An interesting development indeed…
Amongst the supporting documents for Monday’s city commission meeting is a letter from Midway Road residents who, despite the failed annexation effort earlier this year, want in to the city. The block of 11 households in question sit immediately adjacent to the current city limits and therefore can request annexation from the city of Decatur.
The letter from residents, which is on page 11-12 in the materials section for the June 1st meeting, states that they have between 72%-78% support for annexation, which exceeds the 60% threshold necessary to make the request.
Needless to say this should be very interesting for a couple reasons. First, despite what some have said, the annexation effort failed due to a lack of adequate data that demonstrated the school system could handle the increase AND unanswered questions about whether the city could make money off the effort.
Therefore, an 11 household residential annexation puts our city commissioners in an interesting position. Up until now, they’ve been pretty willing to accept individual applications for annexation, however this one may just be large enough to get the old opposition riled up again.
Interestingly enough, the letter to the commission does address the dreaded “school age children” question under the “No Undue Burden on the CSD or City of Decatur Services” section… “There are only 6 children (2 of which currently/plan to attend the Waldorf School) in the annexation area; 5 of the 6 children are 5 or younger.” Unfortunately, that statement kind of misses the major point of concern for current residents who aren’t as worried about the current school-aged population as what it would become once the property was included within the city limits.
How will the commission respond? Where do your candidates for city commission stand on this?
Ready or not, the hornet’s nest has been kicked.
