[Tagging] [Talk-us] admin_level and COGs, MPOs, SPDs, Home Rule

Tue May 12 14:29:25 UTC 2020

On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 8:59 AM stevea <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:

> > We in the Massachusetts local community want to have admin_level 6
> > relations for these boundaries, and I personally consider deleting them
> > to be vandalism.
>
> Then let's hear from them and their rather precisely-described to-become arguments, rather than you and your beliefs (nor me and my repetitions of these).  Saying that a dozen of you believe 2 + 2 = 5 (especially as 11 other voices aren't present) doesn't make it so.  Cogent, scholarly, well-presented arguments that address the salient political and legal topics described (in the wiki page, where this more properly belongs, though I'm glad it's getting a hopefully final gasp of exposure here) might be able to describe why 2 + 2 might look like 5, in a certain way, in Connecticut, because of x, y and z.  But nobody is hearing that and nobody but user:Mashin is saying so.  (At least in wiki and talk-us.  Slack?  That's proprietary.  I avoid secret-sauce walkie-talkies in an open data project, but that's me.  I do hear that people use it to communicate, I wouldn't know what's on it).

I'm surprised at this message. My one line summary of this reply:
'Asked and answered.'

You've heard in some detail from at least me - in the last few days -
regarding counties in Massachusetts and boroughs in New York. (I'm not
speaking to Connecticut or Rhode Island, since I don't understand
their political systems as well.) For both the Massachusetts and New
York cases, while the (non-)counties have ceded most legislative and
executive function to a higher body, they do retain some effective
local government. In New York City, the county courts still exist -
the Great Consolidation had no effect on the judicial branch. The
county courts in New York City are paid by the state, but that's true
of all the other counties as well. In Massachusetts, counties that
have been 'dissolved' continue to elect their own sheriffs and DA's -
who are paid by the state, but whose jurisdiction extends to the
county, as well as retaining their county courts (also paid by the
state).

Therefore, for the Massachusetts situation, you're saying 'lets hear
the arguments' for arguments that you have not answered in public with
more than an enigmatic, 'and so it goes.' Or to some extent, you're
adding a new set of requirements, a specific quantum of 'home rule' -
just how much, I don't grasp - that is required for
`boundary=administrative`.

Should `boundary=administrative` not exist at all in states whose
constitutions have not been amended since 1907 to address _Hunter v
City of Pittsburgh_? They may have functioning counties and cities,
but municipal powers can be overruled by the higher legislature with
the stroke of a pen.  It would be rather an extreme position, although
I suppose a consistent one, to say that if the constitution of the
higher body doesn't guarantee home rule to the lower, that the lower
doesn't exist; but that would have the effect of erasing county lines
in all but a handful of the states.

Does the subordinate body need to support all three branches of
government? Does having its own judiciary, or its own elected justice
department under the executive, suffice? Or must it have the power to
legislate? Its own executive?

What powers must the subordinate body enjoy?
- Structural - Does the subordinate body have the ability to choose
its form of government (within constitutional bounds), adopt and amend
a charter?
- Functional - Does the subordinate body have power to exercise local
self-government - and is that power plenary, or limited to enumerated
matters?
- Fiscal - Does the subordinate unit have the power to determine its
revenue sources, tax, spend, and borrow?
- Personnel - Does the subordinate unit determine the employment rules
and compensation of its employees? May it enter into collective
bargaining agreements?

Is it relevant whether a local government actually exercises all the
discretionary authority with which it is endowed?  (I bring to mind
the extreme case of Sherrill, New York - which functions as a Village,
with most services provided by the Town, but is actually a City, with
a city charter, and could vote at any time to constitute a city
government like any other.)

You've gone beyond the (already controversial) point that 'a
boundary=administrative requires home rule' into a very fine-grained
debate over 'how much home rule is enough'.

Moreover, you're introducing yet more complexity for data consumers.
One key point for the administrative-level hierarchy is that it
provides a fairly simple way to do a consistent rendering among
different jurisdictions. A renderer can look at just the member ways
of a boundary - which are themselves tagged boundary=administrative
with the coarsest relevant admin_level. Unless it wishes to do
something like shade the regions, it may remain entirely ignorant of
the relations. This structure gives the benefit that a state line can
be drawn only once and will not be overlain with county, town, ...
lines that of course coincide with it; it will also not be drawn twice
in opposite directions because it participates in the boundary
relations of two states. A different type of relation
'boundary=region' or whatever does not fit into that scheme. Unifying
the two to restore the 'state line' and 'county line' rendering styles
will require geometric calculation that will be both expensive and
brittle. Resolving coincident geometries has proven to be a technical
nightmare; it's a big part of the problem, as well, with rendering
road route relations.

Note here that I'm not 'tagging for the renderer' in the sense of
'supplying incorrect data to get a pleasing rendering on the main
map'; I'm speaking of 'adopting and maintaining a tagging convention
needed for any conceivable renderer to adopt a similar style.'  For
example, if you look at
https://kbk.is-a-geek.net/catskills/test4.html?la=42.0487&lo=-73.4886&z=13,
you will see a rendering with heavy lines for the state boundary and
lighter lines delineating counties. In that rendering, you will see
Connecticut and Litchfield County to the southeast; Massachusetts and
Berkshire County to the northeast, New York and the counties of
Columbia and Dutchess to the west. I expect to see that on the map,
because that's what I see on the highway signs.  For the purposes for
which I intend that map, the precise form of the local government is
immaterial. The highway department considers the boundary to be
significant enough to post a sign telling me that I'm crossing it.

In fact, your argument is the great paradox of American municipal
government. Counties and cities, for the most part, enjoy great
political power, while having, under Dillon's Rule, very little legal
legitimacy. This devolution of government to the local level is
tolerated, even embraced, by the people, so the law, in its majesty,
gazes upon it with a Nelsonian eye. Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex.
Nevertheless, the settled law is that counties and municipalites are
creatures of the State, and their governments are mere departments of
the State government. Since the tension has been unresolved in the
political sphere for a century and a half, it would be astonishing to
expect OSM to resolve it by data modeling. I am satisfied with 'what
it says on the sign.' That approach appalls the strict taxonomists.
The strict taxonomists are welcome to model what they will, and commit
the results to OSM, but, please, let's try not to break the "what it
says on the sign" in our zeal to be formally correct. US political
structures are messy and inconsistent. OSM is not going to tidy them.

-- 
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin