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There aren't unincorporated areas in this part or perhaps any part of New England, as it was all divided up into townships long ago. We pay property and excise taxes to our township and they (try) to provide services. This is a very rural township, the population, including a tiny village, is about 1200 people. The 'bureaucracy' consists of the elected Select Board, and we vote on everything at the annual Town Meeting.
This has more or less worked since 1760. My feeling is that it is best of the alternatives.
In my part of New England, townships are either incorporated into 'cities' or else they remain Unorganized Townships [UTs] and they have no local government.
We pay property taxes directly to the state.
In this state, we have hundreds of UTs. I live in the most densely populated statewide with 235 people. Most UTs have 4 or less people.
There aren't unincorporated areas in this part or perhaps any part of New England, as it was all divided up into townships long ago. We pay property and excise taxes to our township and they (try) to provide services. This is a very rural township, the population, including a tiny village, is about 1200 people. The 'bureaucracy' consists of the elected Select Board, and we vote on everything at the annual Town Meeting.
This has more or less worked since 1760. My feeling is that it is best of the alternatives.
Well, you have to consider the geography of the area. I think the town meeting/township model works well in a thickly settled place like Massachusetts. In West Texas, it'd be nuts to try to have townships when counties can be several times larger than Massachusetts. So in rural areas of Texas, the county is the primary local government unit. There are large expanses of land that aren't incorporated into any entity smaller than "county", because there's not the population density to justify it.
Different places have different models that work best for them.
With each US Census, I see local news articles about how in New England the Census takers must group Townships into clusters so that when they go out they can find someone to talk to.
The US Census is hesitant to send out their people to any municipality that has no residents.
Instead of using each township as a municipality, they will cluster townships into virtual municipalities to give them 5 people to talk to.
Since many townships here in New England have so few people. For Census takers to meet with 5 people presents a difficulty. They routinely must cluster 4 or 5 townships together just to get 5 people.
It looks like an interesting job. If you must snowshoe into an area due to the lack of roads. Then hike into the next township to meet with that resident. Rinse and repeat.
An individual Census taker could be expected to hike a long way on snowshoes trying to locate a single resident. Imagine if he was not home that day, or maybe he is out working his trap lines.
There are two "cities" in our county. Using the term "city" as a form of government, not size of the town. They're about 15 miles apart with farmland in between. yet the "city" limits meet in the middle of that farmland.
The other interesting thing about Tennessee is one of our largest cities is also its own county (Nashville/Davidson) as is one of our smallest (Lynchburg/Moore). Mainly because it's interesting to observe the how that mixed government impacts those different population sizes.
For those who live in unincorporated areas....do you constantly have outsiders try to annex your area? OR people from out of state moving in and trying to start a city council and mayor?
Our little town is always getting people moving here from out of state (mainly CA), and then they try to get people riled up with their town government talk. Thank goodness its always just a very few who try to force the issue. Knock on wood
I live in an unincorporated area in Alachua County in Florida and about a year or so ago the City of Gainesville sent out a survey trying to gauge my community’s interests in incorporating into the city. Not only was the overwhelming response no, but it was an h e double ll no. I think the reason is because this area of Florida seems like it has a multi personality disorder and the governance shows it.
The Gainesville City Commission is very liberal, due to the presence of the University of Florida. For example, the city voted to abolish single family homes in October 2022 so that you could have multiple families living in a home, and also build accessory dwelling units on your property.
However, Alachua County is much more conservative, as there are still some farmers, ranchers and their supporters in the area, and they are very disdainful of the university and its influence on the city. The county briefly discussed, and then discarded, thoughts on following the city’s leadership. Ironically, so many people continued to protest the zoning change that Gainesville reversed course in April last year and reinstated the ordinance allowing single family homes. What a clown show.
Our police is provided by the county. Fire too. We’re governed by county, rather than city ordinances. However, the city owns the electric company, which also provides water and gas services to my community. It shouldn’t be any surprise that the Gainesville city council has done such a poor job running it at a loss that Governor DeSantis wrestled control in 2023 and sent a team from the state to takeover.
The utility’s losses started to accumulate when the city, back in 2009, began plans to build a biomass plant to provide green energy. They were $900 million in debt, and the plant’s acquisition costs eventually ballooned to $750 million. Today, the biomass plant provides about 25% of our energy and the city’s utility company is in debt to the tune of about $2 billion. Again, what a clown show.
