What the NCLM is up to lately:

First of all, the NCLM has created a program to encourage municipal officials to quickly counter the efforts of citizen groups opposed to legislation that the city lobbyists are supporting or defending. This effort has been named; “LINC”; or “Legislative Information Network of Communities”.

This appears to be a direct response to the impressive and affective communication that citizens across NC have been directing at the Legislators demanding "no more forced annexations" and no new taxes.
You can view the details of this NCLM program here: http://www.nclm.org/leaguelinc.htm

The “QuickConnect” ‘rapid response team’ that the NCLM is recruiting will require citizens to fight back harder against The League's "astroturf" effort: http://www.nclm.org/quickconnect.htm
 
You can view this as proof that your efforts have been effective, but realize that this is also a challenge to every individual to keep communicating with legislators and recruit others to do the same.
The latest NCLM Bulletin has announced the formation of an “NCLM Annexation Experts Team”. The NCLM has declared war!
The input against this from thousands of citizens matters!
________________________________________
The NCLM has always put protection of forced annexation as a priority legislative issue.
See the NCLM Legislative “Advocacy Agenda 2009-10”
http://www.nclm.org/Legal-legislative/documents/advocacyplan1-5-10.pdf

#1 on the list after their commitment to their general ‘core principles’, (which always includes protecting forced annexation), is their commitment to protecting the power to use forced annexation:

“Annexation for Fair, Managed Growth:
The League continues to support careful change to the long-standing municipal annexation laws in a way that provides for fair and equitable consideration of all citizens’ needs and concerns and allows cities and towns to grow in an orderly manner.”

A read between the lines in this statement indicates that the NCLM is still supporting House Bill 524 and is still actively working to make H524 the ONLY bill that the Legislature considers so the League can shepherd this very bad legislation to passage.  They know if H524 passes into law, that will be all the change the citizens will get for many years to come, and the well funded machine of the League will begin immediately to soften any changes made to favor the cities more once again.
Don’t let anyone tell you we have to accept H524 or nothing. Not true!
Learn more about the NCLM agenda here:
http://www.nclm.org/Legal-legislative/newlegal.htm
________________________________________

The NCLM is always working hard to grow a base of loyalty to their agenda of power. Among those efforts is the Foundation they’ve set up to collect donations to be distributed to local government projects and give local officials a financial incentive to be loyal: http://www.nclm-foundation.org/projects.htm 

Through this foundation the NCLM is financing ammunition to use in future conversations about increasing the State financial handouts to the cities and most likely to argue FOR the continuation of forced annexation. This is what I see them doing here in funding a “study” to prove that cities are the center of the universe:

“Currently underway is a research project, ‘Economic Role of N.C. Cities and Towns’ funded by the Foundation to document the direct and indirect economic impact of municipalities on North Carolina's economy. The results of this research will be an aid as cities and towns seek to strengthen their local economies and enhance the future for all municipal citizens.”

The NCLM is also using this Foundation to continue to tie themselves, the NCACC, and the School of Government together in lock step to achieve a common agenda that resists any efforts by citizens to “throw the bums out” when the taxing and spending keeps spiraling out of control on less than necessary pet projects and the ‘visions’ of grandeur that cities seem determined to pursue against the likelihood of success.

“The UNC School Government, NC Association of County Commissioners and the NC League of Municipalities have partnered together to create an educational program- Local Elected Leaders Academy (LELA).”

http://www.nclm-foundation.org/projects.htm
________________________________________

One final word to the wise citizen advocate:

The NCLM has plans in place to hold a series of “Regional Legislative Meetings” all over the State of NC in small and large cities alike:
http://www.nclm.org/2010legislativemeetings.htm

The stated goal of these regional meetings is to prepare city officials for the legislative session ahead and to promote participation in the NCLM “grassroots” network; the “LINC” program previously explained above.

“The meetings will be an essential step in getting ready for the session and an opportunity to learn about League LINC – Legislative Information Network of Communities. League LINC is our grassroots network established for and powered by city and town municipal officials, leaders and professionals.”

I hope you see that it is important for the citizens of North Carolina who are fighting to protect the property rights of all North Carolinians to stand strong against the efforts of the NCLM to erode any protections we do have and their efforts to stop any attempts to strengthen property rights in NC.

