Public Hearings on NC Annexation Law

The House Select Committee on Municipal Annexation will be hearing comments from the public at two scheduled Public Hearings.

If you believe that forced annexation is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG _ then try as hard as you can to attend at least one of these hearings. Attend BOTH if you can.

The Municipal League and their advocates have pretty much monopolized the presentations to the committee so far. You can be sure that the city lobbyists will try to crowd out the voice of the citizens at the Public Hearings too.
These Public Hearings need to be monopolized by the citizens!!

******************************************
March 10, 2008

MEMORANDUM

REMINDER

TO: Members of the House Select Committee on Municipal Annexation
[AND INTERESTED CITIZENS]

FROM: Rep. Bruce Goforth – Co-Chair
Rep. Paul Luebke – Co-Chair

SUBJECT: Notice of March 19th Public Hearing

There will be a Public Hearing with the House Select Committee on Municipal Annexation:

DAY: Wednesday

TIME: 5:00 p.m.

DATE: March 19, 2008

LOCATION: Ferguson Auditorium – A. B. Technical Community College

FYI - A Public Hearing has also been scheduled for April 9th in Room 643 of the Legislation Office Building beginning at 5:00 p.m.

(The) final meeting is scheduled for April 23rd at 10:00 a.m. in Room 544 of the Legislative Office Building

A letter was mailed to city officials in at least the entire Rowan County area. It was probably mailed to city officials all over NC. (click the 'A letter' link to read the letter)

Supposedly, this letter is from the Mayor of Salisbury, asking for support against the rising chorus of voices opposed to the forced annexation that Salisbury is undertaking right now.

I doubt that the Mayor of Salisbury wrote this letter all by herself. How much shall we wager that "someone" at the NC League of Municipalities wrote this letter and the NCLM is organizing this campaign of support for the Salisbury forced annexation attempt??

DO read the letter. This is not the first time I have seen a communiciation from the League where they are sounding an alarm over the rising opposition to forced annexation.
But take note of the League's new "catch phrase"; "The North Carolina Way is Better".

After you read the letter, get even by showing up at both of the Public Hearings the Study Committee has scheduled. You don't even have to speak to the committee. Just be there and help show the legislators that opposition to forced annexation is BIG in NC.
Show them that the citizens, not the cities, decide what "the NC Way" is.

June 4th is the NC League of Municipalities "Town Hall Day". This is the day that they bring hundreds of city officials to the State Legislators with BBQ lunches in hand to lobby them for more power to take more money from, and more control over, citizens who chose NOT to be a part of a city.

Every year for the last several years, SNCA has organized a counter rally on this same day.
Last year, with the Fair Annexation Coalition, the turnout was the biggest ever with at least one hundred people showing up.

This year, with the Annexation Study Committee making recommendations for changes to the law, it is the year that every single opponent of forced annexation needs to be in Raleigh. No, it is not convenient, being a weekday, and being a midday event, but if you really think the people should be given a voice and vote on annexation, then this is the year to make that sacrifice and be in Raleigh.

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.

City Lobbyist dictating to NC legislators!!

Here it is folks!

Ellis Hankins, Director of the taxpayer funded lobbying group for the NC Municipal governments telling the House Study Committee on Municipal Annexation what they WILL and will NOT allow or accept in changes to the NC forced annexation laws.

Before you watch this display of unhinged arrogance, do whatever you do to lower your blood pressure because it will go up.

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 Study Committee

Next Study Committee Meeting:

February 13th,

1:00 pm

Legislative Office Building

Room 643

Please try to attend.

Write or call your representative and the committee legislators about reforming annexation.

(See contact info below)

Thank you!

To All NC Citizens Interested in Annexation Reform

Although I have not yet received an official notice from the General Assembly about the meeting schedule of the House Municipal Annexation Study Committee, the first meeting has been scheduled and is posted to the General Assembly website: http://www.ncleg.net/

I encourage every citizen who has worked for and supported reform of the NC Annexation laws to attend this meeting if at all possible.

A large visible attendance will make a difference in the outcome.

The committee might also be open to allowing testimony from the public in attendance.

The Annexation Study Committee will be meeting next Wednesday morning.

When: January 30th 10:00 am

Where: Legislative
Office Building
Room 544
300 N. Salisbury St. 27603
Raleigh, NC (downtown)

919 733-9390

Directions to Legislative Buildings and parking: http://www.ncleg.net/help/directions.html

If you are unable to attend next Wednesday morning, please take the time to contact all of the legislators on the committee, and respectfully share with them what you would like to see come out of this study.

