990s, I noticed that every county had its own library system and its own law enforcement. There seemed to be expensive redundancy everywhere I turned.
Wouldn’t it just be better to have lots of books in one library system? I mistakenly tried to return a book to the wrong system and was greeted with amazement and confusion.
In Hawaii, each major island is its own county. This makes a great deal of sense for that state, as the ocean channels between the islands are formidable. But why all this crazy redundancy in Virginia? I hadn’t seen it in any other areas of the Lower 48 that I had lived in.
What made Virginia different?
Let me introduce you to the independent-city issue. If you live in Chicago, you also live in Cook County. This gives the city and county governments a structure to play nice together. They live in the same house and have to get along. There are no barriers to cooperation. They can create a regional police department, great schools and amazing libraries.
Now let’s look at Virginia.
There are 45 independent cities in the United States, and 41 are in our fair state. What does that actually mean? That means the cities operate independently from the counties, keep their own records and operate as a politically separate unit. Lots of scholarly papers and books have been written on this subject, but what does it mean to those of us who are paying the government’s bills and using its services?
The advantages are clear:
• Responsibilities are clear (everyone knows what he or she is supposed to do, kind of like a military organization where there is no overlap and there are clear job descriptions).
• Tax structures are clear.
• It controls the number of players (because you can’t add or subtract taxing authorities).
But the disadvantages are stunning:
• Expensive duplication of services.
• Absolutely no incentive to play nice and cooperate.
• Competition for taxes, such as car registrations and sales tax.
This is not rocket science. The advantages of keeping cities and counties separate DO NOT exceed the disadvantages.
This is just plain wasteful.
It is not human nature to play nice. We certainly wouldn’t need “Sesame Street” if cooperation came naturally. We need to be motivated to cooperate, and this independent-city structure does just the opposite. It makes it really tough for cities and their surrounding counties to work together.
We can drone on about regional teamwork all we want, but we simply are not structured to do so. We just went through the address change brouhaha (Henrico versus Richmond) because of this independent-city structure.
It is all about money and power. Everyone has his own little kingdom and is not going to voluntarily share his toys and cookies. It is human nature to protect what we think is ours.
But these are our tax dollars being used, and I hate to see them wasted. So should you!
We need to talk about this city-county arrangement and change it. “It has always been this way” is absolutely no reason to keep doing something.
We can do better, Virginia. Create a government structure that uses our tax dollars wisely.
Hollister Lindley is a freelance writer and a retired medical-industry executive. She can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