We need to be very concerned about both of these issues making progress in favor of the citizens when we have legislators who are not shy about publicly stating which side of these issues they are on.
During the meetings of the Legislative Committee to Study Eminent Domain, Rep Lucy Allen, who was on the committee, made an impassioned plea to the committee to “First, do no harm!”
But Rep Allen was not expressing her concern for the citizens and businesses being protected against the power of the State using this “despotic power”. Lucy was crying out in a plea to protect the government’s ability to continue to use eminent domain as it sees fit. Allen seemed quite proud of herself about securing the approving nods of the NCLM official who was observing the meeting.

Rep. Allen is not the only legislator that we are up against in the General Assembly who feels this way or who feels more loyalty to the NCLM than to the individual constituents they are supposed to be representing.

This is why it is so very important that individual citizens stand up and push back to stop the violations of our property rights that we see year after year with forced annexation and with the overreaching use of eminent domain. And push our County Commissioners to stand up for EVERYONE they represent.

StopNCAnnexation is holding the Annexation Law & Reform 2010 Conference to help the citizens who want good annexation reform get ready for the upcoming legislative session. Our opposition is preparing.
We need to prepare as well!
Registrations for the conference started coming in right away, but there is still room for many more.
I hope those of you who were considering attending will make that commitment and register soon.
http://www.stopncannexation.com/SNCA_conference.htm

I hope to see you there,

Catherine A. Heath
Director,
StopNCAnnexation Coalition

Position Statememt on Annexation Reform from the Grassroots

January 18, 2010                               DRAFT LETTER

Dear Senator,

North Carolina has one of the most extreme annexation laws in the country.  On behalf of North Carolina FreedomWorks and the # undersigned organizations, we urge you to fix this extreme law by supporting meaningful annexation reform in the upcoming short session.

The Senate can do what the House failed to do last year, and that is to pass a meaningful annexation reform bill.  The House-enacted bill, HB 524, “Annexation – Omnibus Changes,” addressed none of the reforms we sought, and even made matters worse than the status quo. 

For example, under existing law, municipalities are required to provide services that give annexed property owners a significant or meaningful benefit.  Municipalities often ignore this requirement by trying to get away with duplicating services or providing unnecessary services.  There is nothing meaningful or significant about providing unnecessary services.

Last year, we asked for a simple reform that would prohibit municipalities from meeting their legal obligations by duplicating existing services or providing unnecessary services.  Instead of doing this, HB 524 does the exact opposite.  The bill would clearly allow municipalities to forcibly annex property owners by duplicating services or providing unnecessary services.

At least under the existing statute, the North Carolina Supreme Court would have a chance to put an end to these games played by municipalities in regards to meaningful services.  HB 524, however, would take away that opportunity by legalizing these games.

Supporters say that HB524 is “a step in the right direction”.  While the bill includes some changes, the changes hardly constitute real reform or compromise.  For example, bill proponents tout its prohibition on shoestring annexation, but these types of annexations already are illegal according to the North Carolina Supreme Court in Hughes v. Town of Oak Island (The Court affirmed an Appeals court decision finding shoestring annexations to be illegal).  The legislature has tweaked the annexation law in the past and all it has done is lead to more opposition to the annexation law and more annexation abuse. 

We are extremely concerned about HB524 and the future of annexation reform.  The passage of meaningless reform will likely mean many years before we have a chance at meaningful reform.

In addition to requiring truly meaningful services, real annexation reform would include:

• County Approval of Forced Annexations:  The county commissions should review and vote on forced annexations.  They represent both the municipalities and the annexation victims.  They also know the needs of the overall community and would provide annexation victims a voice.  Regarding a voice, municipalities oppose a vote and the citizens want a vote.  It is hard to imagine a more perfect compromise than having a representative voice through the county commissions.

• Vote: A simple majority vote of the annexed property owners should be required.

• Financial Obligation of Water and Sewer Infrastructure:  Forcing annexed property owners to pay for the infrastructure necessary for services they never even wanted or needed may be one of the most egregious and devastating aspects of the annexation law.  Costs imposed on property owners can exceed $20,000—for many property owners, these costs may be the difference between keeping their homes and losing them.