Email addresses are below.

Here is a link to find their complete contact information:

http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/Committees/Committees.asp?sAction=ViewCommittee&sActionDetails=House%20Select_98

House Select Committee on Municipal Annexation:

• Representative Bruce Goforth, Co-Chair Bruceg@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Paul Luebke, Co-Chair Paull@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Larry R. Brown Larrybr@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Nelson Dollar Nelsond@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Earl Jones Earlj@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Louis M. Pate, Jr. Louisp@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Edgar V. Starnes Edgars@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Fred F. Steen, II Fredst@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Russell E. Tucker Russellt@ncleg.net
  
• Representative Trudi Walend Trudiw@ncleg.net

It is important that everyone who can attend the Annexation Study Committee meeting be seated in Room 544 before the meeting gets underway at 10:00 am on January 30th. The NC League of Municipalities will surely have an organized effort to fill the room with their supporters and lobbyists.

The StopNCAnnexation website is completely dependent upon donations for out-of-pocket expenses. For example, web hosting service fees are $50 a month, in order to maintain our Internet presence. Time spent researching useful information, tracking the legislative efforts, staying on top of news reports about annexations across the State and posting all of this to the website are my unpaid contributions to this cause. Expenses beyond time spent on this effort depend entirely on your financial support. Without it, the website and all of the resources that the website has provided to the cause of reforming annexation will cease to be available through StopNCAnnexation.
http://www.stopncannexation.com/Searchfiles/Contribute.htm
donations@stopncannexation.com

Thanks to all who have given continued support to the effort to reform the annexation laws of North Carolina and for the support for everything that StopNCAnnexation has done on behalf of citizens to further the cause.

Sincerely,

Catherine Heath
http://www.stopncannexation.com

"[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them."
-- Candidus (in the Boston Gazette, 20 January 1772)

Annexation Study Committee is Officially Announced

Speaker of the House Rep. Joe Hackney officially announced the formation of the Annexation Study Committee on Friday.
Details of the Committee’s agenda and the members of the Committee were included in the announcement. You can view the Legislative document online at: http://www.stopncannexation.com/

Below is the list of appointed members:

• Representative Bruce Goforth, Co-Chair Bruceg@ncleg.net
• Representative Paul Luebke, Co-Chair Paull@ncleg.net
• Representative Larry R. Brown Larrybr@ncleg.net
• Representative Nelson Dollar Nelsond@ncleg.net
• Representative Earl Jones Earlj@ncleg.net
• Representative Louis M. Pate, Jr. Louisp@ncleg.net
• Representative Edgar V. Starnes Edgars@ncleg.net
• Representative Fred F. Steen, II Fredst@ncleg.net
• Representative Russell E. Tucker Russellt@ncleg.net
• Representative Trudi Walend Trudiw@ncleg.net
  
• Mr. Douglas Aitken, Moore County
• Ms. Judith Welch Wegner, Orange County

Seven of the Commission Legislators sponsored at least one annexation reform Bill. (names in bold) Many of them put their name on several of the twenty-four Bills written to reform forced annexation in various ways, which were introduced last session.

This is an encouraging departure from the numerous past studies of annexation that appointed few reform Legislators to the past committees.

These Legislators are carrying forward the thankless and mostly fruitless hard work of past Legislators who have tried to reform the annexation laws against heavy odds since the laws were enacted 28 years ago.

Two non-legislators were appointed to the committee; one being Mr. Doug Aitken of the Moore County StTOP group, representing his gated community of Pinewild, and who is also President of this same group’s fledgling Statewide Coalition effort, FAC. The Fair Annexation Coalition has lobbied hard since their inception in early 2007 to steer the legislative efforts toward another study. Looks like they’ve succeeded handily.

The second non-legislator on the committee is Professor Judith Wegner, the Burton Craige Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina, School of Law, the school’s former dean, and a former president of the Association of American Law Schools. She teaches State Local Government Law at UNC, Chapel Hill. Ms.Wegner also put her name on a “friend of the court brief” filed on behalf of the City of New London in the infamous Supreme Court case; Kelo vs. New London, CT.
(Big gun for the cities perhaps?)

