On its own, it’s not the biggest news that the towns of Ellington and Charlotte are looking to merge courts and share one judge.

In 2021, the towns of Sherman, Mina, French Creek and Clymer merged their courts to a single operation. That was followed by the towns of Harmony and North Harmony court merger that took effect Jan. 1, 2025. These mergers are a logical reaction to the county’s declining population and the resulting decrease in rural court caseloads. There is no good reason why Ellington and Charlotte should not move forward with a formal court merger since they already share the services of Judge Jeff Crossley.

But the Ellington and Charlotte merger takes us back to the mid 2000s, when a proposal for a county-led proposal to begin merging courts did make news. The proposal from Charles Cornell, a former county legislator and County Executive candidate who now leads the SUNY Fredonia Center for Innovation and Economic Development, was not received well by most town justices and was largely denounced even though it made sense for those – like us here at The Post-Journal and OBSERVER – who could see the demographic handwriting on the wall some 20 years ago. Now, what Cornell proposed is happening. The initial proposal wasn’t meant to be controversial – even though it’s now happening organically. The demographics didn’t change. It just took nearly 20 years for the county’s demographics to create a situation where push finally came to shove.

In our opinion this latest court consolidation is an opportune time to dust off that early 2000s court consolidation proposal to more quickly implement a formal system across the county. It also makes us wonder what other mergers and consolidations that are widely dismissed now are actually good ideas that county residents and their elected officials simply aren’t yet ready to hear?

Will the merger of the Mayville, Hartfield and Dewittville fire departments into the North Lake Volunteer Fire Department start a wave of volunteer fire department mergers throughout the county as volunteer numbers dwindle? What about police consolidation, a topic that once seemed to have public interest and, dare we say it, a little momentum but now isn’t discussed publicly? In our opinion it may make a lot of sense to pursue countywide property tax assessments both to bring uniformity to tax assessments countywide but also as a potential cost savings for local governments across the board. And, of course, there is the actual elimination of government entities, something that happens but which usually takes something drastic to force action.

The recent ripple of court consolidations is a reminder that ideas roundly dismissed often make a ton of sense with the passage of time. What matters is this group of elected officials having forward-looking discussions publicly – no matter whose feathers are ruffled.