Forced Annexation Repeals - Government Committee

 CORRECTION: The MAYOR of Kinston, BJ Murphy did not speak at the meeting.

Mayor Murphy won his seat as the first Republican Mayor of Kinston in 100 yrs and he ran on a platform of being adamantly opposed to forced annexation.

It was the Mayor Pro Tem who spoke on behalf of the rest of the Kinston Council members.

Note to Mayor Murphy: Sincere apologies for making that error.

*************************

Two Bills to repeal the recent forced annexations by the cities of Kinston and Lexington were discussed and voted on in the House Government Committee of the Legislature.

There was great attendance by citizens belonging to communities fighting forced annexation. OLCAFA, Rowan Good Neighbors, CUAFA and others were there. Freedomworks representatives were also in attendance.
Big thanks to all for driving to Raleigh in spite of the snow and for the sacrifices you made to be there.

Rep. Larry Brown Chairs the House Government Committee.

House Bill 5 - Repeal Kinston Annexation
Introduced by Rep. Stephen LaRoque.

Rep LaRoque explained and defended the bill forcefully and eloquently today. He stood up for the people he represents who have no other voice to defend them on their behalf when it comes to forced annexation.
It was wonderful to be present and to hear a State Representative stand so strong for the people being harmed by forced annexation and against the arrogant entitlement attitude that the city officials and their lobbyists and Legislative advocates have come to have over the years.

The arrogance of the cities was apparent in the questions that their advocates asked and the statements that were made in opposition to the Bills.
Rep Alma Adams was more concerned about whether the Kinston City Council had approved the repeal than whether the citizens harmed by the forced annexation were being represented or were being helped by the repeal.

Rep. Leubke took the several opportunities he was given to address concerns about the Bill to remind the Committee that the Annexation Study Commission that he co-chaired had recommended House Bill 524 to "fix" the annexation laws. If you recall, H524 was the Annexation Study Committee Bill that included nearly ALL of the League of Municipalities recommendations, would have created MORE financial harm for the victims of forced annexation, and was soundly rejected by the citizens asking for an end to forced annexation.
Let it go Rep. Leubke, let it go. Stop trying to resurrect a very bad Bill that deserved to die.

The new talking point from the League of Municipalities (NCLM) appears to be to accuse the State Legislature of MEDDLING in the affairs of the city governments.
Wow!!
Do the city advocates really believe that the State Legislature has no right to regulate the affairs of the cities?
Have they forgotten that the NC Consitution defines cities as "creatures of the State" and it is not the other way around?

Several of the Representatives on the Committee who were clearly acting as mouthpieces for the City Lobbyists voiced concern that the State was meddling. This accusation was, in my opinion the most egregious example of the arrogance and out of control sense of self importance that has become far too commonplace from the city officials and their chief lobbying organization, the League of Municipalities.

The Mayor PRO-TEM of Kinston was allowed to address the Committee and he spent most of his time opposing the Bill as "meddling" on the part of the General Assembly. It takes one's breath away to hear this type of arrogance, but this is what the NCLM has accomplished over the last 50 years in the State of NC.

This type of arrogance from the NCLM lobbyists has always been on display over the years that I have been attending Committee meetings where property rights issues were being debated, but this new blatant display is incredible.
The NCLM appears to have grown used to waltzing into the General Assembly and saying "jump" to the Legislators and having the Legislators respond with "How High?".
It is a whole new ballgame this Legislative Session and it is refreshing. 

To witness Rep. LaRoque brush the arrogance aside and stand strong in knowing he is doing the right thing for the people of his District and of North Carolina was also a breath of fresh air.
Thank you Rep. LaRoque.

HB 5 was approved and with the majority voting the Bill forward.

House Bill 37 - Lexington Annexation Repeal.
Introduced by Rep Rayne Brown 

Rep Rayne Brown was also absolutely eloquent in her statement to the Committee about repealing the forced annexation that Lexington imposed recently. You could really tell that she is an unshakable woman of principle who is stepping up to do what is right for the people in her District. Stepping up for those who have no one other than her speak for them and to defend them against the tyranny of forced annexation.
Thank you Rep Rayne Brown. 

When the Mayor Pro Tem of Kinston was speaking, his defense of the city against the State reversing the annexation, and calling the action of the Legislators "meddling", it brought to mind the way that the City Bunch have responded to the citizens who say that forced annexation is taxation without representation.

The city advocates response to that has been to tell the citizens that they DO have representation in the State Legislature. Now they are complaining that the State should not be standing up for the citizens who were forcibly annexed and are appealing to the Legislature.
As usual, the City Bunch want it all and they want it both ways.
The truth is they couldn't care less about good government. All they seem to care about is increasing the power and the money flowing to the cities.

