Published: August 19, 2009 10:11 pm      

Time to act

Annexation law must be addressed by Legislature

It’s been nearly two years since we urged the Legislature to revise a 2001 annexation law that was blatantly unfair to residents who depend on county government for representation.

It was in response to Mabscott’s attempt to annex more than a mile of Robert C. Byrd Drive in the Crab Orchard-MacArthur area of Raleigh County.

Residents and businesses in that unincorporated area protested, but a local judge ruled — and the state Supreme Court concurred — that county government, under state law, had no choice but to approve, or rubber stamp, a municipality’s petition for annexation. That prompted Raleigh County Commissioner John Aliff to lament, “If a municipality brought us a petition with the names of Elvis, Ray Charles and Osama bin Laden on it, we’d have to certify it.”

Twenty-one months later, the 2001 law is still on the books and another annexation controversy has erupted, this one in Greenbrier County. Ronceverte City Council voted several months ago to annex the Stoney Glen development, owned by West Virginia Farm Properties LLC. Because the development is located about 4 miles from the city limits, the city also had to petition to annex the roads leading to it, which run through the unincorporated community of Organ Cave.

Property owners along those roadways contend their property has been illegally taken and have asked Greenbrier County Circuit Court to void the annexation.

The Greenbrier County Commission reluctantly certified the annexation petition after West Virginia Farm Properties attorney Jesse Guills told the body, “You are required by law to enter this order,” and also after Organ Cave residents urged the commission to act, apparently a prerequisite in order for their lawsuit to be filed.

Judge James J. Rowe is expected to issue a ruling in the next few days, not on the lawsuit itself, but whether the Organ Cave residents have legal standing to bring such a suit. Guills says they do not, arguing they cannot actually own a road in the way other property is owned. The residents’ attorney, William Turner, says they do own the land underlying the roadways. “It’s impossible to just annex pavement,” he said. (Apparently neither side is claiming ownership of potholes.)

We won’t take sides in this dispute. We do, however, strongly urge the Legislature, again, to revisit the 2001 law. People who live in unincorporated areas have no one on the local level to represent them other than county commissioners, and when commissioners’ hands are tied on annexation matters, those residents are deprived of rights, and their only recourse is to engage in an often lengthy and always costly court fight.

Guills, who is also a state senator, wrote in an earlier brief in this dispute that “the court is without jurisdiction over this legislative matter.”

It’s also a matter of fairness, and we’re still waiting for the Legislature to act.