Court Opinion

ID: 9628966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:35:07.051384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:13.819629
License: Public Domain

STANFORD, Justice
(dissenting).
I object to the following portion of a paragraph of the majority opinion:
“For the reasons herein stated, our view is that the Commission may under the situation here presented describe the boundaries of the area to be annexed, even though such description is not embodied in the petitions, provided that at least 50 percent of the value of the territory annexed shall be represented in the petitions filed. * * * ”
If a large and very valuable industrial business were included in the property sought to be annexed, it would be possible for the City of Tucson to take and add to it a thousand or many thousand acres of grazing or other land lying beyond the limits of the land petitioned to be annexed. The City Commission would have such power under the majority opinion.
I claim the majority opinion gives to Tucson an unbridled, unrestricted, and unwarranted power.
Because the majority opinion did not quote Section 16-701, A.C.A.1939, our law on this subject, I submit it as very helpful and necessary:
“Annexation by petition of property-owners.—Any city may extend and increase its corporate limits in the manner following: On presentation of a petition in writing, signed by the owners of not less than one-half in value' of the property in any territory contiguous to the city, as shown by the last assessment of said property, and not embraced within its limits, the common council of said city may, by ordinance, annex such territory to said city, upon filing and recording a copy of such ordinance, with an accurate' map of the territory annexed, certified by the mayor of said city, in the office of the county recorder, in the county where the annexed territory is situated.”
The majority opinion concedes this section to be “the source of the City’s.power in this matter.”
My views in this case apply to City of Phoenix v. Struckmeyer, 77 Ariz. 84, 267 P.2d 724.