Class today's civic's lesson is brought to you by the fine
democratically minded folks at Wikipedia.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unincorporated or read below, or
Goggle it for even more information.

Unincorporated area

My town is unincorporated. We do not pay city taxes but we pay state taxes.
We go to public school because that is determined by the county being
divided up into school districts not city boundaries. Our library system is
by county not city so we get library cards free for the county public
library (plus all branches of it). We can pay a yearly fee for the next
city's ambulance service or we can just call the hospital ambulance and pay
the fee they charge by the need. The only real difference I see in our
unincorporated town and the incorporated towns here is that we do not have
city government, we do not have our own post office, police department
(county sheriff responds to things here), etc.

Tammy
RHM

-----Original Message-----
From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com [mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of RIFamily
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 3:39 PM
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [LbNA] Unincorporated?

I have never heard of areas that are unincorporated. They don't pay
taxes... but what about emergency services? Will the closest fire dept not
go to those areas? Do they not get to go to public school? Why wouldn't a
city or town close by an unincorporated area WANT to incorporate them (if
that is the term) so that they would get taxed? It's confusing to me.

What part of the country are we talking about?

RIFamily

I've only lived in the west, CA and WA, and it was common in both places.
In fact I lived in an unincorporated area 6 miles from downtown Seattle as
the crow flies--so while unincorporated can be extremely remote areas, it
can also be close to urban centers.

If you're unincorporated you're just part of the next larger government,
rather than a city. Typically it's the county. Usually, that government
contracts with other municipalities to provide services if it doesn't
provide them themself. In my situation I got fire coverage from the City of
Seattle and Police coverage from the county sheriff. And thus it goes. Our
county had a library system so we didn't have to pay for a city library, but
then we could join the City library system too free of charge.

Usually a city will only try to incorporate an unincorporated area when the
tax base has grown to a significant size. Which means the politicians see a
free lunch.

Usually areas resist incorrporation for 3 reason: The municipality trying to
incorporate the area has a tax or levy, that will dramatically raise taxes
for the unincorporated citizens without much perceived benefit; The
unincorporated area has a substantial tax base and industry, and has designs
to incorporate itself into a new municipality; The unincorporated people
just don't like change.

Unincorporated areas right next to incorporated, or unincorporated
surrounded by incorporated areas, can lead to some funny legalities. We
could burn trash in our front yard, but our neighbors across the street
could only use the city trash company--the air polution of course stayed
nicely in the unincorporated area. You could sell every illegal type of
firework in the unincorporated area to people who lived 2 blocks away in the
incorporated area--who of course only shot them off in the unincorporated
area.

Even more fun is when part of an incorporated area secceds from a
municipality and creates a new manicipality. They usually end up
contracting back to the municipality they just left to provide the services
they can't economically justify building from scratch.


