Annexation undertaken carefully can be beneficial not only to the city but to the landowners and developers within the annexed area. However, in 2007, Stephenville went ahead with an annexation that simply made no sense.
Over strong objections not only from the residents of the affected communities but also others concerned about the financial wisdom of such a move, Rusty Jergins, Nancy Hunter, and three other council members voted for the annexing of 510 acres which included large, already well-developed areas complete with independent water, roads, and septic.
The annexed property was touted as having the ability to bring in 76,000 new dollars annually to Stephenville with a presumed increase in yield for the future, yet would cost about 3 million to undertake the initial expenses plus future costs at a time when current city services were said to be stretched to the limit. I did the math, you can do the math, but the council members who approved the annexation apparently could or would not. I like playing Monopoly, too, but not with real tax dollars and people's homes.
One of the reasons given for steamrolling this vote over the residents' and others' wishes was that Stephenville was shrinking due to...
wait for it…
the fact that too much land was being gobbled up by Tarleton, which, of course, pays no property taxes.
"Our city is shrinking from the inside out," said councilman Andrew Johnson.
A link to the full article is here. Frankly, its bare facts speak more eloquently than I could about this exercise of power without prudence.
The city council is now getting ready to vote on annexing a large chunk of Tarleton property. Is it a good plan? Is it not? What are the costs? As a taxpayer and citizen of Stephenville, I myself would greatly prefer to have someone independent of the college ask these questions rather than someone who has more than once voted in alignment with the interests of the employer writing his paycheck.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete