Omaha Forums

How about 44 Nebraska counties?

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1638&u_sid=2103190

In today's mobile society, with Internet communication and fax machines, they question whether the state needs 93 counties, particularly in rural areas that have seen decades of population losses.

   
McPherson County's three full-time employees are County Treasurer Shareen Munson, left, County Clerk Judy Dailey and Sheriff John Haller. A proposal to consolidate Nebraska's 93 counties into 44 is not popular in Tryon. "You'll end up losing your town," one resident said.

Wouldn't fewer counties, maybe 44, save tax dollars and be more efficient?

I say Merge Douglas Sarpy, you could eliminate more jobs and save more cash.  Oh, one little side effect Omaha could take over Bellevue, Papillion, Lavista and even some day Gretna.

"If we had the luxury to go back and do things again, we probably wouldn't draw up the county boundaries the way we did," he said. "But we probably wouldn't put the State Capitol in Lincoln, either."

Would less counties mean less Unicam reps? I know that I know this, but it's early...

Brad wrote:I say Merge Douglas Sarpy, you could eliminate more jobs and save more cash. Oh, one little side effect Omaha could take over Bellevue, Papillion, Lavista and even some day Gretna.

I was at a lunch a while ago when Hal Daub was Mayor & he has some definite opinions regarding Douglas and Sarpy Counties. He knows the history. To say that he was passionate about the subject is putting it mildly.

What type of 'opinions' did Daub have?

As a Papillion resident, I welcome our Omaha overlords to the North :-)

I really would love for Omaha to annex all of Sarpy county, including Papillion and La Vista. Bellevue is out of question though, as it is above the population max for annexing.

Well of course he thought that Douglas and Sarpy had no business being separate. I can't remember the whole conversation as it was years ago but his crux I think was that Peter Sarpy insisted on the division.

I may be wrong about peter sarpy but Hal sure thought the split was unnecessary.

Its totally un-necessary. If it was one county it would have a natural boundary on three sides. Platt river on the south and west, the Missouri on the east and One Big Omaha in the middle

One of the problems I see with merging some of these counties is the distance people will have to travel to do business in the court houses. I lived in Custer county for many years and had to drive 35 miles just to get to the court house. Imagine adding on even more miles?

None of those merged counties would be any bigger than the existing Cherry county, ladyred. This would eliminate places such as Harrison (unicorporated) and Mullen (population 300) from county-seathood, which isn't a bad idea.

The county shakeup would also spell the end of the old numeral-dash license plates making the whole state use alpha-numeric.

I'm down with that. Sarpy county, you're next.

I wonder if this goes through, that they'll change some annexation laws. Technically, if Omaha wanted to, and the city grew in a straight westard line, Omaha could annex its way all the way out around Kearney couldn't it?

How about 20 Counties?

Study: Merge counties, save money

http://www.omaha.com/article/20091118/NEWS01/911189975

Paul Hammel WORLD-HERALD BUREAU wrote:Cutting that number to 20 counties outside of the Omaha and Lincoln metropolitan areas probably would increase transportation costs for citizens, the study said.

Paul Hammel WORLD-HERALD BUREAU wrote:The report, authored by University of Nebraska-Kearney professors Paul Burger and H. Jason Combs, said that the 93 counties were crafted in pioneer days so that residents could travel to and from their county seat by horseback or wagon within a day.

Those days are long gone, said John S. McCollister, the executive director of the Platte Institute.

They must have had some fast |expletive| horses in Cherry county.

I'm all for it, though.  I think people would |expletive| if they figured up all the redundant government positions in 93 counties.

I had to go to court one time in BFE, NE one time and showed up and they didn't even have a judge. It was his day to be in another county. I have no idea why they would schedule that way but people out there already drive massive distances for work and shopping so the few times a year they need to go to the courthouse won't hurt if they have to go to "the next county over".

DTO Luv wrote:I had to go to court one time in BFE, NE one time and showed up and they didn't even have a judge. It was his day to be in another county. I have no idea why they would schedule that way but people out there already drive massive distances for work and shopping so the few times a year they need to go to the courthouse won't hurt if they have to go to "the next county over".

