Prediction that Unionization Will Spell the End to Township Government

Posted on by May 27, 2017

Under one of the posts about former Algonquin Township Road Commissioner Bob Miller’s communications to McHenry County Board members is the following analysis of the future of township government by Woodstock’s Susan Handelsman:

Incorporated areas of McHenry County in 2013.

It is not logical to expect human behavior to deviate from well documented past performance.

Now that Township government is no longer more efficient and economical than County government we may assume that Townships will be done away with.

Local history, as evidenced by McHenry County’s highest-in-nation mean/median/mode property tax rate of 3.7% of fair market value, indicates that County consolidation of power will result in corrupt waste and efficiency.

Rather than waste time bemoaning that sorrow or begging/demanding that entrenched positions change, we might look for practical solutions given realities..

1. Unincorporated areas are vulnerable to taxation for services by either corrupt (mandating charges for services far in excess of fair market private industry competitors’ rates) or inefficient (mandating charges for services far in excess of fair market value private industry competitors’ rates) public service provision by government bodies.

2. If unincorporated property owners are too lazy and stupid to act in our own self defense, this is a deserved fate. Property tax capitalization acts like reverse compound interest: property values drop at alarming rates relative to all other property values in America. Property values here will predictably drop to the point at which all property ownership can be subsumed by local ministers, at which point they may predictably relax taxation to a point to favor their own positions.

3. Solutions: neighborhoods form and hire (through competitive private bidding) snow plowing, road maintenance, and so forth on our own.

4. Solutions II: neighborhoods incorporate as municipalities and contract with adjacent municipalities for services or hire privately without prevailing wage requirements.
Bonus: TIF districts may be formed in which all property owners may be reimbursed incremental property taxation due to inflation for the next 35 years.

5. Solutions III : neighborhoods opt out of any services provided by government. Define ‘worst possible case scenario”. Leave street unplowed, ,unmowed, potholes unoatched?… Will State forces be brought to bear? Maybe ‘somebody else’ can be made to pay for road clearing at local levels.

“Looking out for number one and number one’s immediate intimates” seems to be the lesson we taxpayer idiots should learn from this experience.

Time to let go of naive notions that organisms like those which have brought our County to this state will change.

Time to let go of naive notions that new organisms elected to replace old organisms will be free of human motivations greed and fear, and behave differently.

The only relevant question we now face, in my opinion is:

What unemotional, systematic solution will enable each individual homeowner to survive another decade here?

Susan
Fourto5@aol.com

Comments

Prediction that Unionization Will Spell the End to Township Government — 15 Comments

  1. Half truths and assumptions,but a fun trip down the white rabbit’s hole none the less.

  2. Don’t shoot Susan, she’s only the well informed messenger. I can sum up her message in one short sentence:
    “Bob Miller really screwed the pooch!”

    The ONLY thing townships had going for them was that they could say that “they do the work for less than Union-run Municipalities.”

    Well, not any more! Seeing that Single Redeeming Quality has been removed, compliments of Bob Miller with his “Screw the taxpayers and Township attitude!” Clearly the time has come to remove these unnecessary layers of government.

    We should be thanking this Boob!! He knows not what he’s done with his Political Temper Tantrum, but we owe him our gratitude for “Paving the Way”! Township employees all across the county and state are cursing his name but thanks to him, the question to consolidate? or better yet abolish? now has an easy and definitive answer! Absolutely!

  3. Don’t shoot Susan, she’s only the well informed messenger. I can sum up her message in one short sentence:
    “Bob Miller really screwed the pooch!”

    The ONLY thing townships had going for them was that they could say that “they do the work for less than Union-run Municipalities.”

    Well, not any more! Seeing that Single Redeeming Quality has been removed, compliments of Bob Miller with his “Screw the taxpayers and Township attitude!” Clearly the time has come to remove these unnecessary layers of government.

    We should be thanking this Boob!! He knows not what he’s done with his Political Temper Tantrum, but we owe him our gratitude for “Paving the Way”! Township employees all across the county and state are cursing his name but thanks to him, the question to consolidate? or better yet abolish? now has an easy and definitive answer! Absolutely!

  4. Don’t shoot Susan, she’s only the well informed messenger.

    I can sum up her message in one short sentence:

    “Bob Miller really screwed the pooch!”

    The ONLY thing townships had going for them was that they could say that “they do the work for less than Union-run Municipalities.”

    Well, not any more!

    Seeing that Single Redeeming Quality has been removed, compliments of Bob Miller with his “Screw the taxpayers and Township attitude!”

    Clearly the time has come to remove these unnecessary layers of government.

    We should be thanking this Boob!!

    He knows not what he’s done with his Political Temper Tantrum, but we owe him our gratitude for “Paving the Way”!

    Township employees all across the county and state are cursing his name but thanks to him, the question to consolidate? or better yet abolish?

    now has an easy and definitive answer!

    Absolutely!

  6. Did I miss something? More than one Township go union? And we’ve compared the county highway dept. workers compensation to the Township compensation?

  8. Sovereign Citizen, I assume?

    Next post going to be all about how the IRS is illegal and we’re free not to pay our Federal income taxes?

    I’m surprised there were no quotes from Ayn Rand…

  10. Here is a bigger version of the map from the article in the above comment.

    https://static.taxfoundation.org/property-tax-deductions-2011-2015/index.html

    ++++++++

    Hovering the mouse over any county in the United States will result in the average property tax for that county.

    It would be more useful if the data year and source was listed (the best guess is FY 2014 based on a comment in the article).

    It would also be helpful if the effective property tax rate was also listed in the article (property taxes paid / market value of property).

  12. Susan is bright but I’d disagree with her on this.

    Assuming neighborhoods will get together and bid on private services is way too optimistic.

    Only about 15 percent voted in the last election. If people can’t darken an oval, they’re not going to go to meetings and negotiate with street repair contractors, snow removal contractors, etc., let alone voluntarily pay for a service.

  15. Yeah, Susan, great idea!

    Ask the County to form mega-SSA’s that the voter and taxpayer have zero control over to replace Townships and their elected officials.

    Who needs accountability to the voters?

    Let’s just have SSA’s run by invisible appointed bureaucrats so that no one has to answer for ANYTHING.

    Now THAT’s efficiency and consolidation…

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