Give local governments incentives to join forces PETER POLLAK Lake Pleasant
Re your Aug. 12 article, “Sharing services can be a hard sell”: New Yorkers need to understand the underlying conditions behind the re-emergence of talk of consolidating local government. Upstate New York, in particular, faces a future where fewer and fewer middle-class taxpayers will remain to foot the local government tax bill, as baby boomers retire out of state and college-age New Yorkers leave for greater opportunities in other parts of the country. Unless sharing services, and yes, even consolidating several government entities is taken seriously, tax bills will drive out of the state more and more of those able to leave. We also have to keep in mind that the current structure of local government is a vestige of the days of the horse and buggy. Many jurisdictions no longer make sense except to those who derive their livelihood from public employment. Further, local government rarely has the authority to address today’s needs. At best village and town boards and city councils can veto or delay necessary changes, such as consolidating property assessment agencies. That being the case, it’s time to create new government entities that match today’s economic, social and political realities. The Commission on Local Government Efficiency needs to recommend that the Legislature offer incentives to local government willing to share and consolidate. However, we also need to penalize by reducing state aid to those agencies that refuse to see the writing on the wall.
tax bills will drive out of the state more and more of those able to leave.
That is only a small problem in NYS.....dont forget about Tammany Hall......I think there are alot of his relatives hangin' around the NYS government.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Well, I must say, things must be "peachy" in "Lake Pleasant." The only common sense thing is to consolidate? So, Mr. Pollak, would you like to just get rid of all the local government and have to go to, say, Amsterdam (approximately 56 miles, over an hour drive and in another county, besides) to be able to go to a meeting to someone who directly can affect anything that happens with issues in your area. Do you think that they would understand the issues of your neighborhood? Or don't you care?
"Consolidate government, just don't consolidate the people who represent me."
However, we also need to penalize by reducing state aid to those agencies that refuse to see the writing on the wall.
Well there Mr. Pollack, that is strong arming communities if I ever saw one. So it becomes a 'do as I say' or else, huh? Gee and I though just Spitzer was trying to be a steamroller.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Logged
