Municipal organization?

[Kensey]

So with all the many reasons not to like the county administration du jour, has anybody seriously floated the idea of organizing Shannondale and/or the surrounding area as a municipality? What would it take to put us on the map as a "class IV village or town"? It seems like we have enough residents, at least to my untrained eye; the statutes (http://www.legis.state.wv.us/WVCODE/08/masterfrmFrm.htm) (starting at 8-2-1) appear to be mostly concerned with how the municipality intends to provide for or prove the existing provision of various services.

One thing I notice is that water and sewer service are specifically mentioned; does the state require them to be provided by a municipality or is it sufficient to state that residents must have and continue to provide their own well and septic systems? Also, it appears the county commission has some degree of power over deciding what can be included in the corporate boundaries although they don't seem to have direct veto over the incorporation itself.

As to the organization itself, it seems that it would be natural to adopt the existing county zoning, ordinances, etc. and then let the natural amendment process take its course from there.

Am I blue-skying here, or is this a serious possibility for Shannondale?

[chipgallo]

Isn't that like a super HOA, a concept which hasn't exactly caught on around here either? And would this municipality be collecting taxes?

In my experience there exists a dichotomy: people who live or moved here for less government, and people who moved here and are disappointed that there isn't more of it.

[Black Dog]

Whoa! What a concept!
It wouldn't affect me where I live so I can't speak to it but that's a pretty intriguing idea.
I never thought about it but it's really kind of surprising that the largest subdivision in the state doesn't have more 'home rule', for lack of a better term.

[Willis]

The idea was proposed sometime in the late 70's or early 80's. In the dim recesses of my mind, the major impetus at the time was the condition of the roads(a motive obviated by the State's takeover in the 90's). The organization investigating the Class IV option was the Citizens of Shannondale(COS). Their newsletters are on line and searchable, linked on /sca's (http://www.shannondale.org/sca/) homepage. I don't know if any info is there, But I seem to recall a certain density requirement and there are many more homes now than a quarter of a century ago. Anyway, I'd check the COS newsletters hoping you wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. I doubt anyone actually involved is either among us either geographically and/or corporeally some 25 years after the fact.

[Kensey]

Isn't that like a super HOA, a concept which hasn't exactly caught on around here either? And would this municipality be collecting taxes?

I assume it would, but a) it would collect taxes instead of, rather than in addition to, the county taxes, b) its tax rates could probably be lower than we currently have since we wouldn't have to pony up "our share" of services provided by most municipalities like water and sewer or trash collection.

That's if in fact we could get by without providing those utilities -- if we can't, then the whole idea falls down because a major concern around here is not being forced to pay thousands of dollars to hook up to central lines for either one.

Basically the concept I'm thinking of is a sort of local-government version of the GNU General Public License -- rather than spell out a bunch of additional requirements for people, the intent would be to put some legal structure in place to prevent us from having requirements and restrictions imposed on us by an outside agency. One thing I think we all agree on is that Shannondale is a very special case even in Jefferson County, and the more I think about it the more I think we need to be more than just part of a county whose primary concern is how much tax money is flowing from CT Races & Slots and new property development.

Really it's no more a "super HOA" than the county government is to us now, and it would give us a measure of independence in land-use planning and taxation so that our ordinances are driven by our unique concerns. There would also be legal limits on a municipality's powers that don't really exist for HOAs.

Think of it -- we could even get in on the pipestem-annexation game! (Before anybody has a coronary, I'm just kidding there -- but that might be a bargaining chip with the county: no pipestem annexations, written into the town ordinances.)

Now as an alternative, is there the possibility in WV law for a portion of a county to be designated as a special voting district (or some similar concept) without becoming a town outright? I'm thinking of a situation where the county says that no new land-use or development-related ordinances can take effect for Shannondale unless a simple majority (or some large minority) of the residents in a designated boundary vote in favor. Sort of home-rule by county grant, rather than a petition to the state -- we can't vote our own ordinances as if we were a town, but we get a veto on what the county wants to impose.

[lar]

You are going to get a resounding no on this one. If you don't I will be surprised which will mean the mountain has evolved. There are archives on this topic.