A bill to allow the consolidation of local governments which is flying through the New York State Legislature at high speed could remake the landscape of Long Island, but has received minimal publicity.

The bill, which was proposed by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on May 22nd would allow residents of villages and special districts to petition for a referendum that would dissolve the municipality. Signatures of only ten percent of the residents of the municipality would be required to trigger a referendum. If a simple majority of the voters approved dissolution, the municipality's "governing body" would be required to create a plan to implement the voters decision. That plan could then be challenged by petition of 25% of residents, which would then trigger an additional referendum.

Obviously, a bill that could make such sweeping changes to local governments should receive a great deal of scrutiny, but instead it has quickly passed through committees in both the State Assembly and the State Senate and appears to be headed for a vote shortly.

Mr. Cuomo maintains that the reason there are high taxes on Long Island are that there are overlapping layers of government in many places. While it is true that residents of the Village of Garden City are also residents of the Town of Hempstead and the County of Nassau, it is not true to assume therefore that they have the same services provided by all three entities. The county and town don't come a pick up your garbage; the village does not provide welfare services. Eliminating one level of government would not necessarily reduce tax costs as those services would have to then be provided by another level.

We are concerned that the bill sets the bar far too low to make it easy to disrupt local governments, especially given the very low levels of voter turnout in most local elections. Out of a population of over 20,000, only a little over 200 people voted in the last village election. If this new law passes, it is not inconceivable that a relatively small number of residents could remake the village government.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher