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Subject:
Beliefs and Principles of StopNCAnnexation:
Recent events have led me to post a memo here about part of our vision here at
StopNCAnnexation of changing the North Carolina Annexations laws:
Over the years, I have always
noticed that when an area around the state comes under annexation attack from a
municipality, and that once the local victim group (the ones being annexed) gets
organized, they tend to want to hire legal representation for themselves. It
is a natural tendency to want legal help, because most of us admittedly do not
understand the state statues, (North Carolina State Annexation Law) and what it
all means.
I am not here to advocate or
discourage the hiring of legal help, but I do feel the need to make several
points.
Since 1959, no legal challenge has
been able to find the overall structure of the North Carolina State Statutes on
annexation illegal or un-constitutional
Most legal challenges end with the
area in question being annexed. While a legal challenge sometimes “buys time”
meaning delays the annexation for several months to several years, the
overwhelming result is that the annexation law is upheld in the court system of
North Carolina and the municipality usually wins it case and gets to annex in
the end.
Many local groups understand that if
they can delay the annexation for a few years, they also understand that they
can support legal services to fight the annexation with the money they would
have had to pay in taxes. This of course means IF they would have been
immediately annexed. As an example, if a property owners taxes would raise
$1,500.00 when being annexed, spending $1,000.00 on legal services is still a
savings of $500.00. Unfortunately and in the end, the municipality normally
wins and then the full taxation begins. My point here is that the $1,000.00
investment in legal services, which is buying time, still does not bring about a
change in the North Carolina State Annexation laws.
Local groups need to understand that
in order to change the law, an investment must be made in efforts to change the
North Carolina State Statutes. StopNCAnnexation is a statewide organization
that is making such an effort.
The moral of this memo is
that in order to make true changes in the North Carolina Annexation laws, local
groups need to support StopNCAnnexation’s effort to change the law. The word
support means both monetary contributions and volunteering time to add your
grass roots citizens support to statewide lobbying efforts to convince North
Carolina elected representatives about the need to change the law.
This is the only way we
understand that we can truly change the law for the protection of the property
owner. Please help us by contributing your time and money to change the unfair,
forced involuntary annexations laws of the State of North Carolina. Thank you!
As Always,
Ron Thoreson
Chairman, StopNCAnnexation
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StopNCAnnexation