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Published on Thursday, March 20, 2008
The League of Municipalities, which was created by well-intentioned North Carolinians who hoped it might assist lawmakers in writing sound legislation to improve citizens’ lives, is now advocating forced annexation. This insidious practice allows one municipality to annex an adjoining community against its citizens’ will.
At the time of its formation, the league, it was reasoned, could objectively research important issues and keep legislators well-informed. It seemed like a good concept. But like so many well-intended ideas, the league is no longer an unbiased advisory group, but a bureaucracy, which often pushes its own legislative agenda while it is generously funded by local governments. The Law of Unintended Consequences, which stipulates that “outcomes are not limited to what the actor intended in a particular situation,” has been at work. An Ohio newspaper printed this example of the phenomenon in 1841: “I never had a slice of bread, particularly large and wide, that did not fall upon the floor and always on the buttered side.”
The league represents both voluntary and involuntary annexation as a “progressive act” which has helped North Carolina to grow and prosper. When annexation was adopted 49 years ago, there was a need to carefully control the development of soon-to-expand cities and large towns. Annexation was supposed to allow cities to absorb neighboring communities, providing important services in so doing. But experts now estimate that well over 1 million Tar Heels have been annexed, and many to their financial detriment. Those seized contend the process is undemocratic and a denial of basic American liberties, and a good example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Involuntary, or “forced,” annexation may soon negatively impact the residents of Gates Four, a private gated community of more than 600 homes, that’s been aggressively pursued by Fayetteville, and Pinewild, a private, gated community of 724 homes, now threatened by neighboring Pinehurst. Both Gates Four and Pinewild contend that they won’t benefit from forced annexation because they already have in place excellent county police services, security from entrance guards, good trash removal from private collectors and excellent fire protection, road maintenance, sewers and water.
Gates Four residents may be gobbled up when a truce agreement with Fayetteville expires this June. Pinewild is opposing annexation in state and federal courts.
Usually, when forced annexations have been opposed in the state courts, the petitioners have lost. But in 2006, opponents of such an annexation received an encouraging ruling when the state Supreme Court rejected annexation by the municipality of Marvin of property owned by the Nolan family and neighbors. In that landmark case, the court ruled that Marvin could not annex and then take tax dollars from the Nolans because Marvin was not providing valuable services in exchange for taxes levied. Appellate Judge John Marsh Tyson stated in a strong minority opinion that the annexation was raw “taxation without representation.” The Supreme Court agreed with Judge Tyson’s thinking when it ruled in favor of the Nolans.
Pinewild’s lawyers argue that Pinehurst is offering Pinewild little it does not already have in the way of public services. Both Gates Four and Pinewild are unique annexation cases because both communities are private. Up until now, no private communities have challenged involuntary annexation, thus there’s no legal precedent in such cases. Nationally, there are 200,000 gated communities with more than 8 million residents, most of whom share the values of Pinewild and Gate Four citizens when it comes to liberty, privacy and property rights.
Pinewild is also in federal court challenging forced annexation on grounds of constitutional law, citing the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which holds “... nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Pinewild’s prominent constitutional lawyers, Gene and Dan Boyce and Phillip Isley, contend that the privately owned properties and roads about to be seized by Pinehurst cannot be taken without owners being compensated. The estimated diminished value of Pinewild property to be seized is $54 million.
Teddy Roosevelt moved heaven and earth to annex former Colombian land for the Panama Canal. Jimmy Carter chose to give it back to the people of Panama. When it was debated in the Senate, semanticist and California Sen. S.I Hayakawa argued, “We should keep it, after all we stole it fair and square.”
That’s also the rationale of Fayetteville and Pinehurst officials for annexing neighboring private communities. They contend forced annexations are, after all, only “fair and square” takings.
The courts, however, may see forced annexations Hayakawa’s way and deem them nothing less than grand larcenies.