On 11/1/06, RIFamily wrote:
>
> I have never heard of areas that are unincorporated. They don't pay
> taxes... but what about emergency services? Will the closest fire dept not
> go to those areas? Do they not get to go to public school? Why wouldn't a
> city or town close by an unincorporated area WANT to incorporate them (if
> that is the term) so that they would get taxed? It's confusing to me.
>
> What part of the country are we talking about?
>
> RIFamily
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com ]On
> Behalf Of xxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 12:54 PM
> To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: OT [LbNA] Bad boxer repository?
>
> It's not treachery in that those people aren't paying any taxes that go to
> support any library system. Our county doesn't have a county library. So
> anyone who lives in an unincorporated area doesn't pay a single dime of
> taxes, either thru their own property tax or thru a landlord paying
> property
> taxes, that goes to support a library.
>
> In our area, if a person has a library card for one library, they can walk
> into a ton of other libraries in the area and check out books with the
> card
> they have from their own town's library. It's a reciprocal service type of
> thing. They can walk into my town's library, and I can walk into their
> town's library. But these are people who live in unincorporated areas so
> they have absolutely no library card to begin with.
>
> So if I'm paying to support the library thru my property taxes or thru the
> rent I pay my landlord, why should I be happy if a family who doesn't
> support any libary at all is able to take books out of my town's library?
>
> If the people could afford to live in town, they do. A lot of them rent in
> unincorporated areas because there are more slumlords in the
> unincorporated
> areas with cheaper rents and with far less restrictions on occupancy
> numbers. Right now it's actually occupancy numbers more than rent that are
> THE big thing in our area. There are poverty level families that will
> squeeze an extended family of 15 or 16 people or more into a two bedroom
> apartment or townhouse. Or poorer families who own their own homes will
> turn those homes into "boarding houses" for extra weekly cash, something
> that tends to be strictly controlled by towns and villages but not so much
> by the county if the house is in an unincorporated area. Altho the county
> does at least come down on people who turn their unattached garages into
> "boarding houses" -- if they find out about it.
>
> ~~ Mosey ~~
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com ]On
> Behalf Of StarSaels
> Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 11:36 AM
> To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [LbNA] Bad boxer repository?
>
> $400 a year for a flippin' library card? That's insane! I've gotten
> library cards for all the different library networks in the metro
> Atlanta area, including a university library, and I've never been
> charged anything.
>
> That's insane. I'd relocate just based on that insidious treachery.
>
> SS
>
> --- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com ,
> "xxxxxxxx" wrote:
> >
> > For example, I spend a lot of time logging books onto librarything.com
> > because the poverty level folks in my area who live in an unincorporated
> > section of the county will then be able to go online to see what
> they might
> > be able to come over and borrow from me. They can't afford the $400
> a year
> > charge for a library card that our town charges non-residents,
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.0.405 / Virus Database: 268.13.17/505 - Release Date:
> 10/27/2006
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

There are hundreds if not thousands of unincorporated towns throughout the country.

Take these two Ohio towns for instance:

New Rome, a corrupt Columbus suburb had about 60 people yet obtained 500K in traffic ticket money through a speed trap. The state dissolved the town back to the township. http://www.newromesucks.com/

Darbydale was going to tax it's people beyond what the poor residents could afford, so they voted to dissolve the corporation. http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd02&DOCNUM=5491&TERMV=189:3:192:4:255:3:258:4:26195:3:26198:6:26264:3:26267:4:31404:3:31407:4:36518:3:36521:4:57158:3:57161:4:62373:3:62376:4:77707:3:77710:4:87991:3:87994:4:
-----Original Message-----
From: RIFamily@cox.net
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 3:38 PM
Subject: [LbNA] Unincorporated?

I have never heard of areas that are unincorporated. They don't pay
taxes... but what about emergency services? Will the closest fire dept not
go to those areas? Do they not get to go to public school? Why wouldn't a
city or town close by an unincorporated area WANT to incorporate them (if
that is the term) so that they would get taxed? It's confusing to me.

What part of the country are we talking about?

RIFamily

-----Original Message-----
From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of xxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 12:54 PM
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: OT [LbNA] Bad boxer repository?

It's not treachery in that those people aren't paying any taxes that go to
support any library system. Our county doesn't have a county library. So
anyone who lives in an unincorporated area doesn't pay a single dime of
taxes, either thru their own property tax or thru a landlord paying
property
taxes, that goes to support a library.

In our area, if a person has a library card for one library, they can walk
into a ton of other libraries in the area and check out books with the
card
they have from their own town's library. It's a reciprocal service type of
thing. They can walk into my town's library, and I can walk into their
town's library. But these are people who live in unincorporated areas so
they have absolutely no library card to begin with.

So if I'm paying to support the library thru my property taxes or thru the
rent I pay my landlord, why should I be happy if a family who doesn't
support any libary at all is able to take books out of my town's library?

If the people could afford to live in town, they do. A lot of them rent in
unincorporated areas because there are more slumlords in the
unincorporated
areas with cheaper rents and with far less restrictions on occupancy
numbers. Right now it's actually occupancy numbers more than rent that are
THE big thing in our area. There are poverty level families that will
squeeze an extended family of 15 or 16 people or more into a two bedroom
apartment or townhouse. Or poorer families who own their own homes will
turn those homes into "boarding houses" for extra weekly cash, something
that tends to be strictly controlled by towns and villages but not so much
by the county if the house is in an unincorporated area. Altho the county
does at least come down on people who turn their unattached garages into
"boarding houses" -- if they find out about it.

