Summary: The City of Ada sought to annex certain land in Pontotoc County to become part of the city. Land owners of agricultural property adjacent to the annexed property objected, citing Ada's failure to give them the required statutory notice of a certified mailing. Ada did mail notices via regular first class mail to the property owners and argued substantial compliance with the statute. The district court upheld Ada's annexation of the land.
Legal Issues: Can a city's annexation of property stand when it substantially complies, but does not actually comply, with the notice requirements of 11 O.S. §21-103(A) and (B)(2)? The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled it cannot.
In Oklahoma sovereign power is exercised by the state legislature alone. Authority of cities to annex land is granted by the legislature to the city. The Court ruled that the primary judicial function in a review of municipal annexations is to ascertain whether the city has exercised its annexation power in a reasonable manner in compliance with state law, and within the scope of legislative authority. A city annexation ordinance must recite jurisdictional facts. If it does, only the State can collaterally attack the ordinance. If it does not, an interested party may attack its validity and show that jurisdictional facts did not exist. If the interested party shows that jurisdictional facts were not recited, or that the cited jurisdictional facts did not actually exist, then the interested party can have the annexation invalidated. Failure to provide the required notice by the exact means specified in the statute meant that the city lacked the jurisdiction to enact the ordinance and annex the land.
Discussion: The Court noted that at least one land owner who was provided notice merely by first class mail claimed not to have received notice. Had notice been served by return receipt mail as specified the question of whether that land owner had been served would be firmly established. The Court noted that one person required to receive notice who did not receive it was too many.
No comments:
Post a Comment