Talk:Local government in Connecticut

Villages section improvement

Does anyone have any source, can anyone go to a law library or otherwise do research to improve the Villages section. This section is getting linked to a lot now from various CT NRHP historic district articles. Currently there are no sources.

In particular, I take issue with the current assertion:

Many of these villages are often associated with historic districts and are sometimes used by the Census Bureau as a basis for a census designated place.

I believe that NRHP historic districts and CDPs are not administrative divisions of the state, and that these sentences detract from the article. I have removed that statement but seen it restored by another editor. Unfortunately they add to confusion in many NRHP HD articles that link to this section, where the bounds of the NRHP HD and the bounds of the "associated" village or CDP are in fact not known. I don't even know what is meant by "associated": associated by whom? You could almost as well say that many individuals, or fire stations, or schools, or whatever are "associated" with a historic district. So, I think the assertion should just be dropped.

I'll wait for discussion, then otherwise would like to remove this sentences and/or add a "disputed" tag to the section. doncram (talk) 20:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I added template:disputed and template:POV tags, which seem to be relevant. What is disputed is the relevance of mentioning historic districts which are not administrative divisions of the state, and likewise for CDPs. What is POV will not be obvious to some readers of this Talk page. The assertions in edit summaries and in the article text of "most" or "many" villages being essentially the same as historic districts (or even that most or many of them are associated) plays into running discussions at Talk:List of RHPs in CT and elsewhere about many of these, where there is dispute galore. There is no source provided here for generalizations about most or many historic districts equating to villages. The editor putting in the assertion has often been on the side of enforcing a merger of historic district articles to village articles; I have often been on the opposing side. I think it is not neutral to mention historic districts at all, either with a POV assertion that they are often/usually/mostly different or a POV assertion the other way around. doncram (talk) 22:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed the POV tag and now that I've re-read this discussion, I'm going to remove the "disputed" tag, too. Your POV tag referred to the inappropriate use of "most" and "many" in connection with a completely unsupported statement -- those words are no longer in the article. As for the "disputed" template, you were not disputing the factual accuracy of this article (which would mean that you think it is inaccurate and want it to say something different), but rather you were saying that you don't think historic districts should be mentioned in an article entitled "administrative divisions". That is a point for discussion, but it's not a basis for disputing factual accuracy of the article section. --Orlady (talk) 22:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Incorporated Cities & Boroughs

If an incorporated city is treated no different than a town under the law, and if a town can adopt a city form of government without incorporating, what exactly are the benefits of incorporating? Is it purely a symbolic benefit?

Also, besides almost every incorporated city having consolidated with its town meaning there is only one level of government, is the only way incorporating as a borough differs from incorporating as a city that boroughs usually don't fully consolidate with their town government? Or are there also consolidated town-borough governments like there are consolidate city-borough governments? --Criticalthinker (talk) 01:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

In terms of state treatement, there is now no benefit to doing so. Since the Home Rule Act was enabled allowing towns to form whatever government they have, only two municipalities have formally adopted a charter calling themselves a city (and both were made within 2 years after the enabling authority was enacted). One is West Haven, which was formerly a town that changed into a city form of government at the same time as calling itself a city. The second one is the borough of Groton, which simply relabeled its title as city but without significant changes in the government form. In the case of West Haven, the federal government probably treats a Connecticut city (classified as an incorporated place) different from a Connecticut town (classified as a minor civil division, even though it is an incorporated municipality), and this change probably alters what types of federal funding West Haven could get. In the case of Groton City, there is no difference in terms of federal treatment between a city an a borough. I suspect that the prestige of being called a city is the main driver in this case.

Consolidation came much later in the history of local government in Connecticut. Before, cities typically incorporate and include only a portion of the town that it wants to provide services to and collect city taxes from. Before the Home Rule Act, the only difference between boroughs and cities is the larger range of services a city is allowed to provide compared to a borough but otherwise, they're the same. When consolidation became fashionable, cities typically consolidated with the town since their responsibilities were virtually the same, while boroughs typically disincorporated since the town government was significantly more suited to provide the whole range of services. One borough, Naugatuck, did consolidate with its town and retained the borough form of government. --Polaron | Talk 18:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

From what I understand of Groton, the Town of Groton is still in existence, and the City of Groton simply incorporated out of a small part of Town. From what I understand, the City isn't even completely independent of the Town since the City isn't a consolidated city-town, which means that the Town still has some jurisdiction over the City and the City population is actually included as part of the Town's population as far as the Census' concerned. --Criticalthinker (talk) 08:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct. When the borough of Groton was established in 1903, it didn't encompass the whole town. In 1964, the borough just changed its name to the City of Groton without substantial changes in how it's government functions and no changes in its territory. It is still a dependent municipality and suboridinate to the town. --Polaron | Talk 13:54, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

County government in the United States

Connecticut Yankee advice wanted! Although Connecticut doesn't have counties in the usual sense, your insights may be helpful... To defuse the edit war that has started at Category:County government in the United States, I'd appreciate some additional input on the topic of whether U.S. counties are (1) a level of local government or (2) an arm of state government. Discussion thus far is on my User talk page at User_talk:Orlady#County_government, but we could move it to a content-oriented talk page if desired. --Orlady (talk) 00:20, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello CT (my birthplace) I don't know why Orlady is bothering with you, as this issue has no impact on any Connecticut articles. However...I am the other side of the edit war. My claim is that although county officials may be elected or appointed locally (i.e. not statewide), the actual county government itself is an arm of the state government. This is consistent with the powers they exercise (elections, law enforcement, etc.). If we could have some academically informed input, I would appreciate it, because the general impression and intuition that people have is that county government is "local government," but to those who actually study political science formally, the difference is known. The compromise that I propose is the persons should be categorized under "local politicians" while the offices should be categorized under "state government." Greg Bard (talk) 00:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I have posted this issue to WikiProject United States, and WikiProject Politics. Please take your input to one or the other so I don't have to have 50 discussions. Greg Bard (talk) 01:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

User:Gregbard started discussion of this matter at User_talk:Orlady#County_government. Please don't start a whole new discussion at some WikiProject page. If there is a desire to move the discussion, let's copy the pre-existing discussion to the new location. --Orlady (talk) 02:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)