Court Opinion

ID: 9565128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:15:25.562869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:25.616195
License: Public Domain

Hall, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion construes the 1969 Amendment to Code Ann. § 69-902 (Ga. L. 1969, p. 504) to mean that the intent of the General Assembly was to allow a municipality to annex pockets of territory miles away from its boundaries by the ruse of following the path of a public street, road, highway, or right-of-way. I dissent. The purpose of this amendment was to change an interpretation of the Code section by this court in City *82of Adel v. Georgia Power Co., 224 Ga. 232 (161 SE2d 297) and thereby "render unnecessary for the annexation application the signatures of 'the owners of any public street, road, highway or right-of-way.’ ” Sentell, Municipal Annexation in Georgia, 5 Ga. L. Rev. 499, 509. It in no way enlarged the meaning of "contiguity” to permit a bizarre method of annexation.
This court has gone from the narrow interpretation in City of Adel to one as broad as the ocean and as loose as the goose. The result is we have satellite areas of a municipality ten or more miles from its contiguous body connected only by public means of transportation. I read no such anomaly in Code Ann. §§ 69-902 and 69-903.
I am authorized to state that Justice Undercofler concurs in this dissent.