Resident: Annex rules broken

HARLINGEN - City and Cameron County officials did not follow state law during the annexation of an area west of Harlingen, one resident of the area claims.

Charles Lee, who said he lives part of the year in a mobile home park on Palm Vista Drive, said the city is offering nothing to residents in the annexed area except the opportunity to pay city taxes.

The area, annexed late last year, is 1,039 acres that includes 1,251 homes and 47 businesses, a city document states.

Lee claims that the Texas Local Government Code Section 43.0562 requires negotiations with residents to form a service plan.

The law states that county commissioners shall select five representatives to negotiate with the city to provide services in the annexed area.
Richard Burst, an attorney representing the Cameron County Commissioners Court, said the city never notified the county of the annexation, or any role the county might have.

Joel Olivo, Harlingen planning and zoning manager, has a thick file with documents that he says prove that the city followed all laws and regulations to annex the area.

All public hearings were conducted at City Hall and notices were properly published in the newspaper, Olivo said.Lee wants the county to take the city to court to force city officials to explain why the annexation was done without forming a committee to negotiate a service plan.

Burst said, "The county doesn't have a dog in this fight." He said he wasn't aware that the county would be involved.

However, after researching the regulation Lee cited, Burst said it has apparently been in effect since 1999. He said he will study the issue, but cannot file a court action to bring the issue before a judge unless told to do so by Commissioners Court.

Lee, whose car bears Wisconsin license plates, also claims the annexation is "taxation without representation." Lee maintains that people who live in the annexed area cannot meet residency requirements in order to be able to vote or run for city elected office.

However, Assistant City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez said in a Dec. 16 letter that state law allows residents in the annexed area to vote and run for office.

Lee asked if residents of the annexed area must pay assessments for improvements to streets, sidewalks, curbs, drainage and lighting to bring them up to city standards.

Gonzalez wrote to Lee stating residents will not be assessed, but the city would make such improvements "within 2 1/2 years of being annexed ... as need determines."

Gonzalez also told Lee in the letter that no new city parks or recreation facilities are planned in the annexed area.

Irvin Sisson, a Winter Texan from Indiana who lives in The Pines mobile home park on Business 83, also protested being annexed. He said he will now have to pay city property taxes and trash collection fees.

He said he doesn't see how annexed residents will benefit from being taken into the city.

At The Pines, there are 64 homes, but only about 20 year-round residents, he said.

"They didn't increase any police (when his area was annexed)," Sisson said. "Now they are adding just six (officers) for the whole city."

He said he can't see that annexation is any real benefit to mobile home park residents.

The city will not provide curbside trash pickup as residents enjoy now from a private hauler because officials said streets in the trailer park are too narrow, Sisson said.

Large trash bins will be placed in the front of the trailer park.

The city also will not assume responsibility to maintain the park's streets because they are too narrow, he said. But if those streets were one-way, they would qualify for city standards, he said.

"We're not against annexation as progress," Sisson said. "But taxes are going up and we're getting nothing for it except (city) trash collection."

Rural residents have city fire protection and ambulance service through contracts with the Cameron County Emergency Services District.

Rural property is taxed at 10 cents for each $100 in property value for fire and ambulance protection.

City Commissioner Robert Leftwich said Thursday that on Nov. 19, he and Commissioner Tom Hushen voted against the annexation because no additional police officers were being added to cover the new territory.

He and Hushen asked City Manager Craig Lonon for a report from Police Chief Danny Castillo and were told there was no such report, but they later found the chief had done a study of the area two months before and stated more officers would be needed.

Lee and Sisson both said the city just grabbed their territory for property tax revenue and city officials are not concerned with the well-being of people who live in the area.

Lonon declined to be interviewed for this story.

City Attorney Brendan Hall did not return a reporter's calls concerning the story.

City commissioners late last year approved the annexation of two tracts on the west side.

One, a 392-acre tract, is bound on the north by Drury Lane and Brennaman Road, on the east by Stuart Place Road, on the south by Garrett Road and on the west by Baker Potts Road.

The second, a 647-acre tract, is bound on the north by Wilson Road, on the west by Altas Palmas Road, on the south by Orange Drive and
Queen Sago Drive and on the east by Stuart Place Road.