Searching for a path
to a future
for the Pittsburgh region

An occasional series

		Listen In The Post-Gazette is hosting a continuing series of town meetings to examine the issues pertaining to local government consolidation. In order to present the information in the fullest context, audio highlights from each meeting are posted online the morning after the event: 2005 January 20, 2005: Merger wheels turn slowly 2004 Index to 2004 meetings October 01, 2004: Louisville mayor offers primer on uniting city-county government May 27, 2004: Town meeting panelists split on consolidation 2003 October 31, 2003: Panelists weigh merits of merging city, county services February 14, 2003: Teacher quality discussion draws full house

Merger wheels turn slowly (1/20/05)
Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and two state legislators pleaded for patience last night in explaining why they have made so little progress toward consolidating local governments.

Merger mania sweeps Midwest (1/1/05)
In the old industrial Northeast, with its tightly packed neighborhoods and shuttered mills, city-county mergers have been mostly just talk. In the wide-open, fertile Midwest, however, the movement toward metropolitan government has been as fast and furious as a hay baler in dry weather. The merger action has been particularly hot in the Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa triangle, among a set of cities that are all within a 200-mile radius of each other.

If there's a merger race, Buffalo leads it (12/31/04)
In a race to pull off a city-county merger, Buffalo is leaving Pittsburgh in the rust. Joel Giambra, the Buffalo equivalent of the Allegheny County chief executive, turned government consolidation into a three-way competition in February.

Blacks want a place at any city-county merger table (11/14/04)
In 1969, Indiana's Republican-controlled Legislature crafted Unigov, an initiative that merged the city of Indianapolis with heavily Republican Marion County, expanded the powers of the mayor and created a combined city-county council. It would be three decades before another Democrat won a mayoral election, and black people, who had been about half of the Democrats in Indianapolis, now made up about 18 percent of the population of the new political entity, became a minority within a minority. Can black people avoid a similar fate if Pittsburgh merges with Allegheny County?

Town Meeting: Louisville mayor offers primer on uniting city-county government (10/1/04)
Merging the city and county governments in Louisville, Ky., once seemed as unlikely a prospect as merging the Pittsburgh and Allegheny County governments. But four years ago, a ballot measure merging the Louisville and Jefferson County governments finally won approval.

Ex-Gov. Thornburgh calls for mergers of towns (9/25/04)
Former governor and U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh has implored local political and business leaders to tackle the region's problem of municipal-government fragmentation.

When consolidating municipalities, it's best to force issue (9/22/04)
Canadian provinces have consolidated central cities with suburbs in many of the country's largest metropolitan areas, including Toronto, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Montreal and Halifax. In contrast, the state of Pennsylvania has stood pat.

5 suburbs melted into Ontario's 'Steeltown' (9/21/04)
In the postindustrial age, the leaders of Hamilton, Ontaria, a steel-making city on the western shore of Lake Ontario, have long looked toward Pittsburgh for guidance. These days, though, Pittsburgh might want to look toward Hamilton.

Toronto stumbling six years after huge mergers (9/20/04)
Recognized worldwide for its commerce and culture, Toronto, Canada, began 1997 with a population of more than 650,000, nearly twice the size of present-day Pittsburgh. Toronto entered 1998 with a population of 2.4 million, nearly four times as many people as the year before. But the new super-sized Toronto has stumbled through its first six years, beset with labor strife, political conflict and scandal.

In Winnipeg, 'unicity' comprises city and 11 suburban communities (9/19/04)
This little metropolis might seem like an improbable birthplace for a revolutionary approach to reorganizing local government.

Indianapolis, pioneer in city-county mergers, faces crisis (8/23/04)
An expansion of the city of Indianapolis never consolidated certain government agencies, including those that provide police and fire protection and tax assessment in the suburbs. Now the first Democratic mayor since the consolidation says those mergers are needed to save Indianapolis from severe financial problems

Will voters merge 5 Mercer County towns into 1? (8/15/04)
Farrell is 17 years into its life as an officially distressed city and looking for help in the form of a referendum that would consolidate it with four neighboring communities into one new city.

