For the second time in less than a year, the city and county have been handed a great opportunity to seriously consider consolidation of services.

The first opportunity — to consolidate law enforcement — apparently came and went with no meaningful discussion.

We hope the second chance won’t be treated with the same disregard.

City Public Works Superintendent Robbie Dollar has taken an opportunity to manage more roads, presumably for more money, for a bigger entity.

Dollar accepted the position of Adams County road manager Monday. Congratulations are in order for him.

Mayor Jake Middleton has said Dollar was a quality city employee that he hates to lose. The mayor also recognizes that maybe he doesn’t have to lose Dollar at all.

Though we wish this idea had been fleshed out before the city had an opening that had to be filled, we still think the city could appoint an interim now and have serious talks with the county about consolidating city public works with similar county operations.

If Dollar is as good as everyone says he is, lets cough up some more money, make him the city/county public works director and fund the position of city/county assistant public works director to help him get the job done.

The city’s roads are in the county, so Dollar already has some level of jurisdiction.

Without the excuse of a civil service commission — the biggest stumbling block to consolidating city and county law enforcement — public works and roads should be a much better department with which to drive into our cost-saving future.