To say that the ticket-happy Kilbuck Police Department was notorious with motorists is like saying that Count Dracula had a poor reputation in Transylvania. While new dawns have driven stakes through the hearts of both, the applause coming from travelers on the old speed-trap haunts along Route 65 shouldn't obscure an important point.

Kilbuck disbanded its police department last week because, as former Police Chief Jack Lennon told the Post-Gazette, it couldn't meet payroll. The fate of the department of two full-time and seven part-time officers was apparently sealed last April when it lost a contract to provide police coverage to Ben Avon.

The state police will provide coverage for the moment -- which is its own problem, not only because general taxpayers suddenly start subsidizing a small community that hitherto paid its own way but also because the state police have better things to do. Still, after it settles with the union representing the dismissed officers, Kilbuck could enter into an agreement with another municipality willing to provide police coverage for a fee.

That, of course, would be a good thing as far as it goes. We are all for municipalities making cooperative arrangements in various areas. It is the next best thing to countywide consolidation, and for Kilbuck it might ease the concerns of local residents worried whether the state police are up to the job.

But why settle for second-best? That is the question posed by Kilbuck's police problems. This is a community of 700 souls, but it has had an impact far beyond its size -- and not a good one.

It's not just the ticket-writing allegedly done for safety while boosting the township's coffers; it's also the irresponsible zoning decisions that allowed Wal-Mart to start its ill-fated project to build a store on the old Dixmont State Hospital site. A major landslide ended that adventure, but thousands of motorists using Route 65 are reminded daily of the folly because the road is still restricted to one lane going north.

There are notoriously 130 municipalities in Allegheny County, a patchwork quilt of inefficiency held together by inertia and local egotism. When one considers that police protection is a core function of government, it is necessary to ask what is the point of perpetuating these fiefdoms if they can't afford the basic symbol of their independence? Rather than consolidating police departments among neighbors, the Kilbucks of this corner of the world should be thinking of merging entirely with other municipalities.

Don't hold your breath. Killing Count Dracula was easier than bringing the dawn of progress to Allegheny County.