Many people think Dayton's government is mismanaged. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. The current circumstances however, aren't good. Dayton is plagued by a shrinking population (tax base), aging infrastructure, and a serious decay (and reputation) that causes individuals and corporations to either leave, look elsewhere, or not locate here at all (assuming there are people interested in being in the Miami Valley). As an urban county, with Dayton as the county seat, Montgomery County faces the same dilemmas but has a broader base that includes a couple successful suburbs.
Possibilities for improvement? Change the way government does business. And Change how the region and city view themselves. For starters.....as a region....with a regional approach to everything...including government.
City leaders are trying to learn. Recently they visited Louisville to check out it's consolidated approach to government.
Other cities look to Louisville as example of merged government
By Kevin Riley
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Last week a group of local leaders took a bus trip to Louisville, Ky., a city that is being lauded as a model of government reform and regional cooperation.
The idea behind the trip, which was put together by WDTN-TV Channel 2's Dan Edwards, was for us to have a look at what has occurred in Louisville.
We aren't alone in this interest. Officials in Louisville said the Dayton group, which included the Montgomery County commissioners and other local government officials, was among more than 70 such delegations that have visited. As cities around the country struggle, leaders are looking at how to change governmental operations. Debates specifically about merging governments are going on in Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
A little background:
After 40 years of wrangling, Louisville and Jefferson County voted to merge in 2000. The community had until 2003 to put its new government in place.
Similar attempts failed at the voting booth at least three previous times, including in 1982 and 1983. And in 1984 the Kentucky Legislature — out of frustration with the turmoil — said the community couldn't vote on the issue again without prior legislative approval.
In 2003 when the merger took effect, Louisville became the country's 16th largest city, up from about the 65th. (These rankings depend on the source, but Louisville became a Top 25 city, a distinction that sometimes matters to companies seeking a place to locate.)
As our Dayton group listened to presentations and asked questions, several points emerged about Louisville-Jefferson County Metro, as the government is called:
• The merger was done in the simplest way possible, creating one governmental entity out of two. Officials say they learned the hard way that trying to spell out every nuance in legislation of how the merger would work is a mistake. So details about how to merge departments and handle finances were left to the new government to figure out.
• The new government has a strong mayor and 26-member council. Council members represent specific districts. Officials say this improved representation for those living outside Louisville, where a sprawling county had been governed by three commissioners elected at-large.
• Smaller cities in the county continue to exist and can levy additional taxes and offer services beyond what the metro government does. Voters in those cities elect a representative to the metro council. Letting the smaller cities continue to exist eliminated key opposition to the merger, but still created countywide government services.
• When the merger failed in the 1980s, the city and county agreed to begin sharing tax dollars and merging some operations. By the time the merger happened, the two entities had come to trust each other more, making consolidation easier.
• The community had important support in the legislature, which enabled the merger by changing relevant state laws. The conversation with the Louisville officials, who have a well-honed, folksy presentation, had other important undertones.
Everyone seemed to agree that the health of Louisville's downtown and the region's central city is vital. By merging the governments, Louisville became everyone's concern, which in turn fed investment and focus.
Government officials were not on their own; the business community pushed hard for the merger, and helped raised more than $1.5 million for the campaign to pass it.
Race was an issue. The concern: African-American political power was based in the city. By taking government countywide, the fear was that African-Americans would have less influence.
Deputy Mayor William Summers IV pointed to the council's districts and the six members of the council who are African-American. He emphasized that more African-Americans are in elected positions now than in the former city and county governments combined.
Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson, a popular figure who was the "face" of the merger campaign, acknowledged that the merger has not solved all of Louisville's problems. In fact, the metro government has a $20 million deficit, and on Tuesday, Nov. 25, he will announce what he wants to do about it.
The mayor has plenty of quips and stories about how all of this works better now, including one about how it's easier to get a dead dog picked up off a rural road.
His best line of the day came when he described his first day in office after the merger: "I was like Noah. I had two of everything."
Now, that sounds familiar.
Kevin Riley is editor of the Dayton Daily News. You can contact him at (937) 225-2161 or kriley@coxohio.com.
Some people might see this as impossible. People are territorial. Can it happen? Is it possible? Is it too little too late? Is it the right approach or are there other possibilities?
Personally I think it's an interesting idea but considering that there is so much growth beyond the borders of Montgomery County, I'm not sure how a consolidated government is going to attract or retain interest in the urban core. Thoughts?
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