COLUMN: A tale of two anti-cities

Charleston County's finance director has been spending the summer trying to figure out what to do with $1.6 million that was in the James Island bank account when the state Supreme Court ordered the anti-city dissolved for the third time because, once again, it had incorporated in violation of either state law or the state constitution.

The money likely will be distributed to the county and the other municipalities in the county, because most of it came from state and county taxes and would have gone to those other governments if there had been no town of James Island. Like several other small towns across the state, James Island didn't collect property taxes, because its purpose never was to provide the services that most of us associate with even the smallest of towns. Its purpose was to "protect" its residents from being part of a real city -- in this case Charleston.

Reasonable people can disagree over whether it's reasonable for people who live in densely populated suburbs to insist that they not become part of the adjacent city; I don't think it's reasonable, because they inevitably benefit from the services they don't pay for in the city. What can't be reasonably defended are the state laws that divert state and county tax dollars away from the governments that actually provide services in order to prop up the anti-cities such as James Island. Even with the animosity that some on James Island feel toward the Holy City (often personalized as animosity toward one of the finest mayors in America, Joe Riley), it's hard to imagine that they would have attempted to incorporate if not for the funds that state law promised them in return.

Indeed, calculating how much money they can siphon off from real governments usually is one of the first exercises undertaken by the proponents of nascent new towns. One of the primary selling points in the unsuccessful 2008 campaign to turn Ballentine into Richland County's seventh municipality was the promise that the new town's $200,000 annual operating budget would come from state and county fees and taxes; organizers shelved a second attempt the next year after they realized that if they drew a smaller town around annexation supporters, they wouldn't be able to draw down enough of other people's money to run it without local taxes.

The Legislature did pass a law a few years back that purports to prevent the creation of anti-cities, by forcing incorporation backers to spell out how they intend to provide services, and get approval from a state panel. But the law makes it clear that, for instance, they can "contract" with the county sheriff's department to provide police services -- which is to say that the citizens would get the same police service they were getting before the anti-city was born.

One hundred twenty-eight miles away and 52 years ago, the people of Arcadia Lakes voted to incorporate into a town for much the same reason as those in James Island. As the town's website explains it: "The rural area was undergoing a historic metamorphosis into a suburban community. As the City of Columbia annexed nearby property into her borders, neighborhood gatherings featured heated de(b)ates on the benefits and the pitfalls of joining the Capital City. Avoiding municipal taxes was (a) major consideration for the opponents of annexation. Initiating its own municipality - one, which catered to the unique features of the section, became a serious consideration."

The people voted 46-30 for incorporation, and as Mayor Pro Tem Bob Bishop told me recently, "the town hasn't changed much in 50 years."

But it soon could, in a positive way - and, ironically, it's because of those revenue-distribution formulas. Well, that might be overstating the case, but Mr. Bishop said it was the accumulation of all that free money that got him wondering, after he was elected to the council four years ago, what the town's role should be.

"We had about $700,000 to 800,000 in reserves," he said. "For a town who has an annual budget of a little over $110,000, that's ridiculous. Obviously the state and federal government ... had been providing us funds, and we hadn't been doing anything with them, and I thought that was pretty much a crime."

So Mr. Bishop convinced his fellow council members to create a "visioning" committee of local citizens, which concluded that the community needs better law enforcement, environmental protection and planning and zoning. After meeting with experts at the Municipal Association of South Carolina and discussing options with the adjacent city of Forest Acres, the council decided at a planning retreat in June that it had two options for meeting those goals: The town could start acting like a real town, providing real services, or else merge with Forest Acres. The council hopes to endorse a set of goals in October, develop a report on the pros, cons and costs of each option by April, and hold a public referendum in November 2012.

"The status quo isn't an option," Mr. Bishop said. "Either we do something, if it's cost-effective and rational, to provide some services, or we merge with someone else who can do something. We've got options, and those options make sense."

Well, at least one of them makes sense.

Obviously there will be some sentimental support for maintaining Arcadia Lakes' separate identity, but community associations can maintain identity. The primary purpose of towns and cities - like any governments - is to provide services that residents need.

Although governments can get too big and unwieldy, the simple economic fact is that most tiny governments can't provide services at a reasonable cost. (That's one reason it doesn't make sense for our state to have all these tiny little school districts, often in the same county.) For example, I can't imagine how Arcadia Lakes could get as much police protection per dollar by creating a whole new police department as it could though a slightly expanded Forest Acres force.

It's a long time between now and November 2012, and there's always a chance that sentimentality will win out. But it's going to be hard to justify turning a tiny paper town into a real town rather than merging it with a city next door, so we could be looking at the first positive step I've ever seen toward tackling our state's problem with anti-cities.

Cindi Ross Scoppe is an associate editor with The State newspaper in Columbia.