OFFICIALS DISCUSS ANNEXING PROCESS

The best and easiest manner for a municipality to annex land is through voluntary annexation. If that is not possible, acquiring new territory can be a difficult and time-consuming task with no guarantee of success.

Officials from Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City discussed the merits, drawbacks and legal processes of annexation Thursday during a meeting of the League of Women Voters of Southeast Missouri.

Kent Bratton, Cape Girardeau city planner, said adjustments in annexation law since 1975 have provided a number of hurdles for cities to jump over when considering annexation.

The method of choice is through voluntary, or friendly, annexation. In that process, property owners in a targeted area are petitioned to join. If they all still agree following public hearings and a two-week period to change their minds, a city may annex them by ordinance. Quick and easy and with little fuss, Bratton said the whole process from start to finish takes about 90 days.

Failing voluntary means, a city can sue in circuit court. If the judge agrees annexation could be beneficial, an election is held in both the city and the area to be annexed. If the vote fails in the city, the issue is dead.

However, if it passes in the city but fails in the annexation area there is a second round in which both areas participate in a combined vote with a two-thirds majority necessary for passage.

Bratton said a forced annexation is costly and a lengthy process, even if it succeeds. The last annexation to Cape Girardeau was the Twin Lakes subdivision on the city's southwest side and took about nine months to get accomplished. In addition to the costs involved in waging the annexation effort, the total cost of adding city services will be about $2 million.

Jack Piepenbrok, mayor pro-tem of Jackson, said he expects the city will stick to friendly annexation in the wake of a bad experience bringing in an area by vote.

"Since I've been on the board Jackson tried it once and it cost a great deal of money and difficulty and didn't work," Piepenbrok said. He added that at some point in the future the city will probably be forced to give it another go but is in no hurry to do so.

"Most of our growth has been through normal growth rather than aggressive growth," he said.

Scott City Mayor Larry Forhan said friendly annexation is the only way that city will ever expand its boundaries. Since it is largely a residential community, it lacks the tax base and therefore the financial power to try the other method.

An enticement to get property owners surrounding a municipality to join, of course, is the lure of city services.

Although it was once common for cities to run water and sewer lines into nearby rural areas, neither Cape Girardeau, Jackson nor Scott City does so any longer.

That reluctance mainly stems from increased state and federal standards and regulations. When forced to choose between freedom from city taxes and access to sewer and water service and police and fire protection, however, some property owners are more likely to allow themselves to be annexed.

"The biggest thing they want is services," Piepenbrok said. "That's the only reason to be in a town."