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Why incorporate? Ruskin's fine the way it is

Re: Incorporate Ruskin?

Ruskin, a small, agricultural community in the southernmost part of Hillsborough County with a population of fewer than 10,000 people, is seeking to become an incorporated city.

I have several serious questions with the plans for Ruskin becoming a city. These questions are: Does it make any sense to incorporate? Who are the losers and winners if Ruskin becomes a city? What is the motivation behind the Republican-led state Legislature, which would have to approve a referendum to create a city?

And the final question is, should there be minimum state of Florida standards or requirements before any community seeks "cityhood"?

On the surface, I cannot see any reason why Ruskin should become a city. Who would that benefit? It would not benefit Hillsborough County, which would lose property taxes. It would not benefit the citizens of Ruskin because of higher taxes, more bureaucracy and the lack of the most basic infrastructures for city services, such as police and fire protection, or water and sewer services.

As a matter of fact, the "new city" of Ruskin would have to contract with Hillsborough County for many of these basic services. I am sure that the county administrators will offer these services at the most premium prices. Why would they not?

The county would need to make up for lost tax revenues. There would be only losers if Ruskin becomes a city.

What is in this push for cityhood by the Republican-controlled Legislature? Votes, votes and more votes. Hey, it's an off-year election. The party in power normally loses ground in off-year elections. This push for a city by Ruskin could encourage communities across the state to join the bandwagon.

And which party would be leading the charge?

You'd think that the state of Florida and other states for that matter would have minimum qualifications of standards to become a city. Incorporating a new city is not like incorporating a new business. Some standards that the state should consider in the road to creating a city are:

(1) The community seeking incorporation must have a verifiable population of 25,000 adult residents. Seventy-five percent of registered voters in the area in question must vote on incorporation; 80 percent of all voters must approve the proposal.

(2) Require the incorporating group to have a cash deposit of $50-million with the state. This is to cover the new city operations for five to seven years.

(3) Impose restrictions so that any new city boundaries cannot be within 10 miles of another incorporated city's limits.

(4) There must be a minimum amount of square miles in the new incorporated community. Maybe 100 square miles.

(5) There should be a time limit of 10 years to achieve incorporation.

It is not that I am against self-rule by any community. But self-rule must be justified and affordable. For example, if the residents in the community of Ruskin were receiving 49 cents in benefits for every dollar in taxes paid to the county, incorporating the community of Ruskin is a great idea.

If the community of Ruskin has the resources to go it alone for all of the infrastructure costs, then it's a good idea.

Besides the limited property tax revenue and limited commercial enterprises, the only other real income I see for a city of Ruskin would be from writing traffic tickets, federal revenue sharing and Homeland Security funds.

Gotta protect those shipping lanes near Ruskin from those international terrorists. There might even be a Ruskin navy.

So, are the communities of Gibsonton, Seffner, Sun City Center and Riverview next in line? I believe that the community is just fine as is.

[Last modified January 19, 2006, 08:52:06]