Elizabeth Township Governance to Change

You may have not read the recent story in the Post-Gazette about a man in Elizabeth Township who has proposed to decrease the number of township commissioners from 7 to 5 and move them from elected by ward to elected at large. You may not have read this story because you think that it has no relevance to you. You may be wrong.

Elizabeth Township, located south of McKeesport on the Youghiogheny River, had a population of 13,839 in 2000 (at the time of the last census). That makes Elizabeth Township smaller than some City of Pittsburgh neighborhoods (i.e. Squirrel Hill, Brookline and Shadyside).

Yet, in the current proposal for city-county consolidation, Elizabeth Township doesn’t have to change at all. It will keep on with its commissioners and its independent citizenry while the City of Pittsburgh, with 334,563 people, will be eliminated and rolled into the county.

Currently, Elizabeth has one commissioner for every 1,977 citizens. That’s a whole lot of government. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh has one Council Member for every 37,174 people. If the goal of reform is efficiency, as it is stated in arguments for city-county consolidation, which municipality discussed here is more efficient and which one should be considered for consolidation?