Petition raises election questions

Annexation area would be split

Property owners west of Rogers would divide and may conquer much of that city’s latest annexation attempt. The conflict has also stirred a dust-up between Rogers and Bentonville.

The Rogers City Council set a Nov. 14 special election to annex 3,174.85 acres. The largest portion includes 2,837.8 acres between Rogers and Highfill, an area of about 4.4 square miles.

A petition by some of the property owners to annex into Bentonville instead would cut a swath through the largest portion of Rogers’ proposed annexation, documents show. Thirty-nine property owners signed the petition. If granted, their request would create a strip of Bentonville one-fourth of a mile wide at its narrowest point and about two and a half miles long, petition documents show.

Bentonville accepting the petitioners’ request would be seen as an unfriendly act, Mayor Greg Hines said, and not just by him.

“I’m the most regionally minded guy around, and, if Bentonville accepts this, it will damage regional relations between our cities for longer than I’ll be here,” Hines said.

He also said his city will pursue the annexation of all remaining portions of Rogers’ proposal whether Bentonville accepts the petition or not.

Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said his city has no desire for a conflict with Rogers, but Bentonville has always welcomed property owners who want to come into the city.

“We have had 156 annexations since 2000, and every one of them has been by petition at the request of the people being annexed,” he said in a telephone interview.

The petition was filed Aug. 30 with Benton County, a legal first step in requesting annexation by a vote of the Bentonville City Council. The county certifies whether the legal description of the land involved as described in the petition is accurate and that all needed documents for the petition are valid.

County certification is required before the property owners can take their request to the City Council. Benton County Judge Barry Moehring has certified the petition, a spokesman for his office confirmed Friday.

It would raise a legal issue for Rogers if Bentonville accepts the annexation petition, Hines said. A portion of the land Rogers included in the annexation referendum would no longer share a border with Rogers. Property owners in the area cut off from Rogers might then claim they weren’t subject to annexation. State law prescribes annexations keep all parts of a city together, Hines said.

Whether the requirement for unbroken borders would apply if the Bentonville annexation goes through is not clear, experts said. Hines said he is confident his city would win a legal dispute on unbroken borders. The problem for Hines is a tract of Rogers would be separated from the rest of the town if Bentonville accepts the petition request first and then the Rogers annexation election succeeds.

Annexations by election do require a shared border, said Don Zimmerman, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal League. The league is an association of Arkansas cities, which lobbies for cities and advises them on state law. If there was no problem with shared borders at the time the Rogers council approved the election, creating a division later may or may not make a difference, he said.

The council voted 9-0 on Aug. 22 for the annexation election.

“There is not any state statute that appears right on point for such a case or a court ruling either,” Zimmerman said Thursday.

Jeff Hawkins, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, gave the same answer in an interview Tuesday after reviewing a copy of the property owners’ annexation petition.

“As things stand now, a court would have to rule on it,” Hawkins said.

The annexation petition is signed by 100 percent of the property owners who would see their land go into Bentonville, petition records show. Such an annexation by petition requires approval by the governing body of the annexing city. In this case, that would be the Bentonville City Council.

Jennifer Grimes, a property owner in the disputed area, said she and other property owners involved didn’t seek conflict.

“My kids go to school in Bentonville. I work in Bentonville. My mailing address is Bentonville, and I’d have to change it if we were annexed by Rogers,” she said. “We always thought we’d be left alone until somebody got out this far and that it would probably be Bentonville.”

The property owners felt Rogers treated them unfairly when it voted to hold the election, she said. The rural residents know they will be outvoted by the residents of Rogers, she said. The property owners wanted to be asked, not told, she said.

State law provides voters in the areas proposed for annexation and city residents are eligible to vote in annexation elections, according to Hines. Hines said the Benton County Clerk’s Office made a rough estimate of about 200 voters in the annexation areas. Rogers has more than 42,000 registered voters.

Rogers proposed the annexation because these are natural growth areas for residential and commercial building also served by their city’s water utilities, Hines said. The roads in the area are already in need of expansion and improvement.

“People said the same things about southwest Rogers when we annexed it, that it was too far out into the country,” he said. “Now it’s the most densely populated part of town.”

“I know people who live there have had farms in their family for generations and want to keep it that way, but market trends are not going to stop,” he said.