Dear Editor: Unfortunately more and more smaller cities such as Porterdale will not be able to afford to be a functioning city. I agree with them that it seems like double taxation, but it would cost them more than the fees at hand to set up 24-hour dispatch and staff it, I'm sure. I think the city of Porterdale should look closely at paying the sheriff's department to patrol their city. Sure they could disband their police department and just let the sheriff answer calls, but in California where I am originally from many smaller cities have contracted with the sheriff to keep patrol cars in their city limits and basically act as their police and giving the increased presence that city taxpayers are accustomed to.

I see that Porterdale has a fire department as well, and I'm not sure if they employ full-time firemen, but they should also turn that over to the county - as Oxford recently did.

I also thought that the comment by Chief [Wayne] Digby about the new radio system not working correctly was interesting. I did some research and found that apparently it's not the only one of that type that's not working as planned. If you search on the computer about MaCom OpenSky system, you will see that there have been problems in New York, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. I know that system is new; I hope 911 has not paid for it yet.

I moved here from California a few years ago, and one thing I have noticed in Georgia is a lot of duplicated government services, some of the small towns unfortunately may have to go by the wayside. Local governments should become more efficient and merge services like law enforcement and fire; it only makes sense.