Interesting coming from someone who doesn't want to venture out of down town.  Why not let them decide if it will hurt or not .

nebugeater wrote:

DTO Luv wrote:I had to go to court one time in BFE, NE one time and showed up and they didn't even have a judge. It was his day to be in another county. I have no idea why they would schedule that way but people out there already drive massive distances for work and shopping so the few times a year they need to go to the courthouse won't hurt if they have to go to "the next county over".

Interesting coming from someone who doesn't want to venture out of down town.  Why not let them decide if it will hurt or not .

Don't pull this with me. I know what I'm talking about. ALL of my family lives in rural NE and especially the ones that live furthest from Omaha in towns with 5 people drive retarded distances to go to work and shop on a daily basis, and then they ask us how we can stand to drive as much as we do in the city. The last I checked the trip to Baker's isn't a 40 mile trek from anywhere in Omaha.

The rare times that any of those people would have to drive to the court house would only be a couple times a year. Most bills and tickets can be mailed in so that even cuts down reasons to go in. It absolutely makes sense for a state like NE to have as few of counties as possible. California is bigger than Nebraska in size and people and they have WAY fewer counties than NE and IA and make it work.

I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

Wouldn't this topic be more appropriately placed in the Nebraska forum? It has no relation to development in Lincoln.

CapitalGuy wrote:Wouldn't this topic be more appropriately placed in the Nebraska forum? It has no relation to development in Lincoln.

People use to start all legislature related discussion in the Lincoln forum.  However I am not sure this newest study had anything to do with the legislature.

The funny parts are all the comments from western Nebraska people claiming they should divide the state in half and then Omaha and Lincoln would miss their tax money. Yeah, not so much. The cities subsidize the rest of the state. Last time I saw any figures, Omaha and Lincoln contributed something like 60% of the state's revenue and made up only 50% or so of its expenses.

Some of the new counties seem really odd?

I was just looking, Nevada and Arizona both have less than 20 counties.

San Bernardino County in California, the largest in the country, is larger in area than nine states.

With that in mind, and looking at all the government redundancies that would be eliminated, I think this would be an excellent idea.

DTO Luv wrote: I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

mmm......... this sounds familiar....... didn't Stalin try something like this? Do you know how that worked for the Soviet Union?

Axel wrote:

DTO Luv wrote: I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

mmm......... this sounds familiar....... didn't Stalin try something like this? Do you know how that worked for the Soviet Union?

He is being completely ridiculous to get a rise out of people....  If he truly believes big ag is the way of the future, I am even more worried about his future than I was before.

Axel wrote:

DTO Luv wrote: I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

mmm......... this sounds familiar....... didn't Stalin try something like this? Do you know how that worked for the Soviet Union?

Can't say I'm familiar with the history you're referencing. I do think that rural areas should recieve a proportional amount of money as it relates to the total population of bigger areas. I'm liberal but I'm as neo-con as it gets when it comes to municipal politics.

Just batching existing counties would be convenient on paper, but when you look at the realities of the geography, it makes little sense. Oddities, like Nance County, a former Pawnee Indian reservation that makes neighbor Merrick County a gerrymandered mess is one case in point. It would be more logical and fair to just draw up new county lines based on longitudes and latitudes and natural barriers, like they did when they started.

That being said... The 8 metro counties remaining the same is just plain stupid. First of all, it reeks of self serving city folks who are cowards to deal with their neighbors. Sarpy and Douglas should be merged with the existing courthouse facilities with room to grow in Plattsmouth being the primary with a convenience center somewhere in Omaha. (Just used this one to get you riled up! LOL)  Cass and Otoe can merge with Lancaster. Washington, Dodge and Saunders can exist as one.

Unless Nebraska streamlines some of it's services and makes it easy to do business by internet or mail, the farmer and rancher who pay the most per capita for county services and use it the most as well, will be the ones who take it in the shorts. Many of them have need for regular visits for more than just license plates.

