STOP FORCED ANNEXATION
Biltmore Lake
Annexation Update
The Court Report – Day 8
The Trial Ends!
The Biltmore
Lake lawsuit against forced annexation
by the City of
Asheville
moved into the eighth and final day, on Thursday, January 28.
It was great to see many
red shirts
join us for our last day in court.
The day started with a continuation of the cross examination of
Blake Esselstyn, city planner, by our attorney. There was
considerable dialogue back and forth regarding the use of county
tax records for source information, the city’s understanding of
various statutes, and the designation of common areas. After
all was said and done it is the city’s contention that they did
everything correctly and, if they had to do again, would make no
significant changes in their
approach.
This concluded the City’s presentations and we finally moved to
closing arguments. The biggest issue is the designation by the
city of the clubhouse and lake area as commercial property
when it really is a common area for the benefit of
Biltmore
Lake residents. It is the
burden of the petitioner (us) to prove otherwise that it isn’t
commercial. This we feel was done, but the determination
regarding the validity of this classification will rest with
Judge Baker.
Our attorney, Mr. Craig Justus, finished the court proceedings
with his strong closing arguments. He did a masterful job of
citing the statutes and legal precedents to address each of the
city’s arguments. It’s expected the judge will render his
verdict within 30 days. We’ll announce it as soon as we know
how he ruled.
It is a relief to know the long, tiring, stressful days in
Superior Court have ended. However, we now must prepare our
minds for the real probability of an appeal. The city will not
allow the revenue stream associated with
Biltmore
Lake to so easily slip
away -- if we win, they will appeal. On the other side of the
coin, good neighbors, we have come such a long way and spent
significant dollars on this lopsided struggle against
taxation-without-representation that should the final judgment
be against us, we must carry this fight forward via an appeal.
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More about it...
It is time to protect our
constitutional rights and
individual freedoms!
We intend to provide a forum that fosters communication between
citizens and those who represent us, both at the municipal level
and the State level. We hope to facilitate this
interaction by
making it easy for you to contact local and State
representatives to let your voices be heard. By providing you
with enough information to become reasonably educated on the
issue of forced
annexation and by making it easy for you to communicate with
your local and State representatives, we hope to
INSPIRE you to
contact each and every one of them! We believe people who
become educated on the issue will
reach
similar conclusions about the injustice of forced
annexation and will do their part to help get
annexation reform legislation passed into law.
It is up to us to make our voices heard, and if we come
together, we can make a difference!
Please
use
the information provided on this Web site to
become educated on the issue of forced annexation. Through
education, we believe you will become inspired to contact and
persuade those who have the power to,
Make 2009 the year of annexation reform!
