Special Districts Are Kingdoms of Unaccountable Power - WSJ

Special Districts Are Kingdoms of Unaccountable Power - WSJ link

• Special Districts Are Kingdoms of Unaccountable Power
• Disney’s Reedy Creek is only one of 38,000 such entities nationwide—twice the number of U.S. cities.

"...Yet Reedy Creek is only one example of the proliferation of powerful

“special districts,” shadowy local governments that exercise ever-greater control over taxation and spending.

...According to the U.S. Census, there are more than 38,000 of them across the country—double the number of cities.
Although some types of special districts have value, most are superfluous, obscure and burdensome. 

• They are means to escape citizen limitations on government power and should be brought under the control of regular voters and local governments again.

...Bureaucrats and legislators set up districts to fund irrigation and drainage, fire protection, libraries, community colleges, hospitals, welfare, water, solid waste, mortgage credit, transit, bridges, parks, electrical power, cemeteries, mosquito control and on and on. 

They also set up special districts like Reedy Creek, which do almost everything a city can do, 
but without most of the constraints..."