House Speaker Hackney has formed a
special commission to study annexation. This could be an absolute
disaster if the committee doesn’t recommend real (i.e. substantial)
reform. A watered down report likely would push back real reform
for years. Legislators could simply point to this new
commission’s report and say the issue has been studied and settled.
However, I’m going to be optimistic (against my nature): The
hope is this committee will be different than the numerous annexation
commissions from the past that actually helped municipalities, not the
public.
Any reform though needs to address the concerns of all
the potential victims of forced annexation, not a few narrow
constituencies.
