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I spent a week in the twin cities and they like Louisville have had great results in part to a REGIONAL GOVERNMENT approach that grew from one single city to include 7 counties. Starting with regional sewage and disposal, then development planning and finally mass transit. The twin cities are now booming as a region economically and has become a great area for both buisness and individual in migration. Much of this success given to the the REGIONAL APPROACH... Oh yes, the established folks of the twin cities once said that there was no way they could become a region over their own small town and borough identity like they love to say here in the Pittsburgh area. Mark DeSantis the Republican write in for mayor of the city of Pittsburgh say's he will push the idea of regional merging and idealogy against the current young mayor Luke in the upcoming election for city mayor. For years the current democratic leadership had distanced it'self from merger and regional talk. Let's hope this issue makes it to debate between the 2 candidates and for the county to be involved as well. What the hell, bring in Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties as well.. Sure there maybe some trimming of the fat, and the old timers will cry and moan but in the long run it may will prove to SAVE the metro.. The city and regional leader with the smarts and guts will be the one to take the bold steps forward, otherwise more of the same... Helloooooo Mark DeSantis, your time has come... Bring it to the forefront.....
Mark DeSantis GOP write in for Mayor- City of Pittsburgh
Hold That Thought - Pittsburgh Quarterly Magazine
Mark DeSantis depicts the governments we'll create -- not pretty ones -- if we consolidate without some hefty considerations.
Spring 2007
“Things do not change; we change.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Soon you will be asked to choose the purpose, shape, size and basic character of your local government. Fellow citizens are organizing now to ask you whether to reorganize the many layers and types of local government that have defined Allegheny County for almost 250 years. The changes are not yet clear, but it is likely that, if successful, our collective local governments will look nothing like they do now. Is such broad and sweeping change possible? Yes. Is it probable? Don't know.
There are also glimpses of an opposition forming to this change. In America, it is a sure bet that when opposing citizens groups organize spontaneously, something very important is at stake. The issue is government consolidation.
Your first reaction to the prospect of any change in local government is likely a resounding, “Hell yes!” After all, bad local government is as much a fact of life in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania as gravity and the sun rising. And anything that alters this mess must be right and good, correct?
Consider withholding visceral reactions, however, until you know who will do the consolidation, how it will be done, what will (and won't) get consolidated, when this is all supposed to happen, and, most important, why you should care. And before you get these answers, ask devilish questions such as why this plan and not some other? Who created it? Most important of all, what implicit assumptions are buried deep within? After all, every plan ever created has unarticulated assumptions. Maybe we can find a few before the contest begins in full.
The consolidation question deserves a level of effort and sophisticated thinking at least equal to what you used when you bought your first house. Remember the unfamiliar terminology and complex factoids you had to learn before you could even begin to ask informed questions? And even with all of your best efforts — with all due respect to the claims of the seller — you still needed a lot of independent thirdparty validation to find out if those claims were really true or, at the very least, not blatantly false. We have our work cut out for us.
An infinite variety of consolidation plans are possible. However, experience across North America in recent decades suggests any proposed plan will fall within a continuum of two extremes. At one end is a complete fusion of all or almost all Allegheny County local governments into one giant “Pittsburgh Metroplex” government. Despite its size, Metroplex would be far simpler to comprehend in form and function than what exists now. However, it would also be very hard to bring about and would come with a big downside.
With our theoretical Metroplex, the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County would lose their respective current identities and become one government. That means, among other things, that the roughly 6,000 county employees would join the approximately 4,000 city employees to create a local government of more or less 10,000 employees (advocates will say fewer employees while opponents will say more). No more city and county councils, no more county and city police, and so on down the line.
The Metroplex would also absorb the political and administrative identities of some, most, or possibly all of the 130 local governments in the county, thus adding at least several hundred more local government employees to our already large Metroplex. In fact, when complete, Metroplex would become one of the largest freestanding governments in the United States, exceeding a number of state government bureaucracies.
At the other end of our continuum is a scheme far more complex in form and function than Metroplex. Though the opposite of the Metroplex is probably easier to bring about, it too comes with a major downside. In our alternative and hypothetical “Pittsburgh Alliance of Governments” some, most, or all local governments would remain intact as separate entities but would be joined through a series of interlocking contractual agreements. These legally binding agreements would, among other things, compel all parties to base all major decisions solely on efficiency and effectiveness criteria and work together in a coordinated way.
A rudimentary version of our Alliance exists now and is called the Council of Governments. The Councils have tried some joint purchasing and service provision. In our Alliance, however, city, county and municipal police departments might retain their identities and jurisdictions, but most or all of their administrative functions (purchasing, HR, etc.) might be performed by one entity. And this is just for starters. In the extreme, every government service that is provided now would be assessed for a “contractual consolidation.”
The U.S. military initiated a similar contract-based consolidation shortly after World War II when the Department of Defense replaced the War Department. The Defense Department was organized to allow the Marines, Navy, Army and (later) Air Force to retain their identities while also bringing about a massive consolidation in key administrative functions (i.e., general management, procurement, contracting, and personnel) with the goals of cost reduction and increased coordination.
There is little chance you will ever see either extreme form of consolidation at the ballot box, however. Nevertheless, we have a window into why and how any consolidation will and, maybe, won't work. Yet there is still more to consider.
