Johnson City's potential dissolution into the Town of Union has pitted friend against friend. But how do residents and politicians of the much larger town feel about absorbing their village neighbors? Our Neil St. Clair hit the streets to find out.

JOHNSON CITY, N.Y. -- The meetings and committees are wrapping up. In just one week voters will decide if the Village of Johnson City should dissolve into the nearly four times larger Town of Union.

Village politicians are split on the issue, but so far, the town has stayed silent.

"The town board's position, we've been very careful, not to sway the vote either way," said John Bernardo, Union's Republican town supervisor.

"We've worked closely with the committee members to come up with the model. We're not getting involved with the politics of it all."

Bernardo is already voted into office, in part, by Johnson City residents, and would serve as head of the village's government once dissolved.

From his vantage, the hard-fought campaigns for and against dissolution have been about misinformation.

"When people walk around saying that police aren't going to show up or firemen aren't going to show up or that they're going to go into bankruptcy, that's wrong," said Bernardo.

Ultimately, Johnson City would lose its fire and police services on a local level.

Johnson City was already partially absorbed into the Town of Union in the 1930s, and has some services provided through that arrangement.

Dissolution would further consolidate all services, but Bernardo says it's really a change in semantics.

"There will be a lot of shifting in terminology, but not much else."

But how do town residents feel about dissolution?

They have no say in the vote, but like villagers, they're split.

"Yeah, I'd vote for dissolution, I think it might be better off for us in the long run, so," said Susan Darrow, who has lived in Union for the past five years.

But not everyone is so optimistic:

"We have a little dead end street. Just leave us alone, we're happy as we are," said Sharon Lowe, a Town of Union resident for more than 40 years.

While disputed, tax savings for villagers and town residents have been estimated at 15 to 30 percent.

Villagers will vote on dissolution on November 3rd, but if passed, it won't go into effect until 2011.

For more information on dissolution, click on the links below:

Johnson City Dissolution Report:
www.cgr.org/johnsoncity/

Save Johnson City
savejc.org/