~~ Mosey ~~

-----Original Message-----
From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of StarSaels
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 11:36 AM
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [LbNA] Bad boxer repository?

$400 a year for a flippin' library card? That's insane! I've gotten
library cards for all the different library networks in the metro
Atlanta area, including a university library, and I've never been
charged anything.

That's insane. I'd relocate just based on that insidious treachery.

SS

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "xxxxxxxx" wrote:
>
> For example, I spend a lot of time logging books onto librarything.com
> because the poverty level folks in my area who live in an unincorporated
> section of the county will then be able to go online to see what
they might
> be able to come over and borrow from me. They can't afford the $400
a year
> charge for a library card that our town charges non-residents,

Yahoo! Groups Links

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.0.405 / Virus Database: 268.13.17/505 - Release Date: 10/27/2006

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I live in Columbia, Maryland, which is basically a very large
homeowner's associaton. There is no mayor and no city government. We
pay fees to the association and property taxes to the county. And
this unincorporated "town" boasts 90,000 citizens, the second largest
city in Maryland, if it actually were a "city."

MaryE.

People who are unincorporated pay taxes.....just not always for all the same
things that people inside town, village, or city boundaries do.

Here in DuPage County, people who live outside town boundaries get their
police service from the county sheriff's department. And they either get
their fire protection service from the township (we also have township
government here in addition to county government), and they get street
repairs/road maintenance from the township. So people will pay taxes thru
their property taxes for police and fire protection and for the roads. They
generally have wells and septic systems so they won't pay any money for
those utilities. And they pay the same amount out of their taxes for
education since school district boundaries have nothing really to do with
town boundaries. For example, School District 45, which I live in, takes in
part of Villa Park, part of Lombard, part of Oakbrook Terrace, and the
unincorporated areas around those towns. As far as animal control goes,
towns around here generally have their own animal control officer with a
"pound" being a contract with one or more local vets who have a contract
with that town to board stray animals temporarily. Unincorporated areas use
DuPage County Animal Control. The towns use DCAC also, but just not as the
"first line of defense." And the county doesn't have a county library
system, so unincorporated folks are on their own for that.

I don't know about other towns in the area, but even if a person doesn't
have a library card, they can still all the functions that the library
offers AT the library. They just can't check out anything from the library
and take it home with them. So they can still come in and use our library's
computer system to go online, and any reference materials, even sit down and
read a book as long as they don't leave the library with it. Nobody asks to
see a person's library card when they walk in the door -- just when they try
to check something out.

Around here, a lot of people DON'T want to incorporate because they DON'T
want the extra taxes. And the towns generally would like nothing better
than to get the tax dollars by incorporating them. But as long as the
unincorporated chunk of land is larger than a certain size (can't remember
exactly what that is now, I THINK it's 200 acres but I'm not sure), the
people can't be forcibly annexed. That's one reason why towns will court
certain homeowners who are on the edges of the unincorporated areas, to try
to get enough people to annex so that the unincorporated area is whittled
down to a small enough size that the town can then come in and forcibly
annex it.

We had a problem locally with a church that wanted to annex because it
wanted city water and sewer. And, being a church, it wouldn't have to pay
property taxes, since bonafide religious institutions are exempt from
property taxes. So it was a we-can't-lose decision for the church. But by
annexing the church, the rest of the area would be just under the minimum
needed not to be forcibly annexed by the town. So the area homeowners paid a
quiet visit to the church officials and I won't go into who said what to
whom at the private meeting, but the church withdrew their annexation
request. Causing sadness amongst the town officials who had seen dollar
signs from the increased property tax dollars.

~~ Mosey ~~

-----Original Message-----
From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of RIFamily
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 2:39 PM
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [LbNA] Unincorporated?


