Charleston mayor open to merging county-city govt.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) _ The mayor of West Virginia's largest city says he open to the idea of consolidating services with the state's largest county.

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said the city and Kanawha County officials should consider a merger before the federal 2010 census. Charleston has about 50,000 people, and a merger would increase the population to about 200,000.

The Legislature passed a measure in 2006 to make it easier for cities and counties to regionalize government operations. While several have discussed the possibility as a way to combat dwindling populations and to save costs, none have taken the plunge.

Kanawha County Commission President W. Kent Carper recently proposed that mayors in the county's eastern section travel with him to Louisville, Ky., to see an effective consolidated government. Carper has also asked the University of Charleston's business school to conduct a study on the feasibility of combining governments.

Louisville and Jefferson County merged in 2003 and the city is run by a mayor and district council.

"I think you do it one baby step at a time," Carper said Thursday. "I'm in the process of beginning to bring our mayors together ... to set up some comfort."

Jones is already comfortable with the idea and points to how the city and county have merged emergency communications, housing authorities and health departments. He concedes not everyone likes the idea of potentially losing a municipality's identity.

A consolidated county/city government would be operated by a joint council with representation based on geographic district, said state Sen. Brooks McCabe, a metro government proponent in the Legislature. Such a body might encourage more people to become involved in running for office, said McCabe, D-Kanawha.

While cities and counties have had the opportunity to merge for the past two years, Carper said the combination of economic factors and evolving views make mergers more feasible. But he adds it will take "people in office who aren't afraid to do it and have a comfort level for doing something you could pay a heavy political price for."