Rural Area Gives Merger Mixed Reviews Taxes Rose As Feared, But Some Services Improved

From the wrought iron chair on his front porch, Louis McDowell’s gaze takes in the farm where he was raised and the fields where he hunts rabbits behind hounds.

The driver of nearly every rig that passes on Huffman Mill Road honks and waves.

“I can’t complain about life,” says McDowell, at the end of a day fishing for crappies on the green Elkhorn River.

Life in this tiny village is life as it is portrayed in the picture books of Kentucky. It is much the same as life in Fairfield or Spangle, Wash. - quiet, friendly and scented with tilled earth.

Folks in this and other remote corners of Fayette County voted in favor of the county’s merger with Lexington city government in 1972. But the horse farmers, tobacco farmers and commuters gave it less support than city residents.

Some rural residents were afraid they would pay higher taxes.

They feared a government yoked to the city would spoil their picture-book life with burdensome regulations.

Many of the same issues are being raised in rural Spokane County, where voters on Nov. 7 will decide whether to consolidate city and county governments while leaving small towns independent.

In rural areas of Fayette County, the merger gets mixed reviews.

Taxes went up, as farmers feared. The local income tax was 1 percent under county government; but jumped to 2 percent after the merger to match what the city charged. It now is 2.5 percent.

Some of the money went toward projects like Lexington’s $35 million convention center, meant to shore up a failing business district. That doesn’t sit well with rural people who reject the argument that a strong downtown benefits the region.

Bluntly put, “the people in the county are getting screwed,” said Robert Atkison, who lives among the hardwood forests and 10-acre tracts south of Lexington.

But some of the money paid for more police and firefighters, primarily to serve rural areas. Some was used to take better care of rural roads.

Some paid for the one street light in Maddoxville, a cluster of houses around a bend in the road.

Atkison contends he doesn’t need the police and firefighters, the paving crews and other services.

David Faulcher, who boards horses on 21 acres and is paid by the state not to grow tobacco, agreed.

“Most people in the rural areas … kind of have their own set of rules,” said the Chicago transplant, nursing a bottle of Miller Lite at Tammy’s Country Store. “We’re insured by Smith and Wesson, if you know what I mean. We don’t need much police protection.”

Still, Faulcher conceded that police and firefighters are becoming more important as more people build homes in rural areas and clog the narrow roads.

And he likes knowing that at least one of the 15 council members lives in the country and understands rural problems.

That representation is guaranteed because 12 of the members are elected by district, with one district entirely in the country. Three other council members are elected county-wide, and could be country folks.

Lexington-Fayette County residents are taxed for some services only if they use them. The owner of a $100,000 home pays $175 a year if his neighborhood has garbage collection, $9.40 a year if the streets are swept regularly, and $31 if he lives within the glow of street lights.

Sewers are not subsidized by the local government.

It all seems pretty fair to McDowell, who hauls his own trash and doesn’t see street sweepers on Huffman Mill Road.

“To be frank about it, we don’t pay a lot of taxes,” he said. “It’s a lot higher in other places.”

, DataTimes