The Representatives on the Committee who were entrenched in their decision to oppose these repeals and speak for the League of Municipalities kept the conversation going until they ran out the clock for the meeting and a vote could not be taken at that time on HB37.
The way Alma Adams eagerly (a little too eagerly) called out that the clock had run out, it almost seemed like that was a planned strategy.

But Chairman Larry Brown was not to be undone on getting that vote done today. He knew the House was going to have a recess from the Floor and he was able to reconvene the Government Committee a little later on to allow a vote on HB 37. Some of the members were unable to return and some who opposed the bill didn't bother to return. The Bill was approved and soundly voted forward.
Thank you Rep Larry Brown.

There is another Bill that has been introduced on behalf of the forced annexation victims of Rocky Mount.
House Bill 56, Sponsored by Rep. Jeff Collins.
HB56 has been sent to the Committee On Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House.

Rep.'s Rayne Brown and Jeff Collins are both new Legislators.
Rep LaRoque made a comeback in the last election. He served in the GA before 2006.

Please take time to send a word of thanks and encouragement to the Legislators who made today possible.
Contact information for House Members

Commission Recommendations to Reform Annexation in NC

SNCA Update January 25, 2009

So how did the Joint Commission do with the recommendations that were presented during the final meeting on Thursday in answering the call of the people for:

1) Meaningful oversight;
2) Meaningful services; and
3) Meaningful voice?

Hang in here with me _even if this analysis is long and sounds a bit pessimistic at the start. Being realistic and clearly looking at what we have and where we are is essential to knowing what we need to focus on in the upcoming Legislative Session. This dance is far from over and it's more about savvy politics than policy expertise.

We should let policy experts continue to do the excellent job they are doing with the issue while the grassroots stays focused on the political arena where we have an invaluable role to play.We've proven that all of us together can effect the conversation in the General Assembly about the annexation issue.

After my head stopped spinning from the confusion and chaos that dominated the way that the Joint Commission meetings transpired, especially the final meeting, I took a clear look at what happened and what we ended up with.

Most of the final meeting was spent trying to get through some tweaks to the laws that were proposed by various members, and as was admitted by the Legislative Aide, Steve Rose, "other speakers" to the Commission.
(Gee, I wonder who that was....could it have been _"The League"? )

The very first recommendation, which on the surface seems to address the "meaningful oversight" that the people were requesting, is to have the Local Government Commission (LGC) review city initiated annexations.
(Wow, the alarm bells were going off in my mind immediately.)

Let's look at the make-up of the LGC.
The LGC was created to oversee the balance sheets and borrowing of the local governments. They have done that well. Giving them the task of reviewing municipal annexations without any guidelines to determine whether the annexation should be approved will probably be beyond the Commission's ability.

In fact, it is very likely to end up with similar results to what we have already seen when the LGC was given the task of approving Tax Increment Financing (TIF) projects. The Roanoke Rapids Randy Parton Theater project was the very first TIF project that was given the green light by the LGC. That turned out to be a model of everything that could go wrong with a TIF project.

We need to take a look at just who are the decision making members of the Local Government Commission. I'll give that information to you straight and let you decide how this is going to work out for the two parties involved in a city initiated annexation.
http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/departments/finance1/LocalGovernmentCommission.htm

"The Local Government Commission is composed of nine members: the State Treasurer, the Secretary of State, the State Auditor, the Secretary of Revenue, and five others by appointment. The State Treasurer serves as Chairman and selects the Secretary of the Commission, who heads the administrative staff serving the Commission. A major function of the Commission is the approval, sale, and delivery of substantially all North Carolina local government bonds and notes. A second key function is monitoring certain fiscal and accounting standards prescribed for units of local government...."

LGC MEMBERS:
(The five "others")

Patrick Smathers _ Mayor of Canton, NC
Attorney; Governmental Law
2nd Vice Chairman, Region A, Southwestern Planning Commission
Ex-offico, Economic Development Commission

Mr. W. Calvin Horton _Chapel Hill Town Manager
retired 2008
Board Member - International City/County Management Association
Board Member (past) – Chamber

Irving Joyner
NCCU School of Law Professor – NAACP legal consultant

Allen Joines – Mayor of Winston Salem
Joines had served as deputy assistant city manager
Marvin Collins Distinguished Leadership Award from the North Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association
Past Board member of the N.C. League of Municipalities and is the
Chairman of the N.C. Metropolitan Coalition, made up of the 25
largest cities in North Carolina.

