Growing, growing, gone!

Here’s an issue I suspect the green growth, zero growth, and downsizing folks should spend some time considering. Is the entire local governance structure in the USA and other countries established to promote development rather than protect agriculture and natural resources [public policy claims to the contrary]? Reading much of the relevant Minnesota legislation, one might conclude so. There rarely, if ever, seems to be any consideration of the question of how much is enough?

We’re posting on this theme because this year, at the Lent Township annual meeting, sort of out of the blue, the question of a merger with a city with which there’s an existing Joint Powers agreement, was raised. The concern expressed was loss of control of the township’s future 20 or 30 years in the future because that city and another declined to enter into a “No Annexation” agreement.

There’s been a fairly recent, and very contentious, annexation/merger involving another nearby township and city. Here’s a link to an Office of Administrative Hearings “Finding of Fact etc.” All 43 pages of it.

In the Matter of the Petition of Chisago
City for Annexation of Unincorporated
Property in Wyoming Township (A-6996)

On a directly related matter, here’s a link to a 2012 Legislative Auditor’s report on the Consolidation of Local Governments. One of the key findings was:

In lieu of consolidation, collaboration and cooperative service arrangements and incremental boundary adjustments are preferred methods to reconfigure local government services. (pp. 31-34, 62, 64) 

developments are often named after what they’ve replaced

Photo by J. Harrington

In light of the way the current township government has provided no real background information on the pros and cons of a merger compared to other alternatives, we have substantial concerns about how well residents will be served by the committee that was authorized and appointed at the annual meeting to “explore” the proposed merger.

Minnesota’s legislation leaves too much discretion to local officials and does not require, in our opinion, sufficiently rigorous analysis and local referenda to provide informed consent by current residents on any reconfiguration of local government.

 If we still lived on a planet where being hell bent for growth and development at all costs was the appropriate strategy, our perspective might be different. We are now facing climate weirding, a sixth extinction, multiple wars, significant food system issues and related problems. More of the same isn’t likely to solve these problems, is it?

It Is Enough to Enter

By Todd Boss

the templar 

halls of museums, for

example, or 

the chambers of churches, 

and admire 

no more than the beauty 

there, or 

remember the graveness

of stone, or 

whatever. You don’t 

have to do any

better. You don’t have to

understand 

the liturgy or know history 

to feel holy

in a gallery or presbytery. 

It is enough

to have come just so far. 

You need 

not be opened any more 

than does 

a door, standing ajar. 

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