Yesterday, the House Select Committee
on Municipal Annexation met for the first time. The meeting
overall was positive with most members of the commission seemingly
concerned with the state’s broken annexation system.
There
likely will be some legislation that comes out of the Commission–the
major question is what will the legislation cover. Past
commissions studying annexation have been a farce. Hopefully,
this new commission will take real action to reform annexation, as
opposed to simply tinkering with the law. There is no question that weak recommendations from this Commission
could be devastating to annexation reform efforts for years to come.
In
addition to the two private sector commission members (one that likely
will favor significant reform, one that won’t), there are 10
legislators on the committee. There are 6 Republicans on the
committee and 4 Democrats. The two co-chairs are Democrats.
Organizations from across the ideological spectrum recognize
that the annexation laws are broken. In what is unprecedented (I
think) when it comes to the annexation debate, 15 different
organizations, including JLF, signed on to a statement of principles making it clear that the annexation laws need to be reformed. I wouldn’t be surprised if even more organizations sign-on.
Each Thursday, for at least the next couple of months, I hope to provide a post/briefing on annexation.