John H. Zollicoffer, Jr. _Henderson City Attorney,
Municipal Law Atty

According to comments during the Joint Commission discussion of the LGC as the oversight body, this recommendation is supposed to be better than having the County Commissioners act as the third party in city initiated annexations. Someone claimed that the LGC would be less biased and more objective in representing the best interests of the affected property owners. (Who could say that with a straight face?)

The five appointed members on the LGC consists of lawyers, city bureaucrats, and unabashed associates/members of the North Carolina League of Municipalities (NCLM).
So the idea of LGC oversight was to address two of the areas of concern: meaningful oversight and a meaningful voice for the affected property owners. This recommendation gets an F- on fulfilling those needed reform areas.

After researching the membership of the LGC, I then went through the remaining recommendations that the commission waded through before voting on whether to recommend a moratorium or a referendum.
(You can read all of the amendments that were proposed on the agenda by downloading the document from the StopNCAnnexation website homepage: http://www.stopncannexation.com/Joint_Commission_Recomendations.pdf )

The recommendations from the Joint Commission sheet were cross referenced with the "20 point recommendations" that the NCLM presented to the Joint Commission at the December 17th meeting.
Six out of the eleven recommendations that actually passed out of the meeting for recommendations to the General Assembly were taken from the NCLM recommendations either unchanged or with slight alteration.
Six out of the eleven are just tweaks to certain areas of the law that will not significantly change the problems that we have with the laws that has caused the ongoing discontent since the laws were enacted, came to a head and brought us to where we are today.

The commission recommendations give us:

• A very minor change to how the annexation victims are notified of their impending fate. (NCLM #2)
• A minor adjustment to how we pay for those services that we never wanted or needed. (NCLM #12)
• A minor adjustment to the density standard used to qualify the next victims of municipal takeover.
• Minor adjustments to make it harder for cities to use "shoestring" or strips of land to take in areas. (NCLM #15 & 16)
• Minor adjustment to recourse with the LGC if services are not fully provided.
• An additional protection for large working farms from city regulation if the farm is annexed.
  (Shouldn't it be absurd that large working farms can be annexed in the first place?)
• A lower threshold of necessary agreement in a low income area to petition for annexation. (NCLM # 19 & 20)

So what do we have left that could actually make meaningful reform happen?

The one recommendation to address meaningful services failed to pass but it was taken from the NCLM 20 point recommendations and fell far short of addressing the need to define what truly meaningful services are in the spirit of the NC Supreme Court ruling in Marvin v. Nolan. So the request to have meaningful services addressed by the Commission failed.

We have a recommendation for a moratorium, and that would be a fine tourniqet to stop the bleeding, but doesn't actually make any meaningful changes to the law itself.

We have a recommendation to exempt a small fraction of landowners from forced annexation, but the original subset of those who would benefit from this exemption was narrowed even further by the city advocates on the commission.
Recommendation III(C) is very similar to a Bill that was introduced at the very beginning of the 2007 long session by newly elected Representative Joe Boylan - HB 56. Recommendation III(C) doesn't have the Homeowners Association provision, but it is otherwise very similar. As passed by the Commission, a small number of situations where water and sewer treatment is provided by an third party utility provider would be exempt from annexation .
But, property owners with perfectly good private onsite septic systems are still subject to having their infrastructure replaced with municipal utilities that are not needed or meaningful, and costly at that.

The city advocates on the commission opposed Recommendation III(C) after insisting on amending it. Expect Recommendation III(C) to have equally strong opposition after it ends up in a Bill from both the city lobbyists and from others who feel that it unfairly protects only a small fraction of property owners.

The best thing that came out of the commission's recommendations for the pro-reform citizens and legislators of North Carolina is Recommendation VIII(A). Recommendation VIII(A) would return the right to vote on the annexation to the affected property owners. This puts the push for a vote of the people in a slightly better position than it was at the beginning of the 2007 Legislative Session.
But Tony Rand made it clear that he did not like this recommendation and it would not get past his desk in the Senate.

Does that mean we should throw in the towel because of that? Absolutely not!

We also need to get the reform legislators to rescue the need to deal with a better definition of providing meaningful, non-duplicating services and we need them to put third party oversight in place that really will provide a true representative voice.

Go back to the idea of using the County Commissioners to provide the third party oversight. They are the local government body charged with administering State laws and they directly represent ALL of the people affected by annexation decisions.

Keep calling and writing your legislators and the House and Senate Leaderhip as well as the Commission members so we can get meaningful reform instead of meaningless tweaks.