The problem for us that live in unincorporated communities is that we are customers of the utility company but have no say on how it’s run, as the city is in charge and we can’t vote in city elections.
But on the other hand, when the city approves a property tax increase, we’re not impacted, as we’re considered residents of the county, not the city.
I'm in the county and my next door neighbor is in the city limits. They have more restrictions plus city taxes. They have city trash pick up. 95 homes in our subdivision are in the city and 5 of us aren't. The small city has gone crazy annexing county property for developers to the point that the citizens elected a new mayor and council who put a moratorium on any more annexation for six months.
We have no interest in being annexed. We have water, sewer, fire protection, county sheriff.
I'm in the county and my next door neighbor is in the city limits. They have more restrictions plus city taxes. They have city trash pick up. 95 homes in our subdivision are in the city and 5 of us aren't. The small city has gone crazy annexing county property for developers to the point that the citizens elected a new mayor and council who put a moratorium on any more annexation for six months.
We have no interest in being annexed. We have water, sewer, fire protection, county sheriff.
It might be interesting to find out what kind of relationship exists between those developers and the city zoning/planning office, and council members.
The projection of increased city revenue is often a strong motivator among council members.
It is common for candidates who decide to run for office to have some pet project in mind [increased PD / FD, a new city park, street lights, an expanded Rec department, etc] All of these projects require revenue.
Annexing you and your neighbors and taxing you would be a handy way for them to bump their revenue.
It might be interesting to find out what kind of relationship exists between those developers and the city zoning/planning office, and council members.
The projection of increased city revenue is often a strong motivator among council members.
It is common for candidates who decide to run for office to have some pet project in mind [increased PD / FD, a new city park, street lights, an expanded Rec department, etc] All of these projects require revenue.
Annexing you and your neighbors and taxing you would be a handy way for them to bump their revenue.
We're all sure there was some dirty dealing going on as well as incompetence in the planning and development departments. They did things sneaky, putting zoning change signs up on side streets so most didn't know about it. New candidates ran on stopping new projects since everyone could see things were out of control. There's also a new citizens group that has set up guidelines for new developments and attends every small town and county council meeting in our area to keep everyone in check and informed.
Unfortunately one of the projects that was approved before anyone knew was a 200 townhouse project one street away from us.
The good thing is that on local elections like this, it really doesn't take too many voters to elect someone new, you just have to have an informed group that will go to the polls.
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Originally Posted by KaraG
We're all sure there was some dirty dealing going on as well as incompetence in the planning and development departments. They did things sneaky, putting zoning change signs up on side streets so most didn't know about it. New candidates ran on stopping new projects since everyone could see things were out of control. There's also a new citizens group that has set up guidelines for new developments and attends every small town and county council meeting in our area to keep everyone in check and informed.
Unfortunately one of the projects that was approved before anyone knew was a 200 townhouse project one street away from us.
The good thing is that on local elections like this, it really doesn't take too many voters to elect someone new, you just have to have an informed group that will go to the polls.
Exactly. We are dealing with a mess in my county because we had self serving county commissioners selling out everyone but themselves. One brave woman stood up to it and we are hopeful the elections in May change the dynamic. One of the board members said 'my land, my choice' - he doesn't care if he decimates your land values so long as he is good and if you did a project that impacted his land values he would scream to high heaven about the very thing they tried to remove unilaterally. Crooked as they come and all decisions they made bypassed any local voters.
Exactly. We are dealing with a mess in my county because we had self serving county commissioners selling out everyone but themselves. One brave woman stood up to it and we are hopeful the elections in May change the dynamic. One of the board members said 'my land, my choice' - he doesn't care if he decimates your land values so long as he is good and if you did a project that impacted his land values he would scream to high heaven about the very thing they tried to remove unilaterally. Crooked as they come and all decisions they made bypassed any local voters.
In our recent elections, I don't think the good ole boys knew they were going down. Those of us supporting the new candidates were quiet about our support and it was mostly one on one discussions and reaching out to influential people in the community who could bring in more voters, like small business owners and neighborhood leaders. Several people went door to door.
On election day we sent reminders to everyone to go vote. That's the hardest part.
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