The Positive Voices

That stuff the Press was talking about the other day,” he started. “Government consolidation?” I asked. “Yeah, uh… I don’t think I like that idea.” Good instincts. What made him hesitate was the Grand Rapids Press’ repeated hammering on the issue with a voluminous snow-job of “proof” that it is a proven recipe for increasing government efficiency, lowering taxes and pleasing the local citizens. This earnest small-town citizen knew that his local taxes were much lower than in larger cities, the local schools were good and that local school and government officials were very devoted to pleasing citizens like him because they lived in constant fear of angering the locals and losing their jobs. So why was the Press trying “ to sell him the preposterous idea that he would be even better off if his schools were consolidated into huge districts and his local government was consolidated into a county-wide or larger Megalopolis. Of course it sounds fishy, because it is. The Movers & Shakers and their propaganda organ, the Press, labor under the delusion that The Lie, if repeated loudly and often enough, will eventually be swallowed by the public. “Eventually” is not a definite time period, but they’ve put numerous pet projects on the ballot over the decades and voters have always buried them by landslides. I know because I helped them do it. So I think the chances of the citizens of all the nice little communities around here giving up their local governments to become insignificant minorities in “Greater Grand Rapids – The City” anytime in this century are as totally implausible as the concept of Metropolitan Government. MetroGov, for short. These clowns plan on flogging this dead horse for the rest of the year – apparently so I can point out how silly they look. The spectacle of avowed “conservatives” proclaiming the virtues of Bigger-is-Better-Government, loud and proud, is high-comedy farce indeed. “And it will save you money, too!” Go on, tell me another one. “The only economies of scale in government consolidation are for lobbyists,” said Wendell Cox, a respected international authority on urban governance, in a recent interview. His 2008 report to the Association of Towns of the State of New York summarized the available statistical evidence and research studies related to the question of whether governmental consolidations actually result in cost savings, lower taxes, better services or other public benefits. The report is damning and the details are entertaining. Consolidation of smaller local governments into larger governmental units leads to higher costs and taxes, poorer quality services, diminished citizen influence, and slower economic growth. There is no reliable evidence of any consolidation like this producing the opposite of any of these effects – not in Indianapolis or anywhere else, period. As far as evidence goes, the Bigger- Is-Better theory of local government gets no traction at all, anywhere. Not even in Texas where cities still have strong annexation powers and gobble up their neighbors endlessly, without any of the expenses or complexities of consolidation. But there is very strong statistical correlation between population areas that have many smaller units of government per capita, rather than fewer larger ones, and lower taxes, lower costs of living and higher rates of economic development and job growth. Go figure. There is evidence that extremely simple strategic deals between small units of government, exactly like Godwin Heights and Wyoming Park school districts sharing a superintendent, actually do save money. Scale it up from there just a bit in size or complexity and it’s iffy. And the odds of two larger suburbs saving money by consolidating something like police and fire services are slim to none – long term. Initially, boosters brag about reduced personnel and cost savings. Years later they are employing as many or more personnel as before consolidation because the work, and managing it, has proved to be that much bigger and more complex. But this insane clown posse of local bigwigs, special interests, current and former Mayors and City officials, accompanied by an Amen Choir of leftish faddists, isn’t really interested in those kinds of small potatoes. They’re fishing for the Really Big Deal, the Full Monty, the Holy Grail of consolidation enthusiasts – Unigov, the Indianapolis 500 (as in how many people actually benefited from that weird and ruthless consolidation). The Press apparently thinks Indianapolis is the perfect poster child for the benefits of government consolidation. The Press is bucking to be the poster child for Comedy Central’s slogan “You can’t fix stupid!” It’s not like this happened yesterday and the Press hasn’t heard yet. The Indiana Republican Governor, Republican state legislature, and Republican Mayor of Indianapolis, foisted consolidation on Indianapolis and its suburban and rural neighbors to create Indianapolis City/County Unigov back in 1970, without even politely asking for voter approval. They had already worked it out. A few affluent suburbs were allowed to completely opt out. Most of the others were allowed to keep independent control over police, fire and other public services. All kept their independent school systems. And none were required to subsidize the higher police, fire, school system, welfare and public service costs in the former city of Indianapolis. But they all got to vote in city elections. One researcher dubbed it the “representation without taxation formula”. Residents inside the former city boundaries now pay tax rates and service fees as much as ten times higher than assessments elsewhere in Indianapolis. The rich and powerful special interests got control of the governing body and its taxing, economic development, planning and zoning authority, and wasted no time in cutting themselves huge tax breaks and lavishing taxpayer dollars on expensive economic development projects they made fortunes off of. The local newspaper spent bushels of money and years in court, but eventually forced city officials to do their official business in open public meetings instead of the backrooms at Republican Party Headquarters. Citizens actually being able to find and observe their elected representatives was only a marginal improvement, if that. Their most local unit of government had morphed into a vast maze of bureaucrats answering to elected officials, most of whom now represented farflung communities instead of nearby neighbors. And a lone citizen, or ten, or even a hundred didn’t matter very much anymore in the vast Diaspora of voters, interests and special interests. On the other hand, lobbyists, political insiders and special interests had a field day as ordinary individual voters diminished in importance and influence, and hardly ever found their way into the halls of power where decisions are made. Downtown development became all the rage and Indianapolis insiders directed a tsunami