Consolidate or Die

TOO MANY GOVERNMENTS:

Imagine a world where the City of Jamestown has a population of roughly 45,000 and stretches from Lakewood to Falconer — a world where most of the villages in Chautauqua County cease to exist and town borders have been dramatically redrawn.

A world like that is the only way for Western New York to turn the tide on economic stagnation and decline, says Ken Bond, an expert on public entities with both the New York State Bar Association and the American Bar Association.

‘‘I can tell you, New York is not a great place to do business, but we can be,’’ said Bond, the keynote speaker at a shared services seminar at the Robert H. Jackson Center on Wednesday. ‘‘We need to think this way if we’re going to bring in businesses and people, and balance ourselves out as a viable element in the world economy.’’

Consolidating municipalities is the best way to lower taxes and draw businesses and residents to Upstate New York, according to Bond — and he isn’t alone in his call for the number of local governments to be reduced.
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Chautauqua County contains 27 towns, 15 villages and two cities — each with its own elected and appointed officials, each with its own highway department, and each with its own offices, equipment and supplies. That’s a total of 44 local governments in a county with a population less than 140,000 — simply too many, according to Bond.

‘‘When you have a sparsely populated area, you don’t need a whole lot of government,’’ Bond said.

According to Hevesi’s report, the problem is the same across New York state. The state contains 932 towns, 554 villages, 62 cities and 57 counties — a total of 1,605 local governments and ‘‘a structure no one would design today.’’

The municipalities and borders of today were largely established before 1920, and in many cases much earlier — and population trends have made many villages entirely obsolete.

‘‘Today, police, water, sewer, sanitation and fire protection services are provided routinely throughout towns, and the incorporation of a village is no longer necessary for these purposes,’’ the report states. ‘‘The impetus for most recent village incorporations has not been the need for new services, but the desire of disaffected residents of a particular area to take control of land use regulation and other services from a town board.’’

The high number of local governments leads to higher overhead costs and duplicated services — and that leads to the high-tax, business-unfriendly environment New York state is famous for, according to Bond. He also noted Upstate New York’s economy has long since been declining, while the public service industry has been thriving.

Bond also said upstate residents can learn a lesson from New York City, which combined dozens of towns, villages, cities and counties into a single government entity toward the end of the 19th century.