Annexation, the controversial government power that cost Fayetteville Mayor Marshall Pitts his job in November, will likely be a top legislative priority in 2006 for the North Carolina League of Municipalities, the president of the group says.
The power to forcibly annex citizens into a town or city’s jurisdiction is a municipal authority that should be retained, said A. Everett Clark, mayor of Marion, in McDowell County. Clark was elected to the group’s top post in October and will lead the association of more than 530 cities and towns for a one-year term.
“Sometimes — and all of these cases are a little different — but sometimes you almost have to do some of that [annexation] in order to move on,” Clark said in an interview before Pitts’ defeat. The Fayetteville mayor was the chief backer of the contentious involuntary annexation of Cumberland County residents into Fayetteville. Many of the affected residents were opposed. They eventually lost a two-year legal battle to block the action. On Sept. 30, the annexation took affect and the city gained about 46,000 residents and 20,000 parcels.
Clark said that he prefers to bring people into a city or town voluntarily, but that it’s nearly impossible to get unanimous support. The challenge for officials is to make annexation a “win-win situation” that’s good for the city and those being annexed. “I think sometimes we try to do too much at one time. I think it needs to be done in an orderly fashion, annexation,” Clark said.
In Fayetteville, 27 square miles were gobbled up by the city in what locals dubbed the “big bang.” The Fayetteville Observer reported that newly annexed residents will owe 21 months worth of city taxes in one year, while some could wait as long as 16 years to receive full city services.
North Carolina is one of only seven states that permit forced annexation. All that’s required is for the municipality to follow a relatively simple administrative process: notify the public, prepare and adopt a report, and hold public meetings. The ease with which it occurs has spurred the creation of citizen activist groups around the state, composed of residents angry over having no input into a decision that directly affects their pocketbook. Visitors to www.stopncannexation.com are greeted with a masthead touting the effort to “end involuntary annexation abuse in North Carolina.” The home page also contains “League Watch News,” a reference to the league’s endorsement of the state’s liberal annexation law.
The league’s 2006 Municipal Legislative Goals and Policies document, which was approved by the league’s Board of Directors on Aug. 11, 2005, expresses unequivocal support for the policy. The document states that municipalities should use the authority “in a fair and reasonable manner.” However, the contents also make clear the league’s intent is to block efforts to curb local government power and, in the process, give citizens the ability to rebuff annexation efforts they do not support.
“The League will continue to oppose changes in the law, either statewide or local, which would weaken the present annexation procedures or restrict annexation authority. The League will oppose new incorporations that are primarily for the purpose of preventing annexation by an existing municipality,” the report states (emphasis in original document). “We think that it has been good,” Clark said of current law. “If we don’t have the authority to do that…I think we would become somewhat stagnant and not be able to grow.”
Eminent domain, the power of government to forcibly take a person’s private property and use it for a public purpose after providing just compensation, is also likely to be a key discussion area next year, Clark said. This summer’s Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London has put eminent domain power on the radar screen for property rights supporters across the political spectrum. The ruling gave local governments the right to take private property from one person and give it to another private person or entity for economic redevelopment.
Clark said neither the league’s board nor its members have adopted an official position on Kelo, but the group is “pretty satisfied” with current North Carolina law, which, “has worked well for us through the years.” He emphasized that he considers property rights a serious issue but was not prepared to comment on the John Locke Foundation’s call for an amendment to the North Carolina constitution to ensure state law isn’t changed to allow governments to engage in expanded “takings” for economic development.
Locke Foundation Legal and Regulatory Affairs Policy Analyst Daren Bakst explained the rationale for an amendment in his Oct. 17 Spotlight paper, Property Rights After Kelo. “Amendments to any constitution should be added very rarely and under extreme caution,” Bakst wrote. “However, it is hard to imagine a time when a constitutional amendment is more appropriate than now. The new amendment would not be creating a new right or doing anything even remotely controversial. In fact, all it would be doing is to reaffirm the meaning of a fundamental right that was so important to our founders that they included it in the Bill of Rights.”
Though Clark declined to comment, league Executive Director Ellis Hankins hasn’t been shy on the subject of Kelo. Writing in the July issue of Southern City and on the league’s web site, he argued that a legislative response to the Supreme Court decision is unnecessary. Yet that same month, while participating in a roundtable discussion in Raleigh on the NBC 17 public-affairs program “At Issue,” he acknowledged it would be a “reasonable concern” that legislators might change North Carolina law to provide local governments the expanded power over property owners.
Clark was willing to comment on his personal view of property rights and how it affects his role in leading Marion. “My take on it is that we shouldn’t take property from one individual and give it to another private entity,” he said.
Donna Martinez is associate editor of Carolina Journal.