All together now
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No comments [ Add Comment ]It has long been our observation that an elected city official in the Top of Utah can commit no greater municipal heresy than to suggest there ought to be fewer cities. On the scale of potential local sins, it is only slightly worse than supporting consolidated fire service and/or law enforcement.
Cities, both large and small, tend to see themselves as significant only when they have their own city hall, fire station and police department; "supremely laid back" would be an apt description for a city that's comfortable with itself absent those monuments.
This is why we had to collect our jaws up off the floor after reading Standard-Examiner correspondent Antone Clark's recent story about South Davis County elected officials actually going on the record to acknowledge they've discussed the notion of merging several cities into one. Now, they qualified their comments by describing them as "light-hearted" discussions. Still, this is stunning news.
Our hope is they were speaking less abstractly than they're letting on. Consolidation, pursued intelligently, can create savings for communities. Cities in the southern end of Davis County already know this. As our reporter noted, fire and recreational services already have been consolidated in the cities of Centerville, Bountiful, West Bountiful, North Salt Lake and Woods Cross.
Centerville City Councilman Larry Wright says it's time to study the possibility of further consolidation of services, and perhaps even merging entire city governments in an effort to end duplication of services to the cities, all of which fall into a 10-mile radius.
Another Centerville councilman, Justin Allen, told our correspondent he has no illusions about the potential resistance to such a proposal. As evidence, he pointed to the controversy in North Salt Lake last year when some in the city moved to change the community's name -- the effort was not popular, to say the least.
Local identity, indeed, is the primary stumbling block to consolidation of government services -- and, obviously, entire municipal governments. Still, we are thrilled to see elected officials asking these questions, and we hope they will follow through on efforts to investigate the possibility of further consolidation.
In this case, heresy is a good thing.