For instance, the ominous-sounding Metroplex only works when brought forth as a complete redesign of local government — a clean sheet of paper. With it we could obliterate in one stroke the unnecessary and silly duplication endemic to this region. We could subject every government service to a rigorous filter of rational and thoughtful administration and management. We could even contemplate whole new countywide services, impossible today because of jurisdictional boundaries and just plain petty political bickering.
However, there is one big problem with our Metroplex: it is big government. Bureaucracies create distance between those doing the work of government and those served by government. And bigger bureaucracies mean greater gaps. As inefficient as hundreds of borough managers seem on paper there are a lot fewer places to hide from the taxpayer in a government of 10,000.
Our innocent-sounding Alliance confronts the limitation of Metroplex, but it too comes with problems. One of the realities of a contractual consolidation like our Alliance is that even though it may be easier to implement than the Metroplex, it is going to be much, much harder to manage. The Defense Department's consolidation is still under way 60 years later with no obvious end in sight.
On the one hand, consolidators can be heartened by the recent referendum to absorb and consolidate the county row offices (three-fourths of the citizens voted for it). On the other hand, the initial advantage in the ensuing consolidation battle will lie with the opponents of change. Niccoló Machiavelli captured this challenge when he advised his Prince nearly five centuries ago, “… nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”
Our experiment in thought, however, ignores the crude realities of politics, government and human nature. First, no one willingly gives up power. Can you imagine the hundreds of local elected and appointed officials embracing the loss of their job (and status)?
Second, there is no historic precedent for undertaking a government reformation on the scale implied by just about any kind of meaningful local government change. Is a region profoundly in debt, losing population and burdened by a perennially anemic economy capable of performing such an intricate and complex task as government consolidation? The will may be there — in part because of these difficulties — but are the means?
Last, any consolidation will change the local political battlefield in a way so extreme that it is impossible to predict which politicians and their allies will win or lose over the long term. Will a fear of the unknown drive our politicians to compromises so cumbersome and just plain stupid as to sink the consolidation vessel before it leaves the harbor?
You should, must, and likely will give the consolidation question all the hard thinking you can give it. And yet it requires even more than intense reflection. It demands each of us engage in an old-fashioned running debate — not by few selfappointed experts in a dais in a stuffy hotel ballroom symposium — but by you and me across our kitchen tables, neighborhood bars, office conference tables and car pools until we are satisfied we made an informed choice.
This is the essence of making hardchoices and those choices will determine whether you will soon live in the City of Pittsburgh, Bethel Park, Shaler Township, or some place none of us ever heard of (yet).
A lot of suburbanites will fight tooth and nail against it, but I think a merger would be good for the whole region. We need to get rid of all this duplication in government, which wastes money and makes it harder to do business here. Plus we need to stop fighting amongst ourselves and start working together as a region.
There is some talk about it but I don't see it happening anytime soon. However there is an increasing amount of cooperation between the city and the county, in terms of services. I think that is a decent start.
I have lived in the county, but currently live in the old city limits, but I think merger has benefited everyone in Louisville.
For example, there are plans to add 3,000 acres of parkland in the suburbs and build a 110 miles bike/ walking trail around the city within 10 years. Many current parks along the "green way" will also be expanded and improved. I don't think that would have taken place without a more unified government. (Currently, all but two of the best parks are in the old city)
All emergency services (like police and EMS) and traffic signals are now run from a single location as well, meaning greater coordination. There is also one Metro Counsel instead of the previous fragmented government (the City, and 90 suburban governments)
I sure hope the upcoming mayoral election will at least bring to the forefront the issue of merging city and county. Certainly thus far the powers that have controlled the city and county for years have been very moderate at best on merging discussions. Mark DeSantis say's his campaign will be centered on the issue. Hope he does a good job on debate and educating his thoughts to what has been a clue-less local scene here in W PA.
I think you can merge certain services without a full government merger; the county-wide transportation authority is one such example. The Twin Cities example cited above is another; in terms of providing certain public services like utilities and transit, there is region-wide coordination. But in most other government affairs, each city and town and what-not still retains its autonomy. Red Wing can pass an ordinance requiring residential parking permits or zoning laws or building codes if it wants to and it doesn't have to ask anyone's permission in MLPS or St. Paul or anywhere else. I think limited merger for providing basic services is a good idea; but otherwise I'm not too fond of "one-size-fits-all governance." The more local, the better.
I agree with you Drover. I certainly hope this issue becomes 'THE ISSUE' for Pittsburgh and environs for the upcoming mayoral election. Mr DeSantis has his work cut out in bringing this to the forefront.
wow! One of the things that attracted us to the Pittsburgh area was the responsiveness of local government! Comming from Los Angeles, where the bureaucracy is so huge that that it works for very very few of us, the thought of creating another one makes me sick to my stomach! I know that the issues are different in Los Angeles, but I just don't believe that you can retain the responsiveness that is currently present at least in the suburbs. I look forward to learning more about the issues when we move, but creating another Los Angeles should not be a goal!
Morefromcali I can certainly respect what you stated above. And for sure that is a huge juggling act trying to maintain the local and independent feel of the micro within a macro-govt environment. And to go further to maintain the local response issue as you mentioned. In fact I'm going to pose that question to the GOP candidate running for the mayor's office and strongly pushing for merging to some degree. Hope your enjoying your move to Pittsburgh!
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Don't loose sight of the local though...