I have never heard of areas that are unincorporated. They don't pay
taxes... but what about emergency services? Will the closest fire dept not
go to those areas? Do they not get to go to public school? Why wouldn't a
city or town close by an unincorporated area WANT to incorporate them (if
that is the term) so that they would get taxed? It's confusing to me.

What part of the country are we talking about?

RIFamily

-----Original Message-----
From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of xxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 12:54 PM
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: OT [LbNA] Bad boxer repository?


It's not treachery in that those people aren't paying any taxes that go to
support any library system. Our county doesn't have a county library. So
anyone who lives in an unincorporated area doesn't pay a single dime of
taxes, either thru their own property tax or thru a landlord paying
property
taxes, that goes to support a library.

In our area, if a person has a library card for one library, they can walk
into a ton of other libraries in the area and check out books with the
card
they have from their own town's library. It's a reciprocal service type of
thing. They can walk into my town's library, and I can walk into their
town's library. But these are people who live in unincorporated areas so
they have absolutely no library card to begin with.

So if I'm paying to support the library thru my property taxes or thru the
rent I pay my landlord, why should I be happy if a family who doesn't
support any libary at all is able to take books out of my town's library?

If the people could afford to live in town, they do. A lot of them rent in
unincorporated areas because there are more slumlords in the
unincorporated
areas with cheaper rents and with far less restrictions on occupancy
numbers. Right now it's actually occupancy numbers more than rent that are
THE big thing in our area. There are poverty level families that will
squeeze an extended family of 15 or 16 people or more into a two bedroom
apartment or townhouse. Or poorer families who own their own homes will
turn those homes into "boarding houses" for extra weekly cash, something
that tends to be strictly controlled by towns and villages but not so much
by the county if the house is in an unincorporated area. Altho the county
does at least come down on people who turn their unattached garages into
"boarding houses" -- if they find out about it.

~~ Mosey ~~

-----Original Message-----
From: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of StarSaels
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 11:36 AM
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [LbNA] Bad boxer repository?

$400 a year for a flippin' library card? That's insane! I've gotten
library cards for all the different library networks in the metro
Atlanta area, including a university library, and I've never been
charged anything.

That's insane. I'd relocate just based on that insidious treachery.

SS

--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "xxxxxxxx" wrote:
>
> For example, I spend a lot of time logging books onto librarything.com
> because the poverty level folks in my area who live in an unincorporated
> section of the county will then be able to go online to see what
they might
> be able to come over and borrow from me. They can't afford the $400
a year
> charge for a library card that our town charges non-residents,

Yahoo! Groups Links




--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.0.405 / Virus Database: 268.13.17/505 - Release Date: 10/27/2006


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




Yahoo! Groups Links

Why wouldn't a
> city or town close by an unincorporated area WANT to incorporate
them (if
> that is the term) so that they would get taxed? It's confusing to
me.
>
> What part of the country are we talking about?
>
> RIFamily


I live in western Washington, about an hour south of Seattle. I have
lived in an "unincorporated" area my whole life, but had to move to
stay that way. The nearby city has "incoporated," or annexed,
portions of this area in the past, and it was just for that purpose:
taxes. Perhaps I'm simply biased and resentful, but the city claimed
that our taxes would actually be less once annexed as an incentive for
voters. The majority of the area annexed, however, was not
residential, but included several grocery stores and strip malls as
well as the major regular mall in the area. The city selected just
enough of residential areas that they could get votes for the
annexation out of them, and now get revenue from all the areas
annexed, including the commercial districts, which do not have the
number of voter residences. Is this making sense? Not sure I'm
explaining it clearly... In any case, the result was that my
neighborhood was suddenly part of the city, and not only did our taxes
not go down, they actually went up. See, that lower taxes promise was
under the premise that you did not own a decent chunk of property,
which my family did, and now had to pay higher taxes on. (Also, our
address changed, which confused people to NO end...Did you move? No.
Then why do you have a change of address?)

So we moved about five blocks south and are out of the city, once
more. Until, that is, the commercial properties take over more of the
formerly residential areas... Then I'll have to get back to you.

ClioMouse