Central differences between Jacksonville's and Charlotte's consolidation efforts
Unlike the Jacksonville, Florida, consolidation model, Charlotte chose to merge its city and county governments. Alexander explains that Charlotte's lack of political corruption did not apply adequate pressure to force the adoption of a consolidated government.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Frederick Douglas Alexander, April 1, 1975. Interview B-0065. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MOYE:
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I've heard the comment that Charlotte in a way made a mistake
in that. Of course, this apparently was Jacksonville's second
attempt, but they had commitments from the power structure, had money in
the bank as it were, before they wrote their charter. That Charlotte
went about it somewhat differently and didn't have the
commitment from a lot of the powerful forces in the city.
- FREDERICK DOUGLAS ALEXANDER:
-
But, you must bear in mind that comparing Jacksonville's
structure with our structure is a different
situation. Jacksonville was forced into a consideration of consolidation
because of the problems that they had in government. The beautiful thing
about Charlotte's attempt at consolidation is that Charlotte
did not go into it because it was forced to go into it by a corrupt
government.
- MOYE:
-
Charlotte has had...
- FREDERICK DOUGLAS ALEXANDER:
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Fortunately, we have had a clean government. We have had the luxury of
existence under a political leadership where we have not had corrupt
governmental officials or corruption existing in departmental heads or
corruption in government totally that was such a cancer that the only
way that the only way to get rid of it was to cut out the cancer.
Charlotte went into consolidation clean, and, maybe, that was
it's mistake. That we had no corruption to force us into an
acceptance of a new form of government to get rid of the corruption. You
see? So, I don't fall over backwards when people attempt to
compare or make a comparison of our consolidation with Jacksonville
because...Or any other place. In fact, Charlotte is the only
place that went into a consideration of consolidation or a study of
consolidation not being forced to do it to get rid of some internal
problem that, as I say, was a cancer to their governmental operation. We
were going into it clean.