Annexation

So, it seems that the city that totally surrounds this little (4,000 souls in 1,200 houses) county pocket is finally about to annex us. People in this area have been alternately fighting off or begging for annexation since I was about ten.

There have been innumerable arguments put forth on both sides but generally, they’ve run something like this:

·         Pro-annexation: We have city addresses and use city services and the city is prestigious and could raise our property values.

·         Anti-annexation: The city has a history of scooping up pockets like us to consolidate their property tax base, then using land use regulations to maintain areas like this simply as buffers to keep the riff-raff away from the city’s uber-wealthy core.

Truth is, they’re both partly right. Annexation would initially lower our property taxes which would then increase apace with property values. And the city does indeed have a dismal record in terms of using “merely middle class” areas like ours as buffers for the wealthy people who live on top of hills or closer to the water.

Ten years ago I would have joined the fray on the ‘no’ side but today, I’m a lukewarm ‘yes.’ The bottom line for me is that the city currently provides all our services, including fantastic fire protection and arguably the top public school district in the country (all five high schools made Newsweek’s Top 100, based on AP testing).  They bought our water district years ago and the library system – which is fantastic, doncha know – is county-wide, so our access wouldn’t change.

The one thing that would change immediately is that our first responder police protection would move from county to city. And the county sheriff’s department is really stretched, making response times for unincorporated pockets such as ours so long that the city already responds to most of our calls under the mutual assistance plan.

My question of the day – what is the question? I mean, it’s a fait accomplis in just about every way. Why is this a bone of contention? Since the outcome is certain, why in the world are we still arguing?

I know most of you don’t give a whit about our micro-political climate up here. That’s okay. I hope.