DTO Luv wrote:

Axel wrote:

DTO Luv wrote: I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

mmm......... this sounds familiar....... didn't Stalin try something like this? Do you know how that worked for the Soviet Union?

Can't say I'm familiar with the history you're referencing. I do think that rural areas should recieve a proportional amount of money as it relates to the total population of bigger areas. I'm liberal but I'm as neo-con as it gets when it comes to municipal politics.

Believe its called collectivization, doesn't work.

DTO Luv wrote:

Axel wrote:

DTO Luv wrote: I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

mmm......... this sounds familiar....... didn't Stalin try something like this? Do you know how that worked for the Soviet Union?

Can't say I'm familiar with the history you're referencing. I do think that rural areas should recieve a proportional amount of money as it relates to the total population of bigger areas. I'm liberal but I'm as neo-con as it gets when it comes to municipal politics.

Stalin got farmers to collectivize and basically created corporations running the farms, and guess what happened when he did this? Production and harvest amounts plummeted, there was widespread famine all over the Soviet Union and millions died so people became unhappy with Stalin and Millions more died trying to resist him........ so basically what you're advocating for miserably fails.

Learn history, lest you repeat it.

Axel wrote:

DTO Luv wrote:

Axel wrote:

DTO Luv wrote: I don't feel sorry one bit for people who choose to live in rural areas having to fore go the luxury off redundant government. If it was up to me I'd completely cut off federal and state monies to those areas and let the land me worked by big ag or migrant workers. It's a drain on resources.

mmm......... this sounds familiar....... didn't Stalin try something like this? Do you know how that worked for the Soviet Union?

Can't say I'm familiar with the history you're referencing. I do think that rural areas should recieve a proportional amount of money as it relates to the total population of bigger areas. I'm liberal but I'm as neo-con as it gets when it comes to municipal politics.

Stalin got farmers to collectivize and basically created corporations running the farms, and guess what happened when he did this? Production and harvest amounts plummeted, there was widespread famine all over the Soviet Union and millions died so people became unhappy with Stalin and Millions more died trying to resist him........ so basically what you're advocating for miserably fails.

Learn history, lest you repeat it.

United States government aid to farmers even now is horrible.  The small farmers that truly need their expenses subsidized get little help, while the large "corporate" farms get money hand over fist from the government.

United States government aid to farmers even now is horrible.  The small farmers that truly need their expenses subsidized get little help, while the large "corporate" farms get money hand over fist from the government.

Yet the small farmers continue to vote for the interests that are out to exploit them, in the name of gaining a tiny percent of something vs 100% of nothing.  Stalinist Russia wasn't exactly operating in a free trade environment, either.

Why is farming given special consideration?  We're not a sustenance economy anymore.  

Sorry, farming is just like any other business: do it right and you'll succeed, do it too well and you're eventually stifling the market conditions that created your opportunity.  There's no reason corporations shouldn't be allowed to farm (ie, free market) and bring economics of scale to food production.  There is, however, reason for corporations to be reined in when too powerful because they will, wholly and inevitably, abuse their dominant market position (ie, antitrust, oligarchies, etc.) and produce goods that are bad for the consumer in the name of gaining an extra 0.05% margin.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Sorry, this has just been bugging me. Why is this in the Lincoln thread? Because the decision is technically being made "in" Lincoln, since that is the capital?

It obviously pertains to the whole state, and should be in the "Nebraska and Region" forum.

[/nitpick]

Trenton and Jeff on grow Omaha said Douglas, Sarpy, and Washington counties should all merge.

[wmp]http://www.growomaha.com/archivedshows/show293.mp3[/wmp]

I just talked with Jim Vokal about this and it has not moved from a discussion, even though his Platte Institute for Economic Development has suggested it. There was another Lobbyist who thought it would be too drastic of a cultural change for this to ever pass

Although I believe 93 counties in this state is excessive, that lobbyist is probably right..

Although I wouldn't mind a consolidation down to about 60-65 counties for the Cornhusker State...

Ciao..LiO...Peace