Residents oppose Jacksonville annexation plan

Some residents just outside the Jacksonville city limits in unincorporated Calhoun County are continuing their objections against Jacksonville’s plans to absorb their homes into the city’s limits.

Whites Gap Road residents, packed several rows inside the City Council’s chambers Monday and spoke to the mayor after the meeting.

For at least six months, the city has been talking about annexing swaths of land just outside the city’s southwest and southeast borders, as well as some land north of the city and unincorporated islands of land within Jacksonville. In late December, the council moved forward with the plan, making a formal request to lawmakers to draft legislation enabling the expansion.

The Whites Gap residents showed up at the next public meeting to tell city leaders why they didn’t want to become part of Jacksonville.

Some say incorporation will change their way of life, limiting what they can do with land generations of their family members have used for hunting and farming.

Other Whites Gap residents are also opposed to incorporation because it will increase their property taxes and force them to abide by city zoning regulations.

City officials have said they are considering annexation because some residential areas outside the city’s limits are in the school district. As a result, many homeowners’ property taxes are being paid to county schools, but their children are going to city schools.

The next step in the process will be to have at least one public hearing to give residents a chance to express their opinions about annexation. The annexation bill would also have to be advertised in the newspaper for four weeks before it could be introduced by Rep. K.L. Brown, R-Jacksonville, or Sen. Del Marsh, R-Anniston, the local legislators for Jacksonville.

Brown said he would be willing to sponsor the bill, and he thinks the plan needs to be amended before it moves forward.

Brown said that through discussion he thinks that officials can address many of the questions residents have already asked.

All members of the local legislative delegation must typically support a bill for it to be approved. One of those members, Rep. Randy Wood, said he learned of the bill last week. He said he has heard from residents who oppose it, and he will have to wait to see it before he decides if he will support it.