V is for ‘voluntary’
Support an option to let municipalities disband
Earlier this month, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald was joined by his two predecessors, Dan Onorato and Jim Roddey, to make a pitch for a new state law permitting “voluntary municipal disincorporation” in the county. That 14-syllable term is not one to drop into everyday conversation, unless you’re trying to grind it to a halt. But behind the bureaucratic terminology is a reasonable idea. Financially troubled boroughs and townships should be able to disband and turn over governmental services to the county.
The most important word in the proposal is “voluntary.” Messrs. Fitzgerald, Onorato and Roddey all stressed that point, and were backed up by Mark Nordenberg, the former chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh who now heads Pitt’s Institute of Politics. It produced the report explaining the mechanics of the law. These regional leaders emphasized voluntarism based on hard-won knowledge. In Allegheny County, the hint of “metropolitanism” is one way to make many citizens of our many municipalities (130 at last count) paranoid about a power grab.
Someday, those fears will fade. For now, we need only start with the fact that 38 states already allow a form of what’s in this proposal. It’s hardly a socialist plot.
Consider another set of numbers: Thirty-eight of the 130 municipalities in Allegheny County have fewer than 2,000 residents. Trend lines are not encouraging. Recent census data show the county’s population as slipping slightly, or at least stagnant. The numbers are going against these small places, where the community pride and identity are real but the practical reasons for having a local government are thin. Mr. Fitzgerald’s best case is that the communities can still function like a city neighborhood, with civic groups and institutions, but “they just won’t have a mayor and a borough council.”
In 1995, during one of the region’s frequent debates over metropolitanism, when big ideas were being bandied about, the Post-Gazette published an eloquent op- ed by Duquesne University political science professor Charles T. Rubin, going against the grain of the professoriate. “Is there really nothing good to say for this rich diversity of governments? In fact, we are lucky to be living under circumstances favorable to meaningful self-government, even if it is not always practiced. Government planners, corporate leaders and academic experts forget that this patchwork quilt means that those who live in relatively small communities are governed by their neighbors,” he argued, citing his pleasure at living in Forest Hills. “Regionalism looks only at the frustrations, and offers us the perennial promise of paternalism: ‘Poor child, can’t you work this out for yourself? Here, let me help you.’ ”
It appears that regional leaders have taken these sentiments to heart. Voluntary municipal disincorporation, however wonky it may sound, would be just an option in the toolkit for fixing a distressed township or borough. When it formally becomes a bill in the state Legislature, it deserves to pass with bipartisan support.