GNU Wayne Co. Report

	Reports From Bill Burnette - Good Neighbors United, Wayne Co.
	The City of Goldsboro has won the latest round but that still makes the score 3 to 1 in our favor. Previously we won the first round plus we defeated two attempts by the City of Goldsboro to have our case dismissed. Although we were not sure which way the decision would go, we expected a favorable ruling for the City and we prepared our legal war chest to continue the fight. At this time we are reviewing the Order and Judgment to determine our next step. Before continuing let me correct one very major error in the article you just read. The article taken form the Goldsboro News Argus refers to "the 29% of property owners who requested sewer service". The truth is only 29 residents (7.8%) of property owners responded yes to a petition letter sent out by the city asking if the residents wanted sewer when the lines were installed. None of the responders requested sewer. The City letter requested a "yes" or "no" answer to hooking on to sewer at time of installation and in no way asked if sewer was needed. This is important because, of the services Goldsboro has to offer, sewer is the only one the current residents do not have and at no time did anyone say they needed sewer. We felt our case was a prime example of how municipalities are abusing the Involuntary Annexation Statutes especially the Legislative Policy that underwrites those Statutes. Our case involved: "cherry picking" land parcels to meet Statute guidelines; back filling a voluntary annexation to make the City border contiguous to the area to be annexed (the land owner of the voluntary annexation is a developer and was a member of the City Planning Commission when annexation plans were set into motion); omitting selected residential properties in the same neighborhoods; "leap frogging" City annexation priorities to the selected area to specifically prevent the area from incorporating; re appropriating municipal sewer bonds to finance the annexation (apparently this is legal but the bonds are not being used for their original intent); and, since the population of the area to be annexed is predominately white, one councilman put in writing that the annexation would keep the racial make up of Goldsboro in check. You are probably thinking how could this happen in our country and especially North Carolina. However, if you support current annexation statutes you are probably thinking there was nothing wrong with what the City of Goldsboro did since the Statutes do not specify how the municipalities are to meet the criteria of an involuntary annexation. For those who think this cannot be happening in our state you had better believe it is happening and it is happening more and more. The problem is embedded in the Statutes as currently written. The "how" rules were left out over 50 years ago when the basic criteria of the Statutes were written. I'm sure the Legislators at that time never expected municipalities would maneuver, as Goldsboro did, to forcibly annex citizens against their will. Those Legislators must have thought that municipalities' would adhere to the principles of sound urban development, meaningful and necessary services, annex fringe areas, and recognize the rights of the property owners as stated in the late 1950's report that led to current legislation for the conduct of an involuntary annexation. Unfortunately the elitist system of local government that we the citizens have to endure only focuses on "filling the squares" of the Statutes because doing so provides an "out card" for their actions. Likewise, the courts take the same approach. It's easy to make a ruling when the judge only has to ask himself "did the city fill that square". The Marvin/Nolan case at the Superior and Appellate Court levels is a prime example of this decision philosophy. It took a ruling by the NC Supreme Court to turn the lower court decisions around and in so doing, reestablish sanity to the process. We intend to rely on the higher courts to do the same for us. I suppose the saying "there is wisdom in many voices" is applicable in a different way. When the "bench" is occupied by a body of legal experts the opportunity for jurisprudence to incorporate the collective wisdom of that body is better served. Bill Burnette Good Neighbors United Wayne County, NC The truth about the Goldsboro Forced Annexation: Our second trial against the City of Goldsboro (GSB) concluded Thursday, 16 March. My plan was to keep our site readers informed about the trial by linking to the Goldsboro News Argus web site. However, the coverage by the Argus has been so incomplete that I felt linking to the Newspaper would be of little value or send the wrong signal as to what really happened. Here is what I feel are the findings, highlights, and shockers of the trial, First of all testimonial evidence showed that the City of GSB actually drew the boundaries of the annexation area before the City boundary was contiguous to the targeted area; the City border at that time was at least two miles from the border of the annexation area. Mapping the area occurred almost two years (2000-2001) before the voluntary annexation in June 20032 of 360 acres of land predominately owned by a member of the City Planning Commission. This voluntary annexation solved the contiguity problem. Circumstantial and testimonial evidence showed the City accelerated our annexation to "preempt" an initiative to incorporate the Town of Northbrook. The Northbrook initiative took flight in the 2000 time frame and would have included our area so the City needed to move "fast" to keep the "good tax base" we provided from getting away. Preempt, faster, and good tax base are in italics because they are quotes from the Allen letter linked to this page. The Allen letter and Councilman Allen's testimony on the last day of the trial was the shocker of the week. However, not one word from his letter or his testimony was published in the local Newspaper. News 14 and this web site are the only forums to do so. You can read the letter in its entirety and draw your own conclusions but let me paraphrase and quote from what he said to a Member of the NC House of Representatives. First of all he scolded her for sponsoring the Northbrook initiative since the City had plans for the same area. Evidently Allen was not aware that MS Russell had conferred with the Mayor of Goldsboro prior to her sponsorship and the Mayor assured her the City had no annexation plans for that area. Secondly, Allen told her "if we want to annex this area we have to do it now and fast in order to preempt what you are doing". Clearly the City started their annexation efforts to stop the Statutory Right of NC Citizens to incorporate an area if they so desire. Utilizing the Involuntary Annexation Statutes of the this State to preempt the statutory rights of citizens is not what the Legislature has said is the Policy of the Law. Thirdly, Allen said "A City that doesn't grow dies and because of the white flight in the schools, floods and various reasons, Goldsboro (the city) is not growing, especially our young white families and according to the census , we might even be losing people. Thus the annexation of this area would not only add a good tax base to Goldsboro, it would also help us keep our racial make up in check, which in my opinion