No one wants to annex like it’s 1998.
A year after the city of Starkville first began discussions about what areas near the city limits should be considered for annexation, the city’s aldermen are wrestling with the particulars.
Tuesday night, the aldermen voted to scale back the scope of the annexation, focusing on a smaller study area that extends east along the Highway 12 and Highway 182 corridor and south along the east side of Blackjack Road near the Mississippi State campus.
The city’s decision to scale back its plans was heavily influenced by the city’s 1998 annexation, which has served as a cautionary tale. Twenty years ago, the city annexed underdeveloped areas in anticipation of growth that never materialized. As a result, the cost of providing services — especially infrastructure — proved prohibitive.
That experience appears to have informed the alderman as they move forward, and we believe they chose wisely.
It is sometimes too easy to look at only one side of the ledger on the subject of annexation. The increased property tax and sales tax revenue is alluring. That’s especially true of sales tax. The sales tax revenue generated by retail located outside the city limits goes entirely to the state while 18.5 percent of sale tax revenue collected from retailers inside the city limits is returned to the city. And now that cities will also get 15 percent of internet sales tax through a formula passed partly on population, the benefits of annexation are even greater.
But there are costs, too, not only in terms of money but in other currency as well. Annexation represents a commitment by the city to provide services. The 1998 annexation failed to live up to that promise and is the primary source of opposition to the current annexation plan.
Back then, the city based its plans too much on speculation. The end result was that it did not produce what it promised.
Tuesday’s decision reflects an effort on the city’s part to learn from that mistake.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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