Compared to Palm Beach or Broward Counties, Martin County has a dearth of municipalities. With just 6 cities, towns and villages, most of County residents live in the unincorporated areas. Yet in the state, close to 60% live within a municipality, 63% of the U.S. population live within cities. The land mass devoted to incorporated entities is less than 5% nationally.

Unlike the rest of the country, Martin County has decided to substitute local municipal government with the County functioning in that capacity. The result is that while most of the rest of the U.S. has more elected officials for residents to complain, praise and gripe to, in our County, the fate of citizens is in the hands of just 5 people.

I believe one of the results of this concentration of power is that our government is more prone to swings in governmental philosophy. The no growth/pro-growth division is a prime example. Western Martin County and Rio are treated the same even though they are vastly different in scope and desires. It is hard for County Commissioners to differentiate; therefore, we have a one-size-fits-all approach.

The reason the County has so many different CRAs is to compensate for the lack of local elected representatives. As areas urbanized, what was supposed to have happened was that they would incorporate to provide municipal-type services. Instead, the entire County began to deliver services requiring MSTUs (Municipal Service Taxing Units) to be established.

Will this ever change? Probably not. As we have just seen with the failure of Hobe Sound to incorporate, the residents already have municipal services. What they do not have is more local elected representatives. Everything is handled by the County Commissioners and, consequently, the County standardizes instead of specializes even though different areas would benefit from the latter.

This has further resulted in higher County taxes than what we should pay. It is far more expensive to provide municipal services to those in the western part of the County than in the denser eastern section. In most instances, those services should not even be offered. Municipal incorporation would have given the option to provide the type of municipal services that were more specialized to a locality with local elected representatives.

Another Martin County distinction and difference that we may regret in the future.

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