County consolidation could help eliminate small-town blight

by Al Germond

March 24,2007

With many of them headed down the road to an inevitable financial and administrative impasse, there's little to be optimistic about in some of Missouri's 114 counties. Smallest in size and population is Worth County, hard on the Iowa line with about as many inhabitants as the daily population of Hickman High School. One doesn't have to venture that far to observe the sparseness of population in a typical Missouri county. Now, perhaps, it's time to consider, if not consolidation, some form of regional administration and government.

Historically, America's counties were created to replicate the administrative sub-divisions of Britain's shires or France's départements, in that the seat of government could be reached on horseback from any point in the governed region, given a day's ride. Missouri's 114 counties are roughly comparable in area, with the county seat typically centered, although other nearby communities may have leapfrogged ahead in terms of growth and importance. Of course, this setup has been totally obviated by modern roads and transportation.

I once drove through Worth County and wondered how an entity so sparsely populated could possibly survive on its own. Grant City—population 926—is the county seat. There's a courthouse, of course, and the barest essentials of county government and services are provided, but how could it be possible for a county this small to function without a huge infusion of financial support from outside? It would appear that pride in one's origin and history may no longer be sustainable in these individual, relatively tiny administrative units.

Much closer, and Boone County's closest relative, is Howard County (the "Mother of Counties"), population 10,282, and Fayette, the county seat, population 2,793. Most of us know Fayette because it's the home of Central Methodist University as well as destinations such as Emmet's Kitchen & Tap and the Possum Haw Antiquarians bookshop. The town square is dominated by a marquee courthouse, but if you take the time for the morose tour of the buildings lining the square's four façades, you'll find a passel of empty shorefronts in a pattern that's all too typical of many smaller cities and towns these days.

Digging deeper, you'll find that Howard County struggles as an administrative unit faced with flat or declining sales tax revenue, the presence of a significant amount of tax-exempt property and little in the way of anticipated new retail development. Through the irony of trans-border commuting, Howard County has been officially annexed onto Boone County as a part of the overall market included in the latter county's federally designated Standard Metropolitan Area.

I have always believed that patterns of regional trade were established during the 1950s when the rush to build television stations divided the country into areas of dominant influence based on their coverage areas. The significance of Columbia as a relatively small county-seat crossroads community rocketed skyward once KOMU-TV signed on in 1953, laying down a swath of coverage out 75 miles or more in some directions.

Perhaps it's time to consider encouraging inter-county cooperation following the Area of Dominant Influence (ADI) of television. This isn't a call to eliminate counties or the boundaries that define them but to transfer some of the burdensome functions many of these smaller units may, frankly, no longer be able to sustain to a more regionalized arrangement. There's precedent already; we see it, to a limited extent, in the courts, water districts and libraries.

This "experiment" could start out with the 13 counties that constitute much of the Columbia-Jefferson City ADI. Ultimately, Missouri would be subdivided into eight to 10 of these new regions, although they might not be as elegantly modeled after the TV ADI, such as seems natural for us here in Central Missouri.

Look at this as the blessed helping the less blessed. Under this plan, I would see the development of everything from a regional court system to a multi-county sheriff and an area-wide public works department.

You can scoff when I say it's inevitable, but how can affairs continue as they do in many of state's counties, given their parlous financial condition. A good experimental kick-off would be right here at home with a frank discussion between the county commissioners of Boone and Howard counties. Already linked by the federal ukase that we are now united as a market, each respective county would hold its own banner high while exploring ways to cooperate and consolidate some mutual needs and services when sharing would benefit everyone.

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