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The
Lexington NC golf course
The Lexington, NC City Council has voted on their annexation ordinances. The areas effected include Sapona Country Club,
Rolling Park, Cow Palace, Biesecker Road area. The ordinances
passed with
a 8-0 vote.
The purpose of Citizens United Against Forced Annexation is to fight forced
(sometimes called involuntary) annexation in North Carolina, primarily against
the city of Lexington.
Top Ten Involuntary Annexation Fairness Issues
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10) Since increased tax revenue for the annexing
Municipality is the REAL reason for many forced, involuntary annexations,
affluent, established neighborhoods, with essential services intact, are
prime forced annexation targets. Neighborhoods less affluent, which
may actually NEED services, are bypassed. A good example would be in
Pinehurst, where the affluent Pinewild community is an annexation target,
and the far less affluent Jackson Hamlet is avoided. This abuse of the
law is happening throughout the state.
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9) Public hearings must be held in accordance with the law,
but these hearings are sham. The annexing municipality routinely
ignores public input due to the time, money, and effort already put forth in
the statutorily required annexation report.
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8) Every time a municipality forcibly annexes a
neighborhood, its county loses revenue. This revenue must be made up
somehow, and higher taxes for all county residents can result.
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7) Those being involuntarily annexed bear the cost of an
expensive lawsuit to fight the forced annexation. Under the current
law, this is their only recourse. This unfair part of the law is
simply designed to make it more difficult to fight the proposed annexation.
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6) If services required by the law are not provided
under the law's timelines, the annexed citizens must commerce additional
legal actions. It doesn't matter that they have been paying the
increased taxes since the effective date of the annexation.
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5) Besides having no say in their forced, involuntary
annexation and increase taxes, citizens typically must pay large sums of
money for the extension of water and sewer lines and the hookup fees for
these lines. These are services they may have neither wanted or
needed.
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4) Forced, involuntary annexations are occurring where NO services are
required, needed, or provided.
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3) Residents of municipalities doing the forced
annexing get no vote. If they want to keep their town or village small
and/or quaint and retain their uniqueness, it does not matter.
Pinehurst "Village," for instance, plans to grow to 25,000
residents. Its citizens have no referendum on the matter. Too
rapid expansion could also mean water or sewage problems for residents, as
has happened in Apex and Cary, towns who have zealously used forced annexations
to grow. Growth is not always good.
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2) While INVOLUNTARY annexation law allows no vote,
VOLUNTARY annexation law requires 100% positive vote by the property
owners seeking annexation. If a vote is required in one instance, why
is it not required in the other?
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1)Those being involuntary annexed have no
vote. They suffer increased taxes with no yea or nay. They
either accept the forced annexation or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
in court. Why is North Carolina one of only four states with
this harsh procedure?
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