• Municipalities initiate the annexations and therefore should be financially responsible for water and sewer infrastructure.  Citizens should pay for reasonable tap fees only if they choose to connect to the system.

There is an excellent bill in the Senate, SB 494, which addresses many of these reforms.  We ask that you work off of SB 494 in developing annexation reform.

Finally, we understand that there is a need for compromise.  The perfect is not the enemy of the good.  We are willing to work with you to craft legislation that will provide real reform yet take into account the legitimate concerns of municipalities. 

Thank you for your service to the citizens of our state.

Sincerely,

Allen Page

State Director

North Carolina FreedomWorks

a.page@mindspring.com

Kathy Hartkopf

Legislative Liaison

North Carolina FreedomWorks

khartkopf@earthlink.net

John Locke Foundation

Stop NC Annexation Coalition

Letter from the Annexation Reform Grassroots:

From: Walt Wilson
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 8:30 AM
To: cmheath@mindspring.com
Subject: Cutting My ties


If this is redundant, I am sorry, but I was not sure I sent it to you. I have sent it to a huge number of Newspapers across the state

Walt

To All in the Struggle Against Annexation;

After long and arduous thought, I have reached a decision that I plan to act on early next week. All my life I have been a registered Democrat, as my father was, as his father was, and so on. But, after seeing this unthinkable abuse of power by the Democratic Legislators this week as they took up the provisions of amending the outdated and one sided Annexation Laws, I must regrettably change party affiliation. The actions of these elected officials, some from our own district, was deplorable at best and insulting to the people who spent time, money and effort to try and make their wishes known to the House Members. I am ashamed to be associated with the party that harbors people of no moral compass. A difference of opinion is one thing, raping the innocent citizens of our state and stripping them of any rights in this matter falls under something else all together. How can these elected officials completely ignore the people who placed them in office? Have they no conscience left? You would think that they were on live TV, the way they performed like trained monkeys for the League of Municipalities. Their own feigned ignorance of the provisions of the bill under discussion were pitiful. If their actions were designed to fool someone, it failed miserably.

All I can say is I hope that the League has some open positions for these rouge representatives. Come election time they will need some form of employment, and it will not be in the same position they hold now. They may think we are all ignorant and willing to follow their every wish but that will soon enough be shown as a mistake on their part. Just so I don't miss the chance to say so later, goodbye Hugh Holliman, goodbye Stan Bingham. I want you both to know how much we appreciate the fact that you refused to come to the aid of the folks in Davidson County when they needed you most. Especially you Hugh Holliman. I have never been lied to with such grace. You must have a lot of practice at it, you did not flinch once while I spoke to you face to face.

The time for being nice and friendly is long gone now as the true colors of our elected representatives comes to light. It is quite apparent that unless you represent big money in some manner, you don't deserve to be acknowledged by the elected. Now I see where the city officials in Lexington were trained. That's ok. I was down and out for the day, but the sun will rise tomorrow and a new campaign will begin with greater motivation, the campaign to remove those useless officials from the State Congress and local City as well. We may not get what we need from you that sit in power today, but that can change also. We have linked, hand in hand with thousands of other like minded individuals across our state. We now have strength in numbers, and we will not let these insulting and corrupt actions go unanswered at the polls. We may even introduce legislation to dismember the League, that pit of vipers has existed far too long now. I send this out to all that care and several more that should care. We asked, we begged, we pleaded, we got nothing. Now the time has come to repay the kindness shown us.

Walt Wilson
Lexington, NC 27295

Annexation Issue In the News Today

Interesting events today that draw attention to the annexation reform debate:

GOP lawmakers discuss property rights issues, death penalty, Democrats' 'incompetence'

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 10:34 AM

Republican legislative leaders used their regular weekly news conference to cover topics ranging from high-profile property rights legislation (annexation, eminent domain) to the death penalty to evidence of Democratic "incompetence."

Click play below to view the 25:46 briefing from House Minority Leader Paul Stam, R-Wake, Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and Reps. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, Efton Sager, R-Wayne, Pat Hurley, R-Randolph, Curtis Blackwood, R-Union, and Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth.

http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=20902

Phil Berger spoke the most intelligently about the annexation issue.

Efton Sager was also excellent in his call for County oversight.

Blackwood did a good job highlighting some of the issues with meaningful services.

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

John Hood’s article today:

Patterns of Force
By John Hood

July 14, 2009

RALEIGH – Advocates of reforming North Carolina’s extreme annexation laws have long argued that citizens ought to have the right to vote on proposed annexations, as do most other Americans.

So when state lawmakers inserted a referendum provision into House Bill 524, the 2009 annexation legislation, they evidently expected that reformers would praise their decision. Instead, reform groups such as FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity-NC, the Fair Annexation Coalition, and the Stop NC Annexation Coalition have responded to the provision with skepticism if not outright scorn. Now, with the NC League of Municipalities hollering about the presence of any referendum provision and reformers cool to the sham referendum in the bill, there seems to be legislative support for simply excising it.

Read more here: http://www.carolinajournal.com/jhdailyjournal/index.html

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

Post on the Locker Room Blog
by Daren Bakst

I Spoke too Soon about the GOP and Property Rights
http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=20909


Talking About Annexation on "Talking About Politics"

AND

Daren Bakst and myself will be on the Lockwood Phillips ‘Viewpoints’ Radio show at 6:15
http://www.wtkf107.com/viewpointsradio.html

New information posted to the StopNCAnnexation website about forced annexations by Woodfin and St. James.

Enjoy!
Catherine Heath
StopNCAnnexation Coalition

Annexation Legislation Disaster

Well, there's nothing good that can be said about what happened today in the House Judiciary II meeting and the substitute annexation reform bill they unanimously voted for in the end.

I wish there were good things to say. And I wish they would have proven me wrong about how this latest look at annexation reform has turned out so far. But it is turning out just as I predicted when the Legislature embarked on yet another "study" of the annexation laws.

Daren Bakst at John Locke was listening to the meeting and he posted his thoughts about the meeting to the Locker Room Blog. I couldn't describe the meeting better than he did, so here the link:
http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=20628

This newsletter I sent out nearly two years ago, when the Study Committee was formed at the end of the 2007 Session of the General Assembly, seemed appropriate for re-publishing right now:

----- Original Message -----
From: Cathy Heath
To: cathy@stopncannexation.com
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 7:07 PM
Subject: Fw: Annexation Study Status

StopNCAnnexation

SNCA Update & Action Alert

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. (underlined) 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 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, you’re 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! The 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 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 show of grassroots support for more than just a few more tweaks to the law.

And please consider sending a contribution to support the efforts of SNCA in order to help make it possible to travel to the various locations where the meetings might be held, and to keep the StopNCAnnexation website resources online and available to annexation victims and supporters of reform across North Carolina.

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

ETJ, Annexation, & Municiperialism

ACIR = Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations; (A Federal level committee).

ETJ = extra territorial jurisdiction; (land outside the city limits that the city planners regulate by ordinances that the landowners being affected had no voice or vote to agree with them)

Municiperialism = (An assumption that city government should have priority in regulating and controlling land use and behavior of area landowners and citizens with or without their consent).

In order to understand the debate about land use planning just outside of city limits and who controls it, one has to look further up the chain of discussion about local government and land use planning.

There has been an ongoing debate raging for decades about metropolitan area governance and whether it is better to consolidate governance by transferring control to the existing cities or to encourage city/county consolidation or to allow the public choice option of having a metropolitan area fragmented into many small municipalities with tiers of regional authorities managing and providing infrastructure like transportation and water and sewer. The debate rages on with no real consensus. This has always been an issue that the ACIR includes in the reports that they put out. The ACIR was formed for the purpose of trying to resolve the roles and responsibilities of the Federal, State, and local governments and how they interact with each other. The existing cities would love to be given all the power and revenue.

What ever happened to local control and public choice about which of these governmental entities is ultimately regulating what the individual can do with his property? The growing intervention by the Federal government into local land use planning is very troubling to me. And the role of municipal corporations has been transformed to where far too much authority has been transferred to them for no good reason. WHY should a governmental entity that began as a voluntary association of property owners be given the authority to dictate land use outside of their corporate limits? Because the city said so? Who ordained the cities as the highest and the best choice for local government?

