Court Opinion

ID: 9503326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 19:41:20.404603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:23.217838
License: Public Domain

GILLETTE, J.,
dissenting.
The work of cities in the environment created by Ballot Measures 5 (1990) and 50 (1997) is difficult enough, without this court making it worse. In this case, unfortunately, that is what the majority does, by misreading a statute vital to the operation of cities in the present day.
That statute is ORS 222.750.1 repeat the pertinent parts of it here to facilitate the discussion:
“When territory not within a city is surrounded by the corporate boundaries of the city, * * * it is within the power and authority of that city to annex such territory. * * * Unless otherwise required by its charter, annexation by a *29city under this section shall be by ordinance or resolution subject to referendum, with or without the consent of any owner of property within the territory or resident in the territory.”
(Emphasis added.) Respecting that statute, the majority quite rightly states, “The issue presented is whether a city has authority to engage in island annexation pursuant to ORS 222.750 if city boundaries do not completely and contiguously encircle the property to be annexed.” 343 Or at 23. The majority then answers the question in the affirmative.
Let us at this point be clear about the majority’s requirement of complete contiguity. When an “island” consists of two or more parcels in separate ownership, a city ordinarily will be completely contiguous to the parcels collectively, but not with any single parcel in its entirety. The consequence of reading a “complete contiguity” requirement into ORS 220.750 is that, if a city decides for any reason that it does not wish to annex each and every parcel within an island all at once, the city lacks the authority to annex any of the parcels.
For the life of me, I cannot understand how such a reading of the statute could persuade anyone, much less the majority. To begin with, as the majority appears to acknowledge in its review of various definitions of the word, 343 Or at 24, that the word “surround” is ambiguous. Furthermore, even the definition the majority chooses to use, viz., “to form a ring around: extend around or about the edge of: constitute a curving or circular boundary for: lie adjacent to all around or in most directions,” id. (emphasis added), does not itself require complete contiguity. Finally, the majority’s efforts at injecting a complete contiguity requirement into that definition are weak at best. In that regard, the majority contends that requiring anything less than complete contiguity would give the term “surround,” as used in ORS 222.750, two different meanings. 343 Or at 24. The majority begins by assuming that an island territory must be completely surrounded by and completely contiguous to a city’s boundary. It then points to the city’s definition of an island territory as one that is *30completely surrounded by but not necessarily completely contiguous to a city’s boundaries. The majority then offers a single sentence that purports to explain why the latter meaning is impossible: “If‘surrounded by’ means adjacent ‘in most directions,’ then ORS 222.750 would impose no requirement that city boundaries completely and contiguously encircle the territory to create an island in the first instance.” 343 Or at 25.
For some reason, the majority fails to recognize the circularity in the foregoing discussion. The majority begins by positing the correctness of the very definition that it seeks to uphold. It is no wonder that it can conclude that that narrow definition is the correct one. But the fact is that nothing in the wording of the statute requires complete contiguity. Moreover, the city’s broader definition of the term “surround” would cover both kinds of islands that the majority opinion illustrates.
The majority itself appears to recognize that its point respecting the wording of the statute cannot be dispos-itive, because it spends four further pages arguing history. But, if the statutory wording were as dispositive as the majority suggests, why does it need further discussion? The truth is that neither the wording of the statute, nor the specific wording of any other statutes, answers the issue before us. We are left to logic and good sense respecting the scope of authority that the legislature intended to grant to cities under ORS 222.750. For me, that inquiry need not take long.
Even a casual glance at the Oregon Revised Statutes reveals the importance of cities in the scheme of Oregon governance. Laws relating to their organization and activities take up six full chapters — ORS chapter 221 to chapter 227. Cities are the political bodies that deliver the urban services that make it possible for citizens to live together: They provide public safety services (police and fire protection), public health services (water and sewer services), recreation and leisure opportunities (parks, trails, and nature reserves), and organizational control over the infrastructure within their boundaries (traffic controls, parking restrictions, zoning and other land use restrictions). To support those services (and a thousand others, many peculiar to a particular city or cities), *31cities rely on property taxes. Those taxes are levied on property within the boundaries of the city. Often, there will be “islands” within the city that have not come within the city for any number of reasons. Some of the reasons may be political: For example, a city may make it a policy not to annex parcels where the resistance is very strong, partly on the theory that persons so forced into a city usually contribute nothing positive to the life of that city. Some of the reasons maybe practical: A city may find something about the property in question that makes the property undesirable, such as a surface water runoff problem that would cost the city more to remedy than the city ever would receive in offsetting tax revenues. Or the city simply may determine that it lacks the ability to supply urban services to an island parcel at a particular time, so it chooses not to exercise its authority for the time being.
As one can see, each of the foregoing, completely legitimate considerations need not apply to a complete “island.” It may be true, to take just one example, that one half of an island consists of rugged terrain with significant surface water runoff problems, while the other half of the “island” consists of an area ideal for home sites,, all the more so because the city’s population has been expanding in that direction and the city recently has constructed large improvements in the water and sewer system serving the area. Annexation of the latter half would be helpful to the city through added revenues to at least partially offset the new urban services now available to that parcel; annexation of the other part of the island would be detrimental to the city. Yet, today, the majority announces that the legislature intended not to permit a city to make exactly the kind of commonsense governmental decision that my hypothetical describes. I don’t believe that, and I cannot understand why the majority, given a choice of answers, chooses to.1
The point in all this is that the exercise of the authority to annex is a classically political choice, influenced *32by any number of considerations. And it is precisely that sort of authority that the legislature was addressing when it enacted ORS 222.750 to assist cities in doing their work. The question then should occur to us: In that context, and even allowing for the fact that the pivotal word is undefined, why should we adopt a definition that hamstrings cities in doing what they are supposed to do? Put that way, the answer is obvious.
I respectfully dissent.
De Muniz, C. J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

 An even more charming example would involve an island consisting in part of property of the United States, which the city could not annex. According to the majority, the legislature intended any such island to be permanent, as long as a private owner within it desired to keep it that way.