Claimed benefits of incorporation are dubious

Illusory benefits of incorporation...

Advocates of creating a new municipal incorporation claim that:

A more local government will be more accountable, that if you aren't happy with their actions you can more easily express your discontent and vote them out of office.

In reality, government at all levels has been influenced by corruption and self-serving wealthy interests, and citizens have failed to keep up with the activities of government; many don't even know who most of their elected officials are. With yet another government and several more public officials to elect and even more unelected personnel to monitor how can citizens be expected to hold their city officials accountable? Creating another government and more elected offices could make the situation even worse if you are concerned about lack of citizen oversight and government accountability. There have already been numerous scandals of corruption involving local governments in Miami-Dade County - that is just the corruption that has been uncovered and exposed; presumably there is even more corruption that never gets exposed but which involves the misuse of citizens tax dollars. Unless there is a dire need to create a new government why would we want to create one? Once you establish an incorporation it is extremely difficult to reverse course even if that government turns out to be a liability to the community.

A more local government will use tax dollars for the wishes and benefits of the local community.

On the face of it this is true. If municipal property taxes go to the new city rather than for County municipal services then those funds do get focused more in the local town. However, there are the new expenses of municipal government that will take a chunk of those funds. Special interests will lobby for whatever projects they desire, and the same vulnerability of cronyism that is present at the County level is present at the local level. With a smaller town council than County commission there are even less individuals that one would need to influence to push a project or agenda than would be needed at the County level. Meanwhile, by using the property tax monies for the benefit of the wealthier community the less wealthy areas of the County will suffer a decrease in funding - do we really want to take funding away from the areas that need it most? People may think that they can isolate themselves from crime, homeless people, and stressed properties, but everything is interconnected. We need to consider the big picture.