of taxpayers’ dollars, tax breaks, abatements and subsides into a square mile of downtown Indianapolis for sports, convention, entertainment, condo, loft and office developments, arts and music centers, etc. - and skimmed off huge profits for themselves. They made windfalls in long-term lease deals by offering large non-profit organizations like the NCAA complete absolution from local taxes. “The Mile” is the place local boosters take important visitors to get them liquored-up and show-off the “Indianapolis Renaissance.” Except for the occasional chance to visit there, local taxpayers get less than nothing out of the deal because so few of its developers, owners or occupants pay much of anything in taxes that real taxpayers everywhere else in the city have to pay heavily to cover the deficit. Sounds eerily familiar somehow. Could this be why the Press, and the Movers & Shakers they shill for, are so enthusiastic about Indystyle consolidation? Duh! The Press portrays Indianapolis under Unigov as a Garden of Eden filled with happy citizens who would never dream of reversing consolidation. Research and Indy’s hometown media paint a very different picture: “harrowing property tax increases,” school systems short-changed by Unigov and “robbed” by tax exemptions and abatements, massive flight of businesses and higher-income residents out of Unigov jurisdiction to neighboring counties with lower taxes and better economic conditions. Indianapolis citizens actually mounted multiple public efforts to reverse or escape Unigov consolidation. But Indiana forced Unigov on them without any legal means to escape and they couldn’t even force a referendum. Except for minor legal provisions for depopulated villages, neither the U.S. or Canada provide any easy methods for citizens to dismantle larger units of government. In 2004, however, the Quebec Provincial Government offered the once-citizens of 200 former cities, forcibly dissolved and merged into large consolidated governments just years before, the opportunity to resurrect their former independent communities, IF they collected IN FIVE DAYS petition signatures from the US equivalent of 20% of all their former registered voters asking for a referendum, and IF the majority of voters voting to reverse consolidation in the referendum just a few days later amounted to at least the US equivalent of 68% of all registered voters - virtually impossible conditions. 89 of them did the impossible in five days and forced a vote. 32 actually reached the total number of votes for reversal requirements, averaging 80- 20 landslides for de-consolidation. Tragically, 25 turned out lopsided 60-40 majorities to resurrect their former independent cities but fell just short of the required total number of votes. So much for the Press’ assertion that people and communities that have tried government consolidation like it, and wouldn’t go back. The devoted admirers of Indianapolis Unigov as the best example of all the virtues and benefits of “Metropolitan Government” need to explain why, after 40 years of observing and rubbing shoulders with Indy-Unigov and all its achievements at close hand, none of its closest neighboring communities, or any of the still independent municipalities after 40 years lurking un-consolidated right in the middle of the Unigov miracle without being part of its benefits and delights, has ever shown any interest at all in joining the party. And why no other communities in Indiana have tried to emulate Indy’s Success Story. The state law that triggered Unigov is still on the books, with its requirement that when a city, county or metropolitan area reaches a certain population levels sweeping governmental consolidation is required. Not long ago, population growth in the Fort Wayne area approached the point that would automatically trigger a second incarnation of Unigov without any of the communities having to be guilty of causing it. They could all just sit back, let it happen and reap the benefits. But no, they ran to the state legislature for help and the old Unigov law was quickly amended to reset the trigger points more than twice as high so that nobody in Indiana would need to worry about Unigov for at least another 150 years. Except for the people who live there, of course. It’s not surprising to find GR Mayor George Heartwell among the loudest boosters of Big Consolidation. The fact that George has some goofy ideas can’t be a surprise to very many locals. He fairly thrums with intellectual dissonance all the time. Former Mayor John Logie’s verbose emphatic support is a bit harder to figure out. John has been even more verbose over the years about his high admiration for the late Jane Jacobs and former longtime Mayor of Milwaukee, John Norquist, now President of the Congress of New Urbanism. John seems especially proud of his personal friendships with them and endlessly extols the wisdom and good sense of their writings and opinions. And both have flogged governmental consolidation unstintingly over the years as bad in theory, brutal and costly in practice, and a political pipedream that wastes time and energy. John should be having the Mother of All Migraines with that kind of intellectual dissonance. Or maybe John is just having a fling with Myron Orefield for some variety. Orefield seems to be the top celebrity of the Halt Suburban Sprawl movement these days. His top recommended cure is “Regional Government,” which is a sort of Metropolitan Government or Government Consolidation as seen from the back side by earnest but naïve and nearsighted neo-progressives. That’s why the leftish Amen Choir is singing backup behind the mob of slimy, greedy, right-wing boosters of consolidation. I’ve heard Norquist in person demolish Orefield’s pipedream with relish. It’s unbelievably silly for these anti-sprawl wingnuts to imagine that if they could only create a system where all the different governmental units in a large area had to work together, they could eventually convince (or require) them all to follow their anti-sprawl agenda… and impose Oregon-style urban growth boundaries. How this could possibly succeed is mystifying. The local politicians with strong loyalties to their local interests and little if any interest in curbing development would vastly outnumber the anti-sprawl enthusiasts, ignore them, and set their own agenda. This is just like the left-wing pseudo-progressives who think restoring ruthless annexation powers to cities and letting them gobble up everybody else would cure all their problems. I always ask them, “Wouldn’t the people annexed against their will soon become a majority of voters? Wouldn’t they still be mad as hell? What would prevent them from taking control and wreaking revenge on the older, now minority, parts of the community that bullied them first?” On the issue of government consolidation, Wendell Cox noted in the same interview, the loony radicals from both the right and left “are of equal distastefulness.”