The NC General Assembly passed HB56 near the end of its session. It requires a petition of 60% of the property owners to repeal the annexation. This is an example of an ex post facto law; something the US Constitution specifically prohibits in Article I, Section 10. However, to fight a constitutional violation like this would take a boat load of money for attorney fees and legal filings on the way to the Supreme Court with no guarantees whatsoever. Not the best way to spend the taxpayer's dollars.
The new rules put things in a new context, even though we didn't know what those rules would be until after we passed our ordinances. Would the city gamble that 60% of the annexed property owners would not file petitions against the annexation? Regardless, we would still be responsible for paying the cost of the petition process and the Board of Elections had already begun to prepare the mailing. If the annexation was repealed by petition, the city would not be able to consider annexation of the same areas for 3 years.
However, if we rescinded the ordinances we could begin another annexation under the new statute's restrictions at any time. The advantage of this approach would be flexibility. The city could file a Consideration of Annexation almost immediately and take our time informing the citizens in the annexation areas the advantages of being part of the City of Southport (and there are some, believe it or don't). A Consideration of Annexation filing has a 2 year time limit but may be extended as needed. It removes the ticking clock that added so much unnecessary aggravation and heightened the lack of communication between the city and those who might soon be residents. The process could have been much more thorough and all-inclusive if there was not a looming deadline.
Any city-initiated annexation is, was, and forever will be contentious. But at least the facts could be laid on the table and the residents could take their time in evaluating the benefits of being incorporated into Southport. All questions could have been answered. Heck, the residents may even voluntarily annex themselves into Southport if a good and truthful case was made to them.
Ok, that's a stretch but at least a good faith dialogue could result instead of the cat fight that took place this time.The city could also structure the proposed areas for annexation in a way that would incorporate all desired properties instead of doing a piecemeal, step-by-step process. The Highway 211 business corridor, the main focus of Southport's annexation efforts, could be included from the start and those in the residential areas could see everything in the proper perspective.
In such a circumstance the city would be compelled to make a good case to the affected property owners: something we did not do this time around. It could be argued that the residents in Smithville Woods and other affected areas did not allow the city to present its case to them because they rejected any consideration of being a part of Southport outright. I'm still optimistic that, with enough time, some common ground can be established in the spirit of uniting our community. If we pursued the current annexation ordinances, this opportunity may be lost. It will certainly be delayed by 3 years.
While I support the actions of our board 100% with regards to annexation, I felt that voting against continuing the current process would give us a better chance of achieving our goals over the long term. While I really didn't expect that it would improve the relationship with the annexed residents in the short term, repealing the annexation ordinances now at least gave us a fighting chance to repair relations and avoid a permanent division in our community. We shall see.
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