If the City of Norwich dissolved itself, then the Town of Norwich would have to take it, like it or not.
The legalities are beyond me, but what if the City just reverted to being a village? Then it could keep its mayor and its aldermen would become trustees. Would this be an advantage? How does the connection between a city and a town differ from that between a village and a town?
Whatever is done, it has to be approved by the New York State Legislature, or such is my understanding. The legal aspects would need clarification. The main reason for accepting the Spitzer consolidation study would be to examine all the options in the context of the applicable laws.
But let us push the issue to another level. What if the City of Norwich wanted to become a town? Is this possible?
Chenango County currently has 21 towns. It has had this number since 1857. Does it really need 21? How about three? Consider this idea. One town would consist of the current ten towns of Lincklaen, Pitcher, German, Smithville, Otselic, Pharsalia, McDonough, Smyrna, Plymouth, and Preston. Another town would be the four and a half current towns of Sherburne, North Norwich, western Norwich, Oxford, and Greene. A third town would consist of the six and a half current towns of Columbus, New Berlin, eastern Norwich, Guilford, Coventry, Bainbridge, and Afton. The photo shows my scheme.
The populations of the three new towns would be: 24,939 in the central town; 16,665 in the eastern town, and 9,797 in the western town. Acreage would be in the reverse order: 239,360 in the western; 192,736 in the eastern, and 150,432 in the central town.
The Town of Norwich is a key player here. It is unique among our 21 towns in three major ways: It is our only town with a city. It is our only town with no state forest. It is our only town with two rivers. But its western half is rapidly becoming commercialized and urbanized, while its eastern half remains rural.
The Town of Greene is our largest. It is becoming a bedroom community for people who work in Broome County and stands a good chance of becoming our most populous town. Currently, it ranks a distant second behind Norwich.
Is my three town scheme too preposterous? To you maybe, but not to me. We should be planning for the future. In fact, I think it is too preposterous to persist with the current 21 towns. My tripartite division captures the essence of the areas involved. The four and a half towns along the State Route 12 corridor have much more in common with each other than they do with the other sixteen and a half towns. The tiny southeast corner of Preston that contains a tiny chunk of Route 12 could be split off. The Town of Preston has more in common with the towns in which I placed it.
An even better division would be to conceptually erase all town borders and then redesign the county from scratch. In the process of writing this article, I drew up several other nifty plans which would redistribute the towns according to state and county highways. After all, it is the better transportation routes that attract commercial and urban developments. In the old days it was the river, the canal, and the railroads. Today it is the highways, and especially their intersections.
If and when Route 12 ever becomes a four lane highway, the corridor will benefit from being a single municipality. Moreover, Chenango County will benefit from having three larger, more homogeneous towns. A possible reduction in the number of supervisors might also be a benefit, because it would widen the parochial tunnel vision that now burdens us. Or maybe not. But shouldn’t these kinds of approaches be discussed in an open forum?