The Cost of Government

I’ve noted before how the large number of of local government jurisdictions in Ohio – counties, townships and corporations (cities) – makes for inefficient and expensive government. Now an editorial in the Cincinnati Enquirer has taken note of the issue, pointing out that “most of those governments have (separate) administrative staffs, and many have their own police and fire departments, road crews, equipment and buildings to maintain. It’s often not the most efficient way to run government.”

The article notes that in Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, there are 100 fire stations across all jurisdictions. “In comparison,” the article says, “Montgomery County, Maryland, which has roughly the same population density and is slightly larger and more populated, has just 40 fire stations. There’s no evidence that people in Montgomery County die from fires or strokes twice as often as people here.”

The article goes on to say that one of the prime reasons for the status quo is that “residents like the idea of having services like police and fire as close to their houses and businesses as possible, even as they grumble about high taxes.” I’d add that another, perhaps more important, reason is that it’s not in the interests of the people running the local jurisdictions to threaten their own jobs by merging or consolidating services.

And thus it’s safe to say that there won’t be changes any time soon.

The Coywolves Are Here

And it’s not good news for pet owners – large wolf/coyote hybrids that developed north of the Great Lakes region have been steadily moving south in recent years, and have been spotted around Cincinnati. Coywolves are a cross between western coyotes and the Eastern Red Wolf. Some experts refer to them as eastern coyotes, but they’re significantly larger and huskier than western coyotes, and have reddish fur tinges. More significantly, they have different hunting behavior: unlike coyotes, coywolves hunt in packs, and thus are able to hunt deer (which coyotes do not). Ohio’s deer population is exploding, creating a savory incentive for coywolves to steadily expand their range.

Coywolf (courtesy Eastern Coyote Research)

We’ve seen them on a couple of occasions, including one time when we saw a pair working in tandem to try to bring down a deer. One coywolf chased the deer toward another coywolf that lay hiding nearby in tall grass; the second animal sprang up and joined the chase when the deer approached. That time, the deer escaped. Those coywolves looked more like husky, reddish German shepherds than the thin, scraggly coyotes we saw on many occasions in California.

Southern Ohio needs a natural predator to reduce the local deer population, for sure; human hunters kill many, but the overall deer population is expanding anyway. Still, I worry about our dogs, particularly our Brittany spaniel; with her smallish size and snow-white fur, she couldn’t stand out more to a predator if she had a target painted on her back.