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Sylva leaders again reject annexation
By Carey King
After a third failed annexation attempt, Sylva leaders need to sit down and talk.
That was the word from town Manager Richard McHargue after Sylva board members last week (Feb. 3) voted against annexing 31 acres along N.C. 116.
"After this vote, we need to regroup as to what our objectives are," said McHargue, who was absent for the vote due to a conference in Durham.
There was little discussion before or after board member Maurice Moody motioned to approve the annexation. Board member Eldridge Painter gave his second, but only those two cast votes for the measure.
Board members Danny Allen, Anne Cabe and Ray Lewis all voted "no."
Questioned after the meeting, Allen and Lewis said providing town services to the approximately 15 homes on Nanny's Lane and Griffin Road would be too costly.
"The town can't afford it. We couldn't afford Hall Heights," Allen said. "It's not the right time."
"The town couldn't afford it up on Cope Creek, Hall Heights or Woody Hampton Road," said Lewis. "It was the wrong time right now."
Board members in November voted against stretching town limits to include 40 acres on Hall Heights, Woody Hampton and Cope Creek roads. That move would have required hiring an additional police officer and two more trash collectors, plus purchasing another patrol car – expenses that could have cost about $110,000 – and providing $500,000 of water and sewer lines. It would have also meant offering day-to-day services at an annual price of $14,000, zoning administrator Jim Aust projected in June.
A deal this past August to take in the 13-acre Magnolias subdivision off Cope Creek Road never materialized either, despite developer Carlton Brown's proposal to volunteer the land for annexation in exchange for the town funding a water line to the property. Initial estimates put the cost for the line at $40,000, but a later report put the final price at between $150,000 and $180,000. The town also most likely would have had to add a trash collection route and police patrol for the development, though the exact annual costs for those services were never determined.
Potential yearly tax revenue from the Hall Heights/Woody Hampton/Cope Creek area was estimated to be $16,762, and that from the Magnolias development at $21,600, but board members voted against both annexations, citing infrastructure and service costs.
Annexing the Nanny's Lane/Griffin Road area could have generated $7,591 per year in tax revenue, Aust reported in April. It would have required $180,000 for water and sewer lines and annual service costs of about $6,000, he said – a situation he, Moody, Painter, McHargue and Mayor Brenda Oliver said would not be cost-prohibitive.
Annexing the area would have been "much more reasonable than Cope Creek," McHargue said.
"Any kind of figure like that in a town this size makes you stop and think, but really, that's it," he said. "The day-to-day services there would not have been that much."
"From the cost analysis we did on that particular piece of annexation, initially I didn't think the outlay was too expensive. I expected it to be annexed," Oliver said.
"If I'd have thought it was too expensive, I wouldn't have voted for it," said Moody.
The board held two informational meetings and two public hearings on the matter, twice the normal amount because of a mistake about the schedule the state requires for public hearings before an annexation vote can take place. Since board members made little comment during that time frame, both Moody and Painter said they were unaware Allen, Cabe and Lewis were against the measure.
"The reason I was surprised was that we'd gone through the whole process twice. I expected it to pass," said Moody.
"I was quite surprised. There had been so much work done on it," Painter said.
"Obviously the focus has changed, at least with some of the councilmen," said Moody.
Allen agreed that a lack of communication exists between town leaders.
"Some of those board members are out for themselves. I personally think there's a hidden agenda somewhere on that board," he said.
Allen said that his agenda is to listen to citizens, and that the citizens that came to public hearings about the annexation were overwhelmingly against it.
"People out there didn't want it. That's their prerogative," he said.
"I felt like the people did not want it," agreed Cabe. "I was just feeling for those people. Several elderly people would not have had money to pay the taxes."
Several residents of the area said they'd rather be annexed into Webster, Cabe said, where the taxes are 8 cents per $100 valuation instead of Sylva's 42 cents.
"I go to Webster to vote and I go to Webster for the post office," resident Hazel Monteith told Sylva leaders Jan. 6, calling Sylva's annexation attempt "unethical" and "sneaky."
In April, Sylva board members trumped Webster's bid to take in the Nanny's Lane/Griffin Road area by calling an emergency meeting. Two hours before Webster's board was set to meet for the same purpose, Sylva leaders announced intent to annex.
Webster Mayor and Sylva Herald General Manager Steve Gray had no comment on whether Webster will now try annexation again, as its board is currently in the midst of annexing the Rivercrest subdivision.
Each Sylva leader interviewed for this story maintains that controlling development in areas just beyond town limits remains a priority, and all have the same solution in mind: establishing an extra-territorial jurisdiction.
"We've got to look at ETJ and see if it's still something they want to pursue, and for what areas," said McHargue.
Board members instructed the town zoning board in October to begin researching the idea – a boundary up to one mile outside town limits in which residents would be required to follow Sylva zoning rules. ETJ residents would have zoning board representation but would not pay town taxes.
"I'd go along with it," said Lewis. "Residents that close in wouldn't like it, but they'd have more representation and it wouldn't cost the town."
The zoning board will take up the matter soon, Aust said, and may expand its one-meeting-a-month schedule to two in order to make faster progress.
Zoning board Chairman Larry Nestler would like to modify board bylaws so that meetings can be held with less than six of its seven members present, Aust said. Many on the all-volunteer board find it difficult to make meetings, he said.
Boyd Sossamon Jr. is the board's newest member, as Sylva leaders appointed him Feb. 3 to replace Lee Ewart, who resigned in January.
Sylva leaders will meet Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 10 a.m. to consider another issue concerning town limits – a town boundary survey completed four years ago. Due to mapping discrepancies, Sylva limits bisect some properties, making tax billing and offering town services complicated, Aust said.
Straightening those lines may force Sylva leaders once again to consider annexation – this time of properties along town borders.
"We've just got to figure out where we're headed on this," Aust said.
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