Local anti-annexation activist Betty Jackson organized a protest against Asheville’s attempt to annex Royal Pines. Anywhere from 20 to over 200 people participated. Local talk show host Matt Mittan complained the people had not been allowed to speak at the public hearing. The Citizen-Times said the meeting was a public hearing, too; but it was just the statutorily mandated public information meeting the city has held for the last umpteen annexations. Details aside, our hard-working neighbors to the south aren’t interested in paying more taxes and having their values outvoted by the non-working class to the north.
Annexation is just a classic case of one group exercising a work ethic and enjoying a degree of success and another group loafing and eying the prosperity of the first jealously. The city deems itself, with state sanction, entitled to a fraction of the wealth because they have the power to claim it, and the victims have to hire an attorney if they want to disagree.