In Allegheny County, towns increased from 7 townships to 130 municipalities (8/8/04)
Once upon a time, Allegheny County consisted of seven townships. That was 1788. Two hundred sixteen years later, that seems like a fairy tale. Today, the county is clogged with 130 municipalities, the most per capita of any county in the nation.
See historical profiles of the 130 municipalities

W.Va. explores county-mergers efficiency (8/1/04)
Like Western Pennsylvania, the entire state of West Virginia is facing the twin demographic threats of an aging and shrinking population, and some experts say the state's local governments are in desperate need of reorganization to meet these challenges and better compete for jobs and new residents.

In county, collection of taxes complex, antiquated (6/28/04)
In Allegheny County, there are 600,000 pieces of property and 132 property tax collectors -- one for each municipality. In Franklin County, Ohio, the home county of Columbus, there are 400,000 parcels and one property tax collector.

School district mergers a rarity (6/27/04)
One widely cited study that says school districts with 10,000 to 15,000 students are best. Just 15 districts statewide fall into that category -- none in the six-county region. Mergers would be the logical means to achieve that, but there haven't been any in 40 years, and local sentiment remains strongly opposed the idea.

Towns develop joint land-use plan as tiny step toward considering merger (6/21/04)
The concept of merging some or all of the municipalities of Allegheny County has never caught on, but it's never gone away, either.

Could there be a single, Rivers City in the future of struggling Mon Valley towns? (6/20/04)
That's a question raised by a radical proposal that won't go away. The idea: Merge 39 municipalities in southeastern Allegheny County and call it Rivers City. If it came to pass, the beleaguered Mon Valley would become the third-largest city in the commonwealth, rather than a collection of oddly shaped and fiscally struggling cities, boroughs and townships.

Town meeting panelists split on consolidation (5/27/04)
In Allegheny County, policy wonks tend to favor government consolidation, while elected officials tend to oppose it.

In Louisville, Ky., officials tout merger benefits (5/22/04)
In the first year after Louisville, Ky. merged with outlying Jefferson County, the new combined government was able to eliminate an $18 million shortfall in revenue by cutting redundant operations and services.

Five little Cambria County towns mull a merger (4/4/04)
Five tiny municipalities, adjacent geographically but separate demographically, are mulling a referendum item that would allow voters to decide on a new government. Combined into one town, East Conemaugh, Franklin, Daisytown boroughs and Conemaugh and East Taylor Townships would have a population of just under 7,000.

Local taxes display an uneven bite (Part Two, 3/8/04)
With Allegheny County split up among 130 municipalities, the vast majority of black residents are shouldering high tax rates in distressed municipalities, while most wealthy whites are enjoying low tax rates in affluent suburbs.

Shrinking tax bases crippling suburbs (Part One, 3/7/04)
The city of Pittsburgh can find comfort in one thing as it writhes in the pain of deficits and debt: A lot of its suburbs are hurting, too.

A blueprint for tax sharing: In Minnesota, dividing the spoils helps cities and suburbs (2/15/04)
The sparkling Mall of America, still the country's biggest after a dozen years, is among the Midwest's top tourist destinations. From a civic standpoint, it's also one of the most valuable places in Greater Minneapolis, scheduled to contribute $18.5 million in property taxes to government coffers in 2004.

Troubled Buffalo warms to city, county merger (2/13/04)
In a preview of the hard political choices that may await Pittsburgh and other struggling Rust Belt cities, Buffalo's mayor and the leader of surrounding Erie County said this week they are both on board with a plan to merge city and county governments.

City-county merger: What would it solve? (10/26/03)
For a full merger of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County governments and services to happen, about a thousand things would have to fall into place.

Louisville becomes lean, less mean after city/county merger (9/7/03)
Nearly three years ago, voters in Louisville, Ky., gave city-county consolidation a chance. And on Jan. 6, the separate Louisville and Jefferson County governments dissolved, giving way to one 26-member council, one budget, one police chief and one mayor. Here's what happened next.

Buffalo grapples with a problem familiar to Pittsburgh: lack of money (8/17/03)
Dorothy Johnson was hired to head the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority, a nine-member state board with budget control powers. Created in July with New York Gov. George Pataki's signature, the board will oversee the development of a four-year fiscal plan for the city. The board's mission, in shorthand: Save Buffalo.