BCT Editorial – 6/25/06

This page was last updated on June 25, 2006.

Fading away; Editorial; Beaver County Times; June 25, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Pennsylvania should allow municipalities to go out of existence

“Like many local governing bodies across Pennsylvania, Eastvale is a municipality in name only. It is too small and too poor to provide even basic municipal services.

“In Eastvale’s case, it can’t even afford to rent a cop.

“Beaver Falls Council voted last week to suspend police patrols in Eastvale as of Wednesday. Council reversed that decision the next day and kept the patrols.

“The move was instigated becsue [sic] Eastvale had defaulted on its contract with the city. At the end of June, Eastvale will owe Beaver Falls a total of $13,500. The borough did make a partial quarterly payment of $4,500 last year - for January through March - but it hasn’t paid anything since, according to city officials.

“But Eastvale is not alone.

“Just look around Beaver County. According to the U.S. Census, 10 of its 53 municipalities have fewer than 500 residents: Darlington (299), Eastvale (293), Fallston (307), Frankfort Springs (130), Georgetown (182), Glasgow (63), Homewood (147), Hookstown (152), New Galilee (424) and Shippingport (237). That’s a little less than 20 percent of the county’s municipalities.

“Beaver County also has seven municipalities with between 500 and 1,000 residents: Bridgewater (739), East Rochester (623), Koppel (856), Marion Township (940), Patterson Heights (670), Potter Township (580) and South Heights (542). Add them in with the under 500 crowd and one-third of the county’s municipalities have under 1,000 residents.

“Beaver County isn’t unique. Municipalities across the state fit the same profile. Pennsylvania has too many small municipalities, and most are withering away.

“The problem is what to do with them.

“Right now, nothing can be done. Although the Pennsylvania Constitution allows the Legislature to create what are called ‘disincorporation laws,’ lawmakers have chosen not to do so. In Pennsylvania, it is possible to create a new community - Seven Fields in Butler County is a recent example - by splitting off from another municipality, but impossible for a municipality to go out of business.”

[RWC] Not true. The Municipal Consolidation or Merger Act of 1994 (H.B. 162; PA law 53 Pa.C.S. 731) provides for merging municipalities.

“Former Allegheny County Controller Frank Lucchino tried to address the situation by proposing that the Legislature enact a law to allow for ‘voluntary disincorporation.’ More than a decade later, Lucchino, now an Allegheny County court of common pleas judge, is still waiting.

“The Legislature must address this matter. Whole swaths of Pennsylvania, especially rural and industrial areas, are being depopulated, leaving behind municipalities that have no purpose and serve no function.

“While they can still carry on as communities, they have no role to play as municipal governments. It’s time to put that past behind and move on.”

[RWC] If you paid close attention, you noted the editorial provided no real solution to the problem the Times believes exists.

As I read the editorial, it wants us to believe disincorporation would solve the problem of “too small” municipalities. Predictably, the editorial doesn’t tell us why disincorporation is the “solution.”

Let’s use Eastvale as an example. Even if Eastvale were eliminated as a municipality, people would still live in that area and presumably would require services like police protection, road maintenance, et cetera. How would disincorporation help provide those services? Indeed, with no elected local officials to represent them, acquiring services from surrounding municipalities would likely be more difficult. Would county and/or state taxpayers be expected to pick up the tab?

As noted above, at least one solution to this perceived problem already exists. It’s called consolidation or merger and those laws already exist.

One last point. The editorial never gets into why “too many small municipalities … are withering away.” We do know, however, it can’t have anything to do with economic decline caused by taxation. After all, we have numerous Times editorials (examples are here and here) telling us PA taxes are OK.

Don’t you love it when people focus on a symptom instead of the underlying disease?