It will be interesting to see what does come out of this additional study of NC Annexation Law.
SNCA continues to have concerns, to say the least, about whether another study would achieve anything different than what has resulted from the numerous past studies undertaken.
If history is repeated in this current study, the results could be some minor tweaking of the laws for the affected property owners that wouldn’t amount to much change.

In these studies, the cities have ended up with expansions of their annexation power as a result of concessions they lobby for in the committee meetings.
Your tax dollars at work folks.
(see the Resources Page of http://www.stopncannexation.com/ for the minutes of past studies)

Given the makeup of this new Study Committee, it should be interesting to follow and has the potential produce some surprises.

We will know come May 2008,…..but everyone needs to realize that to those who support true comprehensive reform that restores TO ALL of the people in NC, their right of consent to additional taxes and another layer of government, this study committee that we find ourselves with is going to require active ongoing input and participation.

The facts are this; once this Committee makes its final decision and recommends any changes, the General Assembly will be less open to considering any further needed changes for quite some time. If our game plan was to work on lobbying for incremental changes every legislative session, then another study commission is a major obstacle to that approach.

In order to persuade this committee to reform the law in 2008 in a way that would be acceptable to every affected citizen across NC it is CRITICAL that the many supporters of reform play a part by writing to legislators, attend the meetings at every opportunity, and be ready to present your case against forced annexation to the committee when you are given that chance.

This Committee needs to see the numbers of people who oppose forced annexation and hear their voice about what needs to change!

The broad based support of the goals of StopNCAnnexation over the last several years, from your coming to Raleigh for the annual ‘SNCA Rally in Raleigh’, to your timely responses to SNCA’s email update requests for letters and calls to legislators has made the real difference. Your grassroots activism has achieved the original goal of encouraging and motivating many more legislators to take a principled stand against the special interest lobbyists of the NC League of Municipalities. Every year for the last several years the number of introduced Bills has multiplied exponentially. Your years of committed activism has brought us this far. No one would like to see the momentum that has been built over time squandered by a study that achieves nothing comprehensive and substantial. It’s time to “raise the roof”!

We cannot let this study end up derailing the momentum for real democratic reform.
NO MORE “tweaks”!
NO MORE “givebacks” to the cities! They have lobbied for too much power already.
Restore to the people their pre-1959 right to have a say in the decision to be annexed.

I encourage you to stay informed about the Committee meetings and follow their progress closely. If you can in any way manage to attend any of these meetings, it would be a very important and useful thing to do if you care about changing forced annexation. There will be committee meetings held in various places across the State to give more people the ability to attend.
We all do need to take advantage of the opportunities when the meeting is anywhere closer to where you live. Numbers in the audience matters.

In order to keep you informed, I will be attending all of the meetings unless something unavoidable makes it impossible. the SNCA email list and website blog will be updated with a report on what the committee discussed at each meeting.

If you know someone who might not be on the SNCA list who has an interest in the outcome of this study committee, please encourage them to go to the website to sign up for the updates or email me with the request to subscribe.

This would be a good time to write to these Legislators and Speaker Hackney Joeh@ncleg.net to thank them for the time and effort that they will be putting into a thorough examination of the practice of forced annexation in North Carolina. Let them know that there are many citizens watching what they do with careful interest and are expecting them to listen to the folks on the top of the State’s organizational chart, _ the citizens and voters of NC.

Also a word of thanks to Rep. C. Thomas Charlest@ncleg.net for his hard work as a freshman legislator in support of reform.

In order to gather a show of widespread grassroots support for reform of annexation that SNCA can take to the Annexation Study Commission, SNCA will be adding to the website a place where you can sign up as a ‘Supporter of Reform’. Please encourage others to add their name to this database as a show of grassroots support for more than just a few more tweaks to the law.

And please consider sending any size contribution toward the efforts of SNCA in order to help make it possible to travel to the various locations where the meetings might be held. Your help to keep the StopNCAnnexation website resources online and available to annexation victims and supporters of reform across North Carolina will be appreciated by SNCA and those whom it has helped.

The StopNCAnnexation website continues to be #1 on website searches for “annexation, NC”. The site is accessed by around 100 individuals a day who spend time looking for information.

You help to make this possible by financially supporting the expense of making these resources available.

Thank you,

Cathy Heath
Organizer, Chair, researcher, and webmaster
StopNCAnnexation
http://www.stopncannexation.com/