Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012

What's so great about being a town?

Some Johnston County commissioners were unhappy that they were debating a panhandling ordinance. Most of the complaints about beggars, they said, had come from people in the Cleveland community, which ought to become a town and adopt its own panhandling ordinance.

It does seem overkill to pass a countywide ordinance to curb what appears to be an isolated problem, if begging is a problem. But it's worth asking what advantage the Cleveland community would enjoy in becoming a town.

Historically, towns have offered convenience - proximity to shopping, schools, doctor offices, banks and so on. Cleveland residents have all of those, so they enjoy the conveniences of a town without paying the taxes that come with living in one.

Towns also offer police protection, fire protection, garbage collection, street repairs and so forth. The Johnston County Sheriff's Office patrols the Cleveland community, which has long had a fire department. Meanwhile, private companies provide garbage collection if Cleveland residents don't want to carry their trash to the nearest convenience center or the county landfill, and the community's roads are maintained by the state.

Some communities become towns because they want to avoid annexation by a neighbor. That's partly what motivated Archer Lodge and Wilson's Mills to become towns. But Clayton leaders are philosophically opposed to forced annexation, and we don't know that Garner would come across the county line. In any event, forced annexation has fewer friends these days, especially among state lawmakers, so it's unlikely Cleveland residents fear being forced to join a town.

Finally, communities become towns to control land-use planning. That was a strong motivator in Archer Lodge, for example. But the day has long since passed when Cleveland had the chance to be a planned community, and while Cleveland residents will sometimes unite against, say, an apartment complex, we don't get the sense that land-use planning is a high priority there.

Town themselves have given towns a bad name. They spend lots of money, largely duplicating services that county governments and the private sector already provide. Johnston County commissioners can forgive Cleveland residents for opting not to pay twice for what they already have.