Arab Drops Annexation Plans

March 2, 2009
Arab Mayor Gary Beam and the Arab City Council have dropped plans to annex a large area North and East of Arab.  Mayor Beam made the announcement during the council's regular meeting Monday night.  Several members of the Citizens Against Annexation group were in the audience.  Beam told the group that the city was abandoning it's efforts to annex the area as a whole but would still welcome any individual property owners who border the current city limits who want to be annexed.

Beam said the controversy surrounding the proposed annexation was a misunderstanding and had gotten out of hand.  "It is not the intention of city government to annex anyone who doesn't want to be annexed." Beam told the group.  Beam also told the group that he was abolishing the council's Annexation Committee to underscore the council decision.

Responding to reports that the council planned to ask the local legislative delegation to sponsor legislation to annex the area without a referendum, Beam said, "This has never been done in Arab and is not going to be done this time."

Beam said that shortly after being elected, he and several of the council members were approached by several property owners in the area asking about annexation.  "Our goal was to see how many in the area were interested in annexation and we planned to have community meetings to talk with the residents and property owners, but never got the chance to really explain our intentions."

Beam said  his goal is to make Arab one of the the very best places to live, and that growing the City would help.  "If we could get our population up to about 10,000 residents, we could get more grants to help with our needs."  "That seems to be the cut-off for most grants which hurts the small cities." he added.

Beam said that he, and councilman Jimmy Reeves, met with Marshall County Schools superintendent Tim Nabors Monday morning to discuss the situation.  "We had a good meeting and we assured him that concerns about the school district were blown out of proportion and that we were dropping our annexation plans."  Reeves told the group that Nabors made it clear that he was representing the interests of the Marshall County Schools.  "He was very professional and represented you very well," Reeves said.  "We don't fully understand what impact annexation would have on the schools but it was not our intent to bring harm to the schools." Beam added.

Citizens Against Annexation leader David Webb thanked the council for their decision. "If we have offended anyone I am sorry but we had fears about our schools and we make no apology for standing up for the schools."  Webb told the council that they have every right to grow the city and that the opposition group was started because of information that they had received.

Sharon Price, a member of the CAA group, read a statement from a study that was conducted by the Alabama Board of Education to look into financial problems that the Marshall County School System was having a few years back.  Price said the study indicated that the county schools tax base has been "profoundly impacted by annexation of property by cities in the county."  Price said this is an issue for a lot of people who weren't going to be in the proposed annexed area. Price told the council, "If you annex property it doesn't just affect Brindlee Mountain, it impacts all county schools".  "Are you willing to put a six month to one year freeze on any annexation and if not would you be willing to give back to the county any money lost caused by annexation?" Price asked.

Beam said that the council is willing to talk with, and welcomes anyone whose property adjoins the current city limits to come into the city but made no commitment regarding tax revenues.  He said that he and Nabors had agreed to form a committee to discuss the issues relating to the schools and annexation and invited members of the group to participate in the committee.