Lanterna Rally

Author: Keon S. Chi

Publisher:

Published: 1975

Total Pages: 44

ISBN-13:

On November 7, 1972 the voters of the City of Lexington and Fayette County, Kentucky overwhelmingly approved a comprehensive consolidation plan and the merged "Urban County Government" was officially launched January 1, 1974 to become the state's first and the nation's twelfth successful consolidation of city and county governments. The purpose of the research reported in this article is to offer some plausible explanations, based on document data, newspaper sources, personal observation and interviews, to the frequently-cited question, why consolidation was an acceptable alternative. The following are some of the findings of this study. (1) The Lexington experience may be viewed as a typical city-county consolidation in that it occurred in a medium-sized Southern metropolis and it took place under threat of annexation. (2) The Lexington experience tends to confirm the view that the occurrence of a critical circumstance, in addition to usual favorable conditions, would assure the success of consolidation campaign. What is unique and not found in the previous consolidation attempts, however, is the fact that the merger campaign in Kentucky's second most populous area was initiated and carried out in the midst of the probability that Lexington, then a second class city, would be reclassified as a first class city due to a rapid population increase and the municipal classification system prescribed by the state constitution. (3) While the community environment provided a set of favorable conditions for the consolidation campaign, it seems likely that the success of the Lexington merger might have been attributed to stimuli generated by the previous consolidation experiences, notably those of the Nashville metro, the Indianapolis Unigov and Jacksonville-Duval County. In fact, these areas had been considered as "model cities" in the consolidation campaign. (4) In view of the fact that the campaign was not well-organized, limited, and low-keyed, it can be suggested that the question of how much trust voters have in consolidation campaigners is more critical than how they perceive campaign strategies or governmental change itself. The validity of this conclusion can only be verified by a comprehensive survey of voter attitudes toward the consolidation plan.