Annexation, Letter to the Editor

Ok, my last two letters to the editor have not made it to the StarNews op-ed page, so I'm putting this up here so at least a few people can get to read it.

Here's hoping it gets put up!

The potential forced annexation moratorium has sent chills down the spines of the Wilmington government spendthrifts who don't know what to do for revenue if they can't heap hundreds of dollars of additional property taxes on the backs of unsuspecting residents in the unincorporated areas.

In order to make up for the potential "lost" revenue caused by the moratorium, a recent StarNews article stated that the city may "charg[e] fees to out-of-town motorists who cause traffic crashes in the city – and use police and fire services as a result." As if out-of-towners are coming in here and getting into traffic accidents left and right!

Another possibility is "requiring visitors to pay more to use city parks and other programs." As if we'll be able to tell who's a visitor and whose an out-of-towner in a park! Does the city actually want people to check the id's of the people entering the park? That's absurd.

This whole idea of "they're using our resources (i.e. streets) so we need to forcibly annex" them is absurd. We all benefit from traveling to different sections of the county and state. Should residents in the unincorporated areas start charging city residents to use their streets based on the same rationale? Additionally, many roads within the city are state maintained and not city. Does that factor into the city's complex math about how much it is owed?

The real solution is for the city of Wilmington to live within its means. Forty three states do not even have forced annexation. If they can do it, we should too.