Talk:County seat

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What places have a seat that is not in some sort of town or city? –radiojon 02:53, 2004 Jun 29 (UTC)

Well, that depends on whether you consider "town" or "city" to refer to incorporated municipalities or rather colloquially as roughly synonymous with an urbanized area. If the later, then yes, county seats are always in some sort of named urban area, but not necessarily in an incorporated municipality. There are places in the U.S. where the county seat is in a place that is not incorporated and thus is not formally recognized as a city, town or village. older≠wiser 03:02, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Queens... 2 Atlanta & Fulton County 3 How much of this information belongs in this article? 4 Arlington County, Virginia 5 Garbled sentences 6 Missing Lists 7 Rationale

[edit] Queens...

I found only one inaccuracy in the county seat page. New York City, technically, is not the county seat of Queens County. Jamaica, which is one of four communities in Queens (along with Flushing, Far-Rockaway, and Long Island City)is the county seat of Queens. Just thought I would point that out.

I find this dubious. Is there any reference for this? Either each borough or no borough has its own county seat. They are not full-fledged counties anyway. Nelson Ricardo 01:06, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

I find this dubious as well. The "four communities in Queens" are merely postal districts and are no more separate from New York City than Brooklyn is. 216.214.103.34 22:23, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, The Bronx (Bronx County); Brooklyn (Kings County); Manhattan (New York County); Queens (Queens County) and Staten Island (Richmond County) are still officially "Counties" as well as "Boroughs", and that is officially as well as colloquially. The chief Executive of the Borough is the Borough President, which title was created from the County Supervisor. The first Borough President were elected in November of 1897, as the boroughs became part of a consolidated New York City. The borough president is an advocate for the entire Borough and all its residents, who represents the borough's interests within city government and presents the borough's priorities to the state and federal governments as well. He works with the mayor in preparing the annual executive budget presented to the City Council, and also communicates Brooklyn's budget priorities directly to the council.

The borough president reviews major land use decisions and proposes sites for city facilities within the borough. As chair of the Borough Service Cabinet, he convenes hearings to receive city agencies' testimony on issues of public concern.

As chair of the Borough Board, the borough president leads the borough's City Council delegation and the borough's Community Board chairs in the review and approval process for transfer of public properties in the borough to private use, and the review of uniform land use applications.

The borough president monitors the delivery of city services in Brooklyn, intervening where problems arise. He appoints one member to the Panel for Educational Policy and one member to the City Planning Commission, as well as the members to the borough community boards. The community boards, in turn, assess the needs of their delivery of city services in their districts, hold public meetings on issues of concern to district residents, and review uniform land use applications. Community boards may also initiate a community-planning process for their districts under §197-a of the New York City Charter.

Each of the County/Boroughs have a full brace of courts, including a Supreme court, Civil Court, Criminal Court, Family Court, Surrogate's Court, and Drug treatment Court, just like the other 57 Counties. In addition, they have County Clerks, County District Attourneys, and County Sheriffs. The five County Sheriffs run the County Corrections Departments, as well as other Law Enforcement aspects that are NOT the jurisdiction of the New York City Police Department. I could go on and on, but I do have other things to do.SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 08:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, thanks for all this information. But what are the official county seats of each of these boroughs/counties? The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_county_seats page lists New York City as the county seat for each of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.122.26.94 (talk) 22:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Atlanta & Fulton County

It's my understanding that in addition to the entirety of Fulton County, Atlanta GA has incorporated areas in as many as five other counties. Is this significant enough for inclusion on this page? --KHill-LTown 00:36, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are portions of Fulton County outside of Atlanta. There is nothing especially significant about the city having incorporated land outside of the county as well. older≠wiser 03:28, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How much of this information belongs in this article?

Much of the article discusses the variations on county government in the United States. County government organization is a different topic from county seats, and county government organization in the United States is still more different from county seats in general. Therefore, I believe that much of this article could be moved to County (United States). 69.140.80.231 01:54, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arlington County, Virginia

The article currently includes the following:

Uniquely, because it was formerly part of the District of Columbia, Arlington County, Virginia, has no county seat - because it has no muncipalities within its boundaries. Prior to their retrocession to Virginia during the nineteenth century, Arlington and the neighboring independent city of Arlington were, respectively, Arlington County and Alexandria County - two of the three counties of the District of Columbia. The District as currently drawn was coextensive with the County of Washington, which disappeared in the twentieth century following the amalgamation of Tenley, Anacostia and the other rural and semi-rural towns and villages of Washington County, D.C., to the City of Washington.

The first sentence is wrong. Many counties have no incorporated municipalities and thus have their county seats in unincorporated areas; Baltimore County, Maryland, is an example. It has nothing to do with the fact that Arlington County used to be part of D.C.; Baltimore County obviously never was. The rest of the paragraph, besides containing further inaccuracies, does not concern county seats, but instead concerns subject matter that is much better handled in other articles. Therefore, I'm going to take out the entire paragraph. Thanks. Doctor Whom 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Garbled sentences

The second sentence makes no sense:

"In the U.S., New England states (excluding Connecticut and Rhode Island, since they don't have any county governments), and in Canada, the Maritime Provinces, use the term "shire town", although only Vermont uses it officially."

Does anyone know what this is supposed to say? -- Mwalcoff 02:59, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone mistakenly trying to be helpful inserted a comma after U.S. -- the U.S. is supposed to modify New England, not be a part of a series. Similarly, what had been "the Canadian Maritime Provinces" was changed to "in Canada, the Maritime Provinces,". I think it began as an observation that some places in New England use the term "shire town" instead of "county seat". Then at some point the Canadian Maritime Provinces were included and Connecticut and RI were excluded from the New England group and the usage in Vermont specifically identified as "official". Even as it was written before the mistaken transformation into a false comma series, the sentence was pretty densely packed and without any citations for any of it. older ≠ wiser 03:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This makes no sense: As the county seat of Ingham County, Michigan, Mason is the only city in the U.S. that serves as the county seat ahead of the state capital (Lansing).

What does it mean to serve as "county seat ahead of the state capital"? That all other state capitals serve as the county seat for their respective counties?

Generally the city that is the state capital is also the county seat. That ill-constructed sentence is trying to say that Mason, Michigan, is anomalous in the fact that it is the seat of Ingham county, as opposed to Lansing. --JD79 (talk) 15:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Lists

Some of the states' lists are missing. I just finished creating List of New York county seats, I'll work on the other ones as well.

Update:I am adding a to do list for this page, mainly for my own use, as I add the missing pages. J. Finkelstein 17:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like everybody filled up those redlinks, nice. J. Finkelstein 19:10, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rationale

Should mention that during much of the 19th-century in the U.S., county sizes and the locations of county seats were ideally chosen so that outlying farmers could hitch up the horses in the morning, ride into the county seat and attend to business there, and arrive back at the farm the same evening. AnonMoos (talk) 06:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)