Annexation Reform Blueprint & a Quiz

Getting ready for tomorrow's meeting of the Joint Commission Studying Municipal Annexation has gotten some help today from Daren Bakst, the Legal Analyst at the John Locke Foundation.

Daren's 'Blueprint for Annexation' policy report has been published online today. You can find it here and take a look at the ideas for reform that Daren outlines and backs up with the extensive research he has been doing on the issue.

After you read the report, consider sending Daren an email and let him know what you think about the report.
Then follow up that email to Daren with an email to the Study Commission members telling them about the 'Blueprint' along with your thoughts about it.

There is also a one day Quiz about annexation that Daren has started online at the JLF 'Locker Room' blog. Daren has the first two questions posted now and will be posting more as the day goes along. See how well you do with the questions about NC annexation laws while you get ready for the Commission meeting tomorrow.

If you cannot attend the meeting tomorrow, you can listen to the meeting live by going to the General Assembly website 'Audio' page and opening the audio link for "Appropriations Committee Room (Rm 643)".

The meeting starts tommorow morning at 9:30 am and is scheduled to last until 11:30 am. If you can attend or listen live, and you care about annexation reform, please do listen to this meeting. The more people we have who hear for themselves how this issue is being discussed by the Commission, the better it will be for the effort to reform the laws during next years' Legislative Session.

Thanks to ALL who have written to the Commission Members!

Cathy Heath

Update on Annexation Committee Meetings

ALERT: Public Hearings before the House Select Committee on Municipal Annexation are currently scheduled as follows:

March 19, in Ferguson Hall at AB Tech in Asheville, NC. The hearing will begin at 5:00 p.m.
If you live in the Buncombe County area and plan to speak out or attend, please contact Ann Jordan goforthla@ncleg.net or Rosa Kelley thomasla@ncleg.net

April 9th in the Legislative Building Auditorium


I hope that most of you have viewed the videos of the City Advocates giving their presentations to the Select Committee. If you need any incentive to write to the Legislators and express your position on reforming forced annexation, hearing the Director of the League of Municipalities "draw the line in the sand" as to what they will allow or not allow the GA to change should do it for you.

You can also view the Charlotte City attorney make his case at this link:
Charlotte Attorney address to NC House Select Committe on Municipal Annexation

Charlotte has been forcibly annexing regularly for so many years that there isn't much left of unincorporated Mecklenburg County. Because of this, and in spite of the City Attorney's intent to defend forced annexation, he actually helps to prove that one of the key arguments FOR forced annexation that the advocates repeat over and over is the load of hot air that it is.

He admits that the City of Charlotte will soon have nowhere left to go to continue to expand geographically. He then assures the Legislators that Charlotte will continue to be fine and dandy because they will focus on internal growth instead. The bottom line is that he admits that cities don't NEED to expand outward taking in more taxpayers by force in order to stay fiscally healthy.

In his "Ain't Charlotte Wonderful" speech, he admits that Charlotte has initiated 30 forced annexations since 1993 with no challenges to any of them. When he later admits that Charlotte has a stable of 60 lawyers at their disposal, it is little wonder that no victim has challenged any of them.

60 LAWYERS???!!! To pit the citizens of North Carolina against this army of taxpayer funded lawyers is outrageous! Should city revenue be spent on litigation aimed at defeating the will and the natural rights of North Carolina citizens?

The cities have declared war on the citizens around them across North Carolina in an attempt to wear them down and defeat them in Raleigh at the General Assembly.
From North to South and West to East, cities all over NC are initiating forced annexations.
Active battles against the citizens are underway in Wilmington, Pinehurst, Goldsboro, Lexington, Salisbury, Tryon, Rocky Mount, Asheville, to name some with many others recently undertaken around the State.

As the House Legislators study needed reform of annexation, they should be paying particular attention to uncovering the truth or the lie to the claims of the municipal advocates, and looking for ways to give the citizens some avenue of standing that will hold the municipalities accountable to SOMEONE in regard to this power to usurp the approbation of landowners in the decision to become part of a municipal incorporation.

In the Committee report to the Legislature submitted in May as the session starts, Number 1 on the list of recommendations should be an immediate moratorium on forced annexations, included those that are currently being challenged or incomplete.

Please plan to attend the Public Hearings.

The next scheduled meeting of the Study Committee is a closed session at the end of April to formulate the recommendations to the Legislature.
It looks like the Public Hearings are going to be the last opportunity for any input to the recommendations the committee comes up with.

Update on Annexation Committee Meetings

Today was the second meeting of the Study Committee. It was quite interesting and a review will be coming soon. The following is a recap of the January 30th meeting.

