Puny counties | The Salt Lake Tribune

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Re "Provo-Orem, Heber in nation's top 10 in growth" (Tribune, April 5)

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, these Utah counties, each with a population well under 10,000, lost people last year: Beaver (6,594), Garfield (5,144), Piute (1,497) and Wayne (2,737). And these similarly small counties each gained fewer than 100 people: Daggett (1,156), Rich (2,303) and Kane (7,257).

How in the hell can those dinky counties pay for their administration, including courts, elected officials, police, libraries and assorted bureaucrats? Puny Daggett County even has its own school district — one elementary, one junior high and one high school! That's an awful lot for a superintendent and board of education to oversee.

This is no way to run a state, with so many small counties. Each of those counties should be dissolved and combined with a neighboring county.

Heck, since the invention of the automobile and paved roads, we don't need a courthouse and county seat to be no farther away than a day's ride for a horse-drawn buggy. We're in the 21st century, for heaven's sake. It's time to consolidate.

Andrew Beckett

Snyderville