Where did the idea that cities have some moral authority to become a mandatory level of government, instead of voluntary, come from? The cities are getting away with this because WE let them and we buy into the idea that all land use must be predetermined by some higher authority. The city lobbyists have successfully elevated the cities above their proper place in the Counties in the minds of the State, if not as much in the Federal government. They are doing this by selling confusion and fear to our lawmakers using lies at worst and smoke and mirrors at best. What makes them so darn special that they should be allowed to do this?

The Counties have always been the local government entity tasked with the responsibility of administering the laws and services of the State of NC. The city lobbyists want to shove the County government into the back seat and impose themselves on landowners against their will.
Why should we accept this?

If the County enforces the building code, polices health, sanitation and safety, why do property owners have to be regulated by land use plans drawn up by a small group of bureaucrats who think they know best? Are individuals incapable of deciding the best use of their own land? Are entrepreneurs incapable of responding to market demands and providing services and amenities that others will want to buy?
Changing the annexation law is enough of an issue to work on by itself and we can do that without wading into the issue of making recommendations about who should zone and regulate landowners. There are Counties in this State that are full of property owners who feel no need to have their property regulated by zoning and land use ordinances and they actively oppose it. Do we want to lose the support of this large group of people who make up the base of support for putting an end to forced annexation?

I don’t. And I don’t see any compelling reason that the annexation reform movement should start making recommendations about who should be in charge of land use planning.

More Annexation Reform Bills

We have three new Bills filed in the House aimed at reforming the annexation laws. All are good, but one is especially important for the citizens looking for real reform.

House Bill 645 was filed yesterday by Rep.'s Dollar, Steen, Goforth and Brown. The list of Representatives adding their names as Co-sponsors is growing quickly. Yesterday the list included Blackwood and now has grown to include Blust, Cleveland, McComas, Starnes & Stewart.

This Bill has been referred to Rules so we need to push hard to get it moving out of that Committee. It will go to Judiciary II which is Chaired by Dan Blue.


Fire up those keyboards and phone lines and encourage YOUR Representative to endorse this Bill in the House. While you are at it, contact your Senator too, and ask them to support Senate Bill 494 submitted by Senator Larry Shaw of the Cumberland County area.

These Legislators cannot be thanked enough for submitting these Bills and signing on in support. These two Bills are the ones that actually address the three key points for reform that we are looking for:

1. Meaningful oversight _ by the County Commissioners who are directly elected by ALL the citizens affected by municipal annexation, city and county.
2. Meaningful services _ services that do not duplicate or replace existing adequate services, public or private. Water and sewer all the way to the curb automatic if need can be proven. Cities have to be the actual provider.
3. Meaningful voice and recourse _ the County would be given the authority to call for a vote of the people affected if objections are raised. If an annexation is approved but ALL urban services are not in place at the end of three years, the annexation area can petition for de-annexation.

Rep. Larry Brown filed two Bills that also address the way cities qualify and provide services.Thanks again Representative Brown!

Will it be easy to get these Bills through both the House and the Senate?
Not likely, so get ready and make a commitment to speak up loudly to all of the Legislators about passing these Bills.

And mark your calendar for the Rally for Reform in Raleigh at the Halifax Mall between the Legislative Buildings downtown. May 6th from 10 to 4.

Groups from all over the State will be gathering at the Halifax Mall with time to walk the halls of the General Assembly and talk to Legislators or drop by their offices with messages about the Bills we want to see enacted into law.

There will also be speakers in the afternoon, a chance to meet and talk with people from all over the State who share this goal of changing the annexation laws.

Last, but certainly not least, is the clear message that we need to send to Legislators and especially the North Carolina League of Municipalities.

The "League" will be in town the same day for their yearly Town Hall Day bringing hundreds of municipal officials for the purpose of promoting the agenda of the Municipal League.
On the annexation issue you can be sure that the "League" will not be representing us even as they are using tax dollars to lobby against us.

Help make this Rally the success that it needs to be in this critical year for annexation reform. Help fill the halls and cover the Halifax Mall with a blanket of red attire by attending. This year we need to break all records for attendance so there is no mistaking the level of support across NC for an end to the abusive practice of forced annexation.

Go to the StopNCAnnexation website for details on the Bills to change annexation law and to find details about the May 6th Rally for Reform;

http://www.stopncannexation.com/