AMELIA, Ohio — There were allegations of suspicious political donations and rumors about fake social media accounts . Protesters wore T-shirts that said “Stop the tyranny!” At one point, a former official was escorted out of a public meeting in handcuffs.

For more than a year, the residents of Amelia, just outside Cincinnati, have been consumed by a fiery debate over a proposal to impose a new local tax of just 1 percent. This month, voters found a way around the problem — by getting rid of their 119-year-old village altogether.

In some ways, the dramatic move, which takes effect this week, reflects the frugal, small-government mind-set that permeates Amelia, a conservative community of 5,000 people where the median household income is $61,500. Many residents are reluctant to hand over any more of their paychecks to the government, even the one that picks up their leaves in the fall and plows snow from their streets through the winter.

But at a time when Americans’ trust in government is at historic lows, the fight in Amelia also shows what can happen when polarized voters decide that their government is so broken that it simply shouldn’t exist.