On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 3:24 PM stevea <stevea...@softworkers.com> wrote: > I'm not in Massachusetts, but as I constantly strive to improve my listening > skills, so I ask you to please point out any flaws in my understanding of > this. I'm literally quoting from Footnote 18: "Geographically divided into > 14 counties, Massachusetts effectively has no county government in eight of > them, similar to Rhode Island. This means in these eight counties (Berkshire, > Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Suffolk and Worcester), all > government administration is at state (4) and local (8, 9) levels. However, > several functions implemented by the state are organized by county lines, > including District Attorney, Sheriff and the judiciary."
You just said it yourself. They still have county prosecutors, county sheriffs, and county courts - paid by the state, but with local jurisdiction. There is some residual local government, even if the county's executive and legislative powers, and its powers to tax and spend, have reverted to the state. Moreover, no city or township crosses a county line, as I understand it. If someone dies, having been a resident of Great Barrington, the will will be probated in Berkshire County, not Hampden County or anywhere else. A land sale there will be registered with the Register of Deeds for the Berkshire County Southern District. A misdemeanant there will be arrested by the Berkshire County Sheriff (elected by the county, paid by the state), prosecuted by the Berkshire County District Attorney, and if convicted, will serve sentence in the Berkshire County House of Correction. All of these are offices of the state government, because the county has no power to tax and spend, but some of the officers remain locally elected. The boroughs of New York City have a similar setup. They have ceded all legislative function to the city. They retain only a formal executive branch. (They still have elected borough presidents, but their role is advisory and ceremonial). They have no power to tax and spend. Nevertheless, they retain their own judiciary, and I'd say that if even one of the three branches of government remains divided along county lines, you still have an admin level there. This goes doubly if the division is nearly hierarchical - if subdivisions at a finer admin_level seldom or never cross the borders of coarser ones. (New York's Villages are a trifle messy there - about a sixth cross township lines. But since they have limited home rule, have officers in all three branches, and enjoy the power to tax and spend, they of course are administrative divisions anyway.) New York's 'Hamlets' have zero home rule, but we still bring them in at the same admin_level as villages, when their boundaries are well known, because town ordinances so often refer to them. Also, in the suburban townships, the Hamlets' boundaries are frequently defined on all sides by the neighboring Villages, so things like voting districts have to follow them. They're ordinarily signed in the suburban townships, and have a strong local identity. If I go three miles or so from where I'm sitting and cross over the bridge, I encounter a large sign saying 'Welcome to Rexford', with 'Town of Clifton Park' underneath in much smaller print. The Hamlet where I grew up (Inwood) had an even stronger local identity. If you referred to it as Hempstead, the locals would look at you as if you had two heads, even though the Town of Hempstead was the local government. Hempstead was a half-a-dozen villages away! (The township that I currently inhabit has neither villages nor hamlets within its borders.) Wards of cities also usually don't have home rule, but many places map them, again because so many services get divided along their boundaries, and so many local ordinances refer to them by number or name, including metes and bounds only by reference. -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
