BETWEEN THE LINES: Annexation Ruffles County Feathers

— It’s easy to empathize with Benton County Judge Bob Clinard on this Bella Vista annexation issue. Not only did the county lose current and future sales tax revenue from the deal, it retained responsibility for maintaining the adjacent county road.

The continuing urbanization of Benton County has been aff ecting county sales tax revenue for years. The county government and local cities derive their respective shares of the countywide sales tax based on whether the business collecting the tax is in an incorporated or unincorporated area. City gains mean county losses.

Losing revenue to Bella Vista was bad enough for the judge. Having to maintain the road in front of those newly annexed businesses made the situation worse.

Bella Vista presented a pair of annexation proposals to aff ected property owners and to its own residents in a special election held May 22 in conjunction with the party primaries. Both passed by huge margins, 65 percent or better. They weren’t ever particularly controversial, certainly not like a third proposedannexation of Hiwasse.

That one fell apart when angry residents of that area, who really just wanted to be left alone, petitioned to annex to Gravette instead of Bella Vista. Bella Vista understandably wanted to take in land that is located out there along the route of the Bella Vista bypass, where signifi cant future commercial development is assured. Bella Vista oftcials just couldn’t get the Hiwasse folks to buy in.

These other proposals seemed different. When the city held a forum on the annexations, the mayor said only two interested citizens attended. They asked a few questions but voiced no objections, according to news accounts. One of the proposals involved a number of parcels around the city, apparently relatively tiny pockets of rural land surrounded by incorporatedareas. Bella Vista oft cials referred to it as a “boundary cleanup.” The other proposal affected a larger area of land along U.S. 71 on Bella Vista’s southern boundary. Several commercial properties (or sales tax generators), including a Walgreens, are located there. The land is between Bella Vista and Bentonville north of McNelly Road (Benton County 40).

News reports prior to the annexation vote described the affected parcel just that way, but Judge Clinard was apparently caught unaware that the annexed property was located north of the road the county maintains.

“I didn’t realize, nor did anyone else, that they had drawn the boundary lines so it was to the north of the road,” Judge Clinard said last week. “Since they’re going to take in all the tax revenue, they should share in the cost of maintaining that road,” he argued, suggesting the annexation should have been at least to the center of Benton County 40.

It seems his road department called the city after the annexation vote to ask about sharing the cost for some road work and was told, “Oh, no, it’s all yours.”

At least that’s how Clinardrecounted the story.

Clinard isn’t letting this go without a fi ght. He filed a lawsuit last week challenging the annexation vote altogether. The grounds he’s asserting is that the annexation doesn’t meet requirements and standards set out in state law.

Whether it does or doesn’t will apparently be determined in court, where another lawsuit seeking to void the annexation has been filed. Brought by several property owners whose land was annexed to Bella Vista, that suit asserts the mostly agricultural land doesn’t fall within any of fi ve categories of contiguous land that can be lawfully annexed by a municipality. Meanwhile, Bella Vista has - at least for now - expanded its jurisdiction, picked up some additional sales tax revenue and laid the groundwork for even more benefits as thesenewly annexed properties further develop. The city also has shown a knack for ticking off its neighbors, fi rst those in Hiwasse and now these newly annexed property owners and the county judge.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A COLUMNIST FOR NORTHWEST ARKANSAS MEDIA.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 06/26/2012

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