Are there secret plans to merge Peoria city and county?
From Peoria Pundit
I get the most interesting e-mail:
Dear Bill,
Are you aware of the "private meetings" with the kingmakers regarding a friendly take over and merger by some old friends. The scenario has a few variations but the common thread is the relationship between the mayor, sheriff, some county officials and one or two of Ardis' trusted kitchen cabinet. The idea is Ardis becomes STRONG mayor, McCoy takes over the
Peoria PD and builds a kingdom of law enforcement and the fire department will replace all the volunteer departments in the area. You may think someone is blowing smoke but this is a serious plan on the part of some of these yoyo's. Are you aware of any of this? Please look into it and start following the "secret meetings".
Keep up the good work.
First: I'm thinking this entertaining scenario is probably stemming from Mayor Ardis citing information from Sheriff Mike McCoy (a campaign supporter of Ardis') in arguing against ending the agreement with the county over booking fees at the Peoria County Jail. And yes, there are talks between the some city council members and some members of the Peoria County board to resolve some of the issues. There have been some concerns expressed at the "hard ball" being played by City Manager Randy Oliver.
Second: I think merging the city and the county might be a fine idea. City dwellers are already paying two-thirds the cost of the services the county provides. But the city sometimes provides duplicate services, like police protection. But we city residents still pay for Sheriff's deputies to patrol everywhere else besides their own neighborhoods too.
Third: County and city government would have to be completely reorganized.
Fourth: I really like the idea of a strong mayor form of government. No disrespect intended to Mr. Oliver (who I admire, despite disagreements on specific issues like the Grandview Hotel and parking decks for doctors), but I think government works best when city employees are hired and fired directly by someone who can be hired and fired directly by voters. The city manager/weak mayor form of government provides too many buffers between voters and services they pay for through their tax dollars.
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City of Peoria, County of Peoria, government mergers, randy Oliver, Jim Ardis
9 comments:
Take a look at the relationship between Boone County and Belvidere. I believe the sheriff and the police department work out of the same building.
What Pek said. Mussolini made the trains run on time, but sometimes you want more distance between the electeds and the professional staff.
Cal Skinner said...
"Take a look at the relationship between Boone County and Belvidere. I believe the sheriff and the police department work out of the same building. "
Apparently Cal believes that is unusual. In Cook County, of course, County and City are split by a very nice hallway. I bet our friend Cal is outraged.
So far no county in Illinois has switched to a metro or urban form of government as Illinois law doesn't allow it.
The only exception would be if the voters in both the city and county voted in favor of home-rule, and then tried to reorganize by referendum.
Kentucky has two counties with a combined city/county government - Louisville/Jefferson County and Lexington/Fayette County.
Right now Paducah and McCracken County officials are looking into it. Paducah is about 25,000 residents. McCracken has 65,500 residents.
Both are much smaller than Peoria with its 112,000 residents in a county with 183,000.
Still, if Kentucky counties are looking into this approach as a cost-saver and a way to expand services, Peoria officials ought to look into this as well.
The Pundit hit the nail on the head and drove it deep into the fundamental problem with our growing bureaucratic government.
Bureaucratic patronage is far worse than political patronage. Without the cleansing of an election every now and then, the bureaucrats become a world unto themselves with no controls, no checks nor balances.
Another agreeing with Pek....
If elected officials are the direct supervisors over departments, then the departments lose focus. In some cases, the department can be misused as employees can be politically threatened. Worse, departments can get mixed messages from different officials. One alderman may make a demand that directly opposes the demands of another. It's very easy for a department or department head to be leaned on in a strong mayor form.
If you think turnover in a department is good for an occasional bureaucratic cleanout, then I hope you understand that means a loss of wisdom and operational history in the organization which can lead to the repetition of past mistakes. It can also mean a more difficult time recruiting quality candidates to positions due to the politicized environment. It also means much more potential for disruption in maintaining continuity between administrations.
If there are problems with departments, that's what the city manager is for. Demand he (or she) make changes or change the manager. Don't politicize the administrative people to gain a false sense of accountability that's easily marred by the whims or eccentricities of politicians.
I'm not overly familiar with unified governments, and haven't studied them enough to make a fully informed opinion, but another Midwest gov't that's been unified is Kansas City, KS and Wyandotte County. That happened in the last decade and may be worth reading up on to see the pros and cons and to see what the benefits and costs have been since the unification.
That is, assuming this is anything more than rumor and innuendo....
make no mistake, a strong mayor is undeniably the most powerful position in American democracy today.
The hard cheese is would the new "Unigov" be permitted to hold the home rule power the city now has? Only cities and counties have that option in the present statutes.
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