As I expected, the House Judiciary II Committee has developed a proposed committee substitute bill for HB 524 to address annexation that will do more harm than good. It is expected to be taken up this week.
The committee ignored everything that the reformers wanted and took what the League wanted, and then took it a step further.
1) The bill allows cities to annex areas that don’t need any services.
2) The bill expressly allows cities to duplicate existing services in an area. As long as one police officer is provided to an area, even if the area has excellent police service, that’s good enough.
3) No oversight: Cities will be able to do whatever they want, as has always been the case. There is some language that the LGC would provide oversight. Besides four of the five appointed LGC members having direct ties to municipalities (not exactly objective), there’s no mechanism for the LGC to block an annexation prior to the annexation ordinance being passed. The LGC basically is just collecting information.
4) No voice: The counties have no oversight and there’s not a vote.
While it is a committee substitute, the sponsors of HB 524 still are the champions of the bill. This bipartisan group of primary sponsors, including Rep. Goforth and Rep. Starnes should be thanked for helping the League at the expense of North Carolinians.
