Talk:Municipal authority (Pennsylvania)

Law Mid‑importance

	Law portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it.LawWikipedia:WikiProject LawTemplate:WikiProject Lawlaw articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Pennsylvania Mid‑importance

	Pennsylvania portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject PennsylvaniaPennsylvania articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Question about the lead[edit]

I am not sure what is meant by"However, these entities lack autonomy and are, in fact, dependent agencies." There are some ambiguous pronouns in that sentence. Also, how are they dependent? Money? Control?--Blargh29 (talk) 06:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I got rid of it. (I've been working on related articles, and I question what it said, whatever THAT might have been.) ;-) Lou Sander (talk) 12:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The turgid sentence removed was "Analogous units in other states are sometimes called special districts. However, these entities lack autonomy and are, in fact, dependent agencies ^[1]."

What is being addressed in this admittedly difficult statement is whether the "entity" is controlled by the municipality, or not controlled by the municipality but maybe created and having its mission or purpose defined by the municipality. In Philadelphia, there are several Special Services Districts created by Philadelphia City Council by an ordinance which is signed by the mayor, with the jurisdiction defined by the ordinance and even the particular directors of the District named in the ordinance. After that ordinance is adopted, then the District functions independent of the government of the City of Philadelphia. In other states, the situation may be quite different, with special districts created without the municipal government or governments being involved. Perhaps there is a way to express this difference of who creates or controls such an entity without the turgid prose that was deleted. Also, maybe this distinction belongs elsewhere in this article than the lede. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Frankford Special Services District of Philadelphia and its reference.^[2]--DThomsen8 (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

^ 1997 Census of Governments, Government Organization, U.S. Census Bureau, page x,footnote 2
^ Savage, Councilman (2007-12-06). "Amending the Articles of Incorporation of the Frankford Special Services District of Philadelphia, a Municipal Authority, by changing the number of board members of the Authority, naming board members to the Authority and providing for their terms of office". Philadelphia City Council bill database. Philadelphia City Council. Archived from the original on 2009-11-29. Retrieved 2009-11-29.

IMHO, the article is about something specific to Pennsylvania, and doesn't need to talk about similar entities elsewhere. Also IMHO, it doesn't need to cover the existing and possible fine differences between various Municipal Authorities. It's an encyclopedia article, not a legal treatise. Lou Sander (talk) 15:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the problem. Municipal authorities in Pennsylvania are in fact dependent agencies because of limitations on their autonomy. I forget offhand what that limitation is. Anyway, they are classified as special districts for data collection purposes. There used to be a footnote in the Census of Governments publication explaining this, but it was removed in 2002(even though the classification had not changed). The footnote last appeared in 1997 on page X of the introduction to Government Organization, 1997 Census of Governments. Gadickson2002 (talk) 14:45, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Municipal authority (Pennsylvania) says "In its 2002 Census of Governments, the U.S. Census Bureau listed 1,885 municipal authorities in Pennsylvania." Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association says there are more than 2,600 authorities across Pennsylvania. There is something peculiar going on with these numbers.

See | DCED

1) The link above isn't working for me. 2) The article is about a Pennsylvania subject. IMHO the encyclopedia should accept Pennsylvania counts, if there's a difference between them and others -- the others have to fit Pennsylvania entities in with those in 50 other states. Lou Sander (talk) 18:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This source from the state government should provide answers to all of these questions: [1]. --Blargh29 (talk) 20:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The states and the Census Bureau have different definitions of "special district." Furthermore, does anyone know for sure if PA considers the municipal authorities to be special districts? It should be made clear whether this entry is the fed's or the state's definitions and count. As for the difference between the state count and the federal count - the PA register contains many inactive entities and a few that were not created under the municipal authority law. Gadickson2002 (talk) 20:24, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interstate Compact Agency?[edit]

I am removing this section because it (1) does not belong under municipal authorities and (2) it is incorrect - many types of entities have "authority" as part of their name. Gadickson2002 (talk) 20:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (February 2018)[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Municipal authority (Pennsylvania). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:46, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

[1] 1997 Census of Governments, Government Organization, U.S. Census Bureau, page x,footnote 2

[2] Savage, Councilman (2007-12-06). "Amending the Articles of Incorporation of the Frankford Special Services District of Philadelphia, a Municipal Authority, by changing the number of board members of the Authority, naming board members to the Authority and providing for their terms of office". Philadelphia City Council bill database. Philadelphia City Council. Archived from the original on 2009-11-29. Retrieved 2009-11-29.

[1]

[2]