The Politics of City-County Merger: The Lexington-Fayette County Experience by W. E. Lyons

Author:W. E. Lyons [Lyons, W. E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Constitutions, Public Affairs & Administration, Political Science, American Government, Local
ISBN: 9780813194714
Google: peUzEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 22494055
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2014-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 4. Urban Service Area. Shading shows areas of heaviest residential, commercial, and industrial development as of 1970.

In the process of passing these sections, the commission also endorsed a very general reference to the possibility of having Partial Urban Services Districts. While quite innovative in its implications, the reference to PUSD that was passed merely empowered the council of the merged government to create such districts. It said nothing about the conditions governing the creation of such districts or the tax rates to be applied should the council exercise its power to create such entities.

In fact, the proposed restrictions upon the expansion of the FUSD and the creation of “partial districts” brought the commission to a halt. The idea of forbidding the expansion of additional urban services until all residents of the city were receiving all of the services that went with being in the FUSD was denounced as impractical and overstringent. So was the proposal to limit the expansion of the FUSD and the creation of “partial districts” to the area designated by the planning commission as the Urban Service Area.

As the debate proceeded, however, it became clear that there was a rather strong core of support for the basic objectives that these proposed restrictions were ostensibly designed to achieve. But it was equally clear that with only sixteen members present it was going to be impossible to give second reading to any proposal even remotely affected by these two ideas. As the chances of unanimity faded, members of the executive committee introduced a series of motions to table all remaining sections of the proposed article 2. (A motion to table was a procedural matter and could be passed by a simple majority of those present and voting; there may not have been enough votes to give second reading to these sections, but there were more than enough votes to keep them alive for future consideration as the motions to table passed by votes of fifteen to one and sixteen to zero.)5

It is useless to speculate about whether a large turnout at this meeting would have resulted in the passage of more sections of article 2. With only sixteen members present, the commission was unable to do more than endorse the general outline of an initial system of taxing and services districts that closely approximated the status quo. All other portions of the proposed article had to be added to the list of issues that had been considered but left unresolved during the Underwood era.

Twenty-three members, including five new appointees, attended the regular monthly meeting on January 18, 1972. A motion to remove the relevant sections of article 2 from the table was passed without dissent. A motion to give second reading to these sections was made and seconded. Edgar Wallace then attempted to resurrect the restriction, voted down in December, on expanding the FUSD until all areas of the city had received all of the additional services they were entitled to. But his motion was quickly defeated by a vote of twenty-one to one with one abstention.

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