You can view the entire January 30th meeting by going to the StopNCAnnexation website. There are also video files of citizens who made comments to the committee after the meeting.
http://www.stopncannexation.com

The number of citizens who attended this committee meeting was close to 60 or better. There were representatives from the coast to the mountains at the meeting. Not just current victims, but plenty of victims from past annexations. The annexation warriors from Wilmington came and spoke to the committee. Cumberland Co and Forsyth Co. victims also attended.
These past annexation stories are important to this discussion as much as the current battles.

This first meeting had one presentation by Prof. David Lawrence of the UNC School of Government. He basically explained NC Annexation law "from the book"....the books that he wrote. Nothing really new or surprising to battle scarred veterans of fighting off a nearby municipality. But necessary, as we can't assume that all of the legislators on the committee know quite as much about the annexation laws as they need to for this study.

What made it interesting was the opportunity for committee members to ask Prof. Lawrence questions. With the committee having a larger number of reform minded legislators who have heard your annexation stories (and a 'non-legislator' citizen) than any past study has had, the questions were slightly more challenging for Lawrence. Doug Aitken asked some excellent questions and made some very good points that had Prof. Lawrence admitting to some of the pesky problems with the law that frustrate citizens.
Things like having little standing to challenge the actions of cities and not much better avenues of recourse after the deed is done. The fact that there is "no one minding the store" regarding the annexations that cities initiate was made loud and clear.

The legislators on the committee seem to be genuinely concerned about the misdeeds and shortcomings occuring with the "most liberal annexation laws in the nation".

If you have been a victim of forced annexation and have a horror story to share, do write to your legislator and to all the legislators on the Study Committee.
The committee email contact info is below on a previous post.

Today's meeting had many more presenters, including Mr Ellis Hankins, chief lobbyist for the cities. The video of his presentation will be posted to the SNCA website as soon as I get it. This is a "must see" presentation, but prepare to have your blood pressure rise a bit.

More on the February 13th meeting in the next blog post.
Stay tuned, and start thinking about coming to Raleigh for the upcoming Public Hearing scheduled for April 9th, and on June 4th for the biggest Rally in Raleigh yet!

Cathy

Annexation Reform Update - Public Hearing!

There has been an interesting development in the effort to reform the NC Annexation Laws!!

This 2007 Legislative Session saw 17 Bills introduced to reform forced annexation statewide.

There were six local Bills introduced, and Rep Faison introduced a Bill to reverse a forced annexation by the Town of Carrboro.

Every one of the House Bills were sent to the Rules Committee. This is a committee that has been used in the past to kill Bills by never discussing them or moving them forward.
The introduced Bills have to pass on the floor of the House or the Senate before the "crossover date" which was extended to May 24th of this year. Exceptions to this are Study Bills or Bills that require financing decisions. None of the reform Bills moved forward from the House Rules Committee before the crossover.

But the reform effort has many legislators working this year to get something done.

AND the effort has YOU!!
And YOU have been talking to the Legislators in larger numbers than ever before.
Your voice makes a difference!

A difference in the General Assembly AND the media.

The news reports on the issue have been much better this year. The newspaper articles are reporting on the views of the property owners more than before.
The Rally in Raleigh made FRONT PAGE NEWS in the News & Observer!
Articles about forced annexation are showing up in more newspapers and TV news reports across NC than ever before telling OUR side of the story.

Now for the REALLY GOOD NEWS !

An annexation reform Bill was passed out of the Rules Committee on Wednesday, May 30th!!

It was not on the schedule for the Rules Committee and it was past the crossover date. But the effort to reform annexation is moving forward!

AND

There will be a PUBLIC HEARING on the annexation issue at the General Assembly in Raleigh.

The Public Hearing is scheduled for June 13th at 5:00 pm.
at the Legislative Building Auditorium on the third floor!

WE NEED AS MANY PEOPLE AS WE CAN TO SHOW UP FOR THIS PUBLIC HEARING!
Even if you do not intend to comment, put this on your calendar and BE THERE for the hearing.

This Public Hearing is going to set the stage for the Study Committee that will be formed to look at what needs to be changed in NC Annexation Law.

Please check the StopNCAnnexation website for more information on the Public Hearing and the Study Committee. It is going to take continued input from as many people as possible to make sure that the results of the Study Committee are what the people want_
_NOT what the NCLM WANTS!
Thank you for taking the time to make your voice heard on this issue!

And don't forget to make forced annexation an issue to your County Commissioners also!

Cathy Heath
Ron Thoreson
http://www.stopncannexation.com