Forced Annexation. Good or Bad??

[slugshooter]

In light of the recent eminent domain ruling by the Supreme Court, I though I would bring up an issue that has been big news here for the past year or so. North Carolina law allows cities to annex unincorporated areas of their respective county as well as smaller towns into their city limits. The Fayetteville City Council has been fighting a battle for over a year now in trying to annex parts of Cumberland County that the majority of residents do not want. Some of the big issues that the city uses to try and sway peoples opinions are police protection(already covered by Sheriff's Dept.) Water and Sewer (Which they already have) and trash collection(already have that also), for some reason the City of Fayetteville seems to think that their services are better when the people are happy with what they have. The city can also annex small towns including the one I live in and they have tried with others. This whole issue believe it or not centers around taxes, how about this, the people who live in the proposed annexed area have to pay for a sewer system that would be put into the new areas under their city tax bill even though it will be 10 years before the sewer system is up and running.

The City of Fayetteville also seems to have utter contempt for the military community that they are so quick to honor and pay tribute to, by saying that the military doesn't pay taxes, well, with Fort Bragg and 40,000+ soldiers and family, they put plenty into the local economy, they have to eat somewhere and they all don't live on base.

Should cities be able to have the right to annex parts of counties and smaller towns based on receiving more taxes and more federal money? I don't think so IMHO.

[markyj987]

From the way you've stated the situation, slugshooter, I have to agree with you. Annexation should not take place without a referrendum in the locality targeted for annexation.

Does NC state law have specific procedures for that?

[slugshooter]

As far as I know, the state allows cities to annex at will with no voter input except for town hall meetings, but when the city council puts it to a vote, the deal is done, the residents of the proposed annexation area have done a good job fighting it with getting judges to file injunctions and such. I'll have to do some research to get the actual law.

One thing about NC though, they don't let the citizens vote an anything really, referendums and the like. Of course the big debate now is a lottery, they actually had a vote in the state legislature on whether or not they would let us normal idiots vote for it, never made it out of the house. I am all for a lottery, but I also think the citizens should have the right to vote for it, if it passes it passes, if it doesn't, well, at least the voters have had their say. The funny thing is, the Republicans in the state are the opponents and they feel that the Governor should raise taxes instead of instituting a lottery.

[Texan_Til_I_Die]

Very bad idea, but infortunately there's a lot of that in Texas too. We also see cases of "jerrymandering" where a city will annex an odd shaped strip of land because of the tax potential, but skip other nearby areas that don't offer as much of a tax base.

[slugshooter]

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We also see cases of "jerrymandering" where a city will annex an odd shaped strip of land because of the tax potential, but skip other nearby areas that don't offer as much of a tax base.

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Wasn't there a big issue about that a year or so ago, of course, that was over the Republican legislature trying to gerrymander the districts to receive a more "favorable" outcome in the elections. Didn't the democratic members of the legislature pull up stakes and go to Oklahoma to protest the decisions?

[Texan_Til_I_Die]

[ QUOTE ]
Wasn't there a big issue about that a year or so ago, of course, that was over the Republican legislature trying to gerrymander the districts to receive a more "favorable" outcome in the elections. Didn't the democratic members of the legislature pull up stakes and go to Oklahoma to protest the decisions?

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Correct. Although it wasn't so much that the Republican controlled State Legislature designed a bunch of oddly shaped districts. We added several new districts due to the latest census and that combined with drawing districts more along county lines caused a very favorable shift towards the Republicans. The end result was actually more uniform (or normal) shaped districts than what we had seen in the past 30 years when the districts were drawn by the Democratic controlled State Legislature. That's just the nature of politics, whoever is in control during census years gets to draw the lines, subject to Federal review and approval.