Some decisions are best left to local governments - and their residents

Ediorial by Wilmington Star-News, March 24, 2014.

State lawmakers who have embraced deregulation nevertheless seem awfully fond of imposing new rules on local governments. If they're not careful, the Honorables could undermine the ability of our cities and counties to function.

Most recently, the General Assembly has taken aim at privilege licenses, which cities and counties charge businesses that locate within their jurisdiction. Over the years the legislature has authorized privilege fees for various businesses, while leaving the regulation of other businesses to local governing boards. The result is a hodgepodge of fees that are charged according to what the business is.

State Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, is a member of a committee that will soon vote on a bill limiting privilege fees to no more than $100. In other words, the legislature would make decisions now being made at the local level.

While there is good argument to make the system more consistent, some things should be left to local government, where the voices of individual residents carry more weight than at the state level.

Even the N.C. League of Municipalities, which lobbies the legislature on behalf of cities and towns, supports steps to better standardize the system. But restricting all privilege fees to $100, regardless of a business' size or potential impact on the community and services, takes legislative authority to the extreme.

If that provision is allowed to go through, North Carolina's cities and towns could see a two-thirds reduction in their revenue from those fees. Those fees help local governments pay for services that benefit businesses and residents. To make up for that loss, they would have to raise property tax rates or cut services.

It is ironic that a legislative leadership so fond of deregulating businesses nevertheless has stepped up efforts to strip local governments of much of their autonomy. Laws such as those effectively killing annexation and taking away cities' authority to regulate billboards make it much more difficult for people in individual communities to govern themselves and to set rules within their own jurisdictions.

Those local rules often are imposed to enhance a community's appeal, improve quality of life or to resist activities that residents see as detrimental. In many cases they are the result of efforts by concerned residents to solve local problems. Such activity should be encouraged.

Cities and counties are creatures of the state and as such only have the powers the legislature grants them. That helps ensure that they operate under the same general rules. But many decisions should be left to local control – and many Republican legislative candidates campaigned successfully on a theme that included pushing more decision-making down to the local level.

Business representatives have a fair point that there has to be a line between autonomy and the ability to jack up fees at will, but the legislature should not pre-empt the authority of cities and counties to set their own fees.

If they really want to make positive changes to how privilege fees are set and collected, lawmakers would invite city and county representatives, business leaders and ordinary residents to consider whether there is a better way – one that would reduce confusion for businesses, ensure fairness and maintain the power of residents and their local officials to make rules governing their community.

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