Court Opinion

ID: 9667578
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:49:52.90913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:39.067190
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part; dissenting in part).
I generally concur in thfe results of this decision for truly the City of Rapid City (1) provided no time table to establish and furnish services and (2) refused to disclose the basic costs of sewer and ■ water facilities. Essentially, the City of Rapid City would not tell what it was going to do, how much it would cost, or when it was going to act. However, within my concurrence, I disagree with some of the language therein expressed. I cannot agree that there is no significant barrier between Rapid City and 'the proposed annexed area. Topographically, there exists a long mountain between the City of Rapid City (appellant) and the Deadwood Avenue area (residents of which are appellees). Nor can I agree that the orderly growth of Rapid City is to the west, as indicated by the majority opinion, for to the west there is found mountainous terrain, known as the Black Hills.1 I would *606therefore prick the bubble of the majority’s theoretical stance that the area is “ripe for annexation.” I deplore the phrase “ripe for annexation.” Indeed, now that businesses have pioneered successfully and homes have been constructed in the foothills of the Black Hills (all without services that Rapid City would now paternalistically provide) may this area be described as “ripe,” such as a plum to be plucked?
Furthermore, I dissent, in part, as I cannot accept this Court’s affirmance of the trial court’s rejection of appellees’ proposed finding of fact: namely, that appellant’s motive for annexation was to increase its tax revenues. The historical background of this case reflects that appellant has an insatiable appetite to accrete, gobble up, tax, and ultimately destroy the autonomy of rural Pennington County. Our courts of law are created to be bulwarks against political excesses. The people have a right to come to the courts for a redress of wrongs perpetrated against them, and particularly when their spirit and property is crushed by government. In the case at bar, the oppressor is municipal government and, within the great system of checks and balances, this Court and every court throughout the land owes its citizens the highest obligation to check any governmental branch or agency that seeks to devour its neighbor.
Although the issue of annexation for tax purposes vis-á-vis annexation for orderly growth2 is cast in terms of a finding of fact, and this author recognizing the rule that a trial court’s ruling and decision is presumed to be correct, this presumption of correctness does not exist in this case because the evidence in question consists entirely of documents. This case, and it is a case of great magnitude and public importance, is a rare bird from a standpoint of an evidentiary platform. See Johnson v. Johnson, 291 N.W.2d 776 (S.D.1980). Therefore, as a Justice of this Court, I have the right and duty to review the telltale documents that are on file herein de novo.
The rule that municipal boundaries should not be revamped for purely tax reasons was established early in our state by this Court’s decision in Johnson v. Incorporated Town of Castlewood, 40 S.D. 493, 168 N.W. 124 (1918). Therein, this Court reversed the refusal of the trial court to grant a petition for exclusion from a municipality. It was apparent from the evidence that the only reason for the municipality’s objection to the petition for exclusion was its anticipated loss of revenue.
In Big Sioux Township v. Streeter, 272 N.W.2d 924, 926, n.3 (S.D.1978) we held that “the limits of a municipal corporation should not be extended for the sole purpose of increasing the municipal tax base absent the outflow of services and facilities to outlying territory.”
From the lips of appellant’s mayor, the true motive behind annexation and a revelation as to the extension of services and the collection of tax revenues may be found in Rapid City Common Council minutes, May 24, 1979, found at Clerk’s Index 283:
*607“. .. We may have trouble saying exactly what the City can do for you but you can certainly do a lot for this City and community by being a part of the City.”
Again, appellant’s mayor exemplified appellant’s true motive at a subsequent meeting by expressing as follows:
“... Again, basically all that we are asking of those people around our City is for them to participate in the cost of running this City for them; not just for the people within the City limit line.... ”
Rapid City Common Council minutes, September 4, 1979, found at Clerk’s Index 329.
Appellant has demonstrated a total lack of commitment to create an outflow of services and facilities to the proposed annexed area in return for an increased tax base. Such a lack of commitment defies the mandate set forth by this Court in Big Sioux Township v. Streeter, supra.
According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, p. 703 (4th ed. 1976), duplicity is defined as “doubleness of heart, thought, speech, or action: deception by pretending to entertain one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another[.]” Appellant suffers from duplicity.

. The “Black Hills” are not black; they are verdant green. The Black Hills are not hills; they are mountains. In fact, they are the highest range of mountains east of the Rockies to the Atlantic Ocean. They cover an area of six thousand square miles. The term “Black Hills” *606is an absolute contradiction. Paha Sapa, meaning Black Hills, was the Sioux Indian description of these mountains because they appeared black from a distance. To the immediate west of Rapid City, there are deep canyons and gorges carrying spring-fed streams which spill out onto the prairie to the east from heavily timbered mountains. The long mountain to which I refer has been a long-standing problem for the orderly flow of people and commerce into the Black Hills; and it has been a source of numerous engineering studies to determine the feasibility of boring through this long mountain to pour the traffic from the old hay camp of Rapid City (now South Dakota’s second largest city) into the mountains which constitute the Black Hills. The geography of an area plays an integral part in determining the directional growth of any city. Rapid City cannot engulf the Black Hills; they are too rugged and too vast. Furthermore, the United States Government owns the great majority of the Black Hills. For Rapid City to grow immediately west defies reason.

. In my opinion, a fair reading of the testimony by the city’s witnesses indicates that the Deadwood Avenue area development is now proceeding in an orderly manner. Where, then, is the need for municipal intervention? The proposed annexed area is served by its own water and sewer facilities. To use, as a reason, that appellant will provide these services is a facade; it is a Deadwood Avenue “cover-up.”