Appeals court rules against city in annexation challenge

Friday the Arizona District Two Appellate Court ruled in favor of an appeal brought forth by three Maricopa area residents, challenging the annexation of nearly 14 square mile of land running along state Route 238 and sandwiched between the Ak-Chin Indian Community and Maricopa County.

“We took a case for an appeal to the court, and they said we were right,” said Rand Haddock, a Mesa-based attorney, who represented the three residents in their appeal.

The annexation challenge was originally sent down to Pinal County Superior Court in December 2008 through a summary judgment, but the appeals court ruled the superior court should have let the case proceed to trial.

In a summary judgment the court rules without a trial. In the case of the annexation challenge it was ruled that those challenging the annexation, Ricardo Villa, William Domka and David Reed, “failed to raise a reasonable fact issue to any of the properties challenged in the complaint,” and “the city had met all the statutory requirements for the annexation.”

The group represented themselves during the original challenge, a decision their lawyer said may have originally cost them the decision.

“They were on the right track with what they were doing, and they knew something was wrong, but they didn’t know how to establish the proper precedence,” Haddock said.

State law mandates that for a municipality to annex a property within its city limits a simple majority of the signatures of property owners in the area, in tandem with a simple majority of the signatures for the total land value, must be collected.

In the case of the 14 square miles annexed by the city of Maricopa, 159 signatures were collected, just four more than the minimum needed, and 53 percent of the total property value of the proposed annexation area was signed for.

However, the annexation challengers allege several of the signatures for properties were either not the owners of the property or part owners of the property.

For the joint ownership signatures, the city alleges that the signer was authorized to sign for all the property owners and uses a 1979 Ferree v. City of Yuma case to establish the precedence.

However, the challengers of the annexation use a more recent 1995 case that states all owners of a property must sign, with each signature counting for a fraction of the total property. For example, for a property owned by three people each signature represents a third of a person to be counted toward the total signature count needed.

In addition to the joint-ownership issue, the group challenges the signatures of Dennis Graham, who signed for a property in April 2008 that he had sold in February 2008, and Larry Hart, whom the group claimed signed for the property owned by Stageline Ranches LLC, yet has no ownership in the group or managerial function for the group.

The appeals court ruled these reasons warranted a trial, and city attorney Denis Fitzgibbons said the city leaders now have to sit down and decide on a course of action.
“The city is still studying the decision of the court and looking at the available options,” Fitzgibbons said.

If the city decides to continue and maintain the claim to the annexed area, Fitzgibbons said the biggest challenge is getting the affidavits for the eight to nine properties that have the joint tenancy issue.

The city had proceeded up to this point as if the land in question would ultimately be annexed to the city, but, as of now, the city has placed a hold on all monies allocated for improvements in the annexed portion of the city.

Despite that hold, city manager Kevin Evans said the city would still continue with an April agreement with the city of Goodyear to provide fire service to the Sonoran Valley area that borders the annexation area. The agreement pays the city more than $72,000 for one year for those fire services and has an additional $50,000 incentive to relocate a fire station to the annexation area.

The next step in the case will be for the judge to call a meeting of all parties involved to entertain a timeline for discovery and other motions. Fitzgibbons said this is something that should occur within the next 30 days.