is very important to our future". I will let you catch your breath before I go on. After listening to Allen read those lines in the Courtroom you could have heard a pin drop. Finally, in one document, we proved the annexation of our area was never about sound urban development or providing meaningfully and necessary services because our area is already developed and there are no services the City offers that we do not already have or we have an alternate method of providing the same service; septic versus sewer for example. No, the annexation of our area was to stop the Northbrook initiative to keep the City from losing the good tax base and, most shockingly, to control the racial demographics of the City's population. If all of those reasons are not in violation of the Legislative Policy that underwrites the Involuntary Annexation Statutes, I do not know what is. It's also important to note that copies of Allen's letter were sent to two other State House Members and one State Senator, to all the other members of the City Council, and to the Mayor. Ms Russell testified that none of these individuals contacted her to disclaim the content of the letter. Our fate is in the hands of Judge Rand and according to the time line he set for receipt of supplementary inputs from the attorneys, his decision will not be rendered until late April or early May. Let's hope the fair hand of justice will finally see this annexation for what it really is and will stop this charade before it is allowed to go any further. The same Statutes that define the involuntary annexation process also makes provisions for citizens to appeal to the courts for relief. If ever relief was warranted it is definitely needed in this case. Bill Burnette Good Neighbors United Wayne County NC News-Argus "laundered" article: click here
	Saturday, January 28, 2006 7:25 AM Comment from Bill B. - GNU: The NEWS-ARGUS article states that the city won the first case but Good Neighbors United won on appeal. This is not the way it happened. The article says Good Neighbors United (GNU) lost the first trial but won on appeal. This not correct. GNU won the first trial and the annexation report was remanded back to the city for correction of flaws and the city was directed to hold another public hearing and conduct a new vote. The result of this action was a new annexation ordinance passed by the city on July 5, 2005 which is the basis of our new petition to the court. The issue in the latest ruling focused on whether we had legal right to file another petition since, according to the city's argument, we were merely rehashing old ground that was already put before the courts. We contend the new ordinance created a new annexation and therefore we had a new ball game. The Judge agreed. In the first trial we included, as part of our petition, a request to make null and void a previous voluntary annexation that resulted in the city's border being brought to our front door. Without this voluntary annexation, passed council vote in June 2002, the city could not have border contiguity. In our preparation for the petition we discovered the voluntary annexation had violated state statutes and, in effect, was an invalid annexation. In a pre trial summary judgment, remember this is our original case, the Judge ruled we did not have standing to address the voluntary annexation since we owned none of the land volunteered to be annexed. We appealed this decision and that appeal has been submitted to the Appellate Court. So, we have the two attacks going and feel very strongly that both have strong potential to defeat this involuntary annexation. Clearly our area was singled out by the city for one reason and one reason only and that is the "handsome tax base" that exists; words of the first Judge after repeatedly asking the then city manager the real reason for this annexation. The city manager finally agreed with the Judge's word. Not only have we been financially profiled we are also victims of a manipulative plan to qualify our area for annexation that involves an illegal voluntary annexation, omission of properties in the same neighborhood, and twisting of property lines plus there are major issues involving water and fire protection services. What is happening to us is just plain wrong and we intend to fight this until we win. There is to much at stake not to. Bill Burnette Good Neighbors United Goldsboro, NC
	From: Bill Burnette Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 1:41 PM The attached article reflects our second and latest challenge to the City of Goldsboro's continuing efforts to forcibly annex our area. I'm sure the preponderance of readers on this site are those who support all of our efforts to stop forced annexations and I'm also sure each targeted area has it's own unique set of circumstances. However, I would like to point out that Goldsboro's attempt is loaded with manipulative actions that would even turn the head of the NCLM if they would dare look this way. For example, our annexation attempt is sitting on top of a voluntary annexation that was necessary to bring the city border to our door but by statute that voluntary annexation is illegal. Although this illegality has not received court concurrence, we have explicit evidence that will prove our case which is in the Appellate Courts at this time. Coupled with this illegality is the city's intentional manipulation by "cherry picking" residential properties and/or not picking the cherries as the case may be. Added to all this is the reality that cities are beginning to experience the effects of extending services into what is clearly rural areas, we are five miles from Goldsboro and the proposed annexation areas are served by sanitary districts. These districts have "squatters rights" on water lines and charge higher rates than current city residents pay. Since the city will not install water lines and the annexation area will continue to be served by the sanitary districts, the city has to reimburse residents for the additional rate they pay. There are other issues involved with doing this and cities nor sanitary districts are prepared to address them. Fire protection issues and insurance rates are affected as well. I could go on and on but for most of you I sound like a broken record. However, it's clear that the courts are not looking too kindly on cities that intentionally wander outside the "spirit and intent" of the statutes as evidenced by the Wendell case and, the courts maybe our only chance since our legislators continue to ignore attempts to correct the Statutes. We all understand sound, planned, urban development, but we do not understand, nor can we support, what is happening in Goldsboro. Clearly, those responsible for this debacle are covering for municipal mismanagement and exercising elitist politics which has ravaged North Carolina for over 200 years. Goldsboro News-Argus \| News: Annexation foes file new petition
	From: Wrbshb Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 10:24 AM To: All Subject: Press Release on Goldsboro Forced Annexation Ruling The attached was released to the News Media in the AM on January 4, 2005. For those addressees in Goldsboro I solicit your help to insure that any and all rumors contrary to the wording of this release be squelched. Bill Burnette Good Neighbors United (Read attachment here)