An annexation opportunity...

I'll go off the deep end for a minute or two here.

As residents of Kingman, we all know of the 800lb gorilla that sits about a twenty minute drive from here with plans on building a master planned community with upwards of 30,000 homes. Currently the land is not in a city; not Kingman, not Bullhead City, not even in the Golden Valley are that is considering becoming an incorporated and independent city.

Much has been written about since the developer bought the property, much of it is controversial in nature. The developer has allegedly stepped on enough toes to be challenged in civil court actions (which I have no details about and won't comment further).

What I do know is that at the time of purchase, this developer came to the city with a plan for annexation. Why?? I bet the answer is water resources. My understanding is the city answered thanks but no thanks (there is an established pattern of these kinds of decisions lately).

Go to this link that is still on the city website and click on the links under the Golden Valley Ranch subset. See the plans for yourself.

Apparently when the city of Kingman told the developer to get lost, the developer began a quest to start up their own water company (this could be heresy and please correct me if I'm wrong). The Arizona Corporation Commission has been considering the case for two years now and recently want to open up the case once again because of some things happening in Las Vegas involving a former Clark County Commissioner there.

If the ACC does reopen the hearing it could mean many more months before a decision is made, delaying the project that does appear to have some promise, in my opinion.

Love the developer or hate the developer.... the developer is an angel or is the devil... that's up to you and not the point here.

The point is that Mohave County is growing at a fairly quick pace and maybe only 4% of that growth is in the current city boundaries. Not acceptable when you consider that the new residents outside of the city lines will be draining the city services to some degree.

Expansion and annexation has to be explored yesterday not tomorrow.

Here I'll challenge the RAID folks a bit. They have proven that they can handle a petition drive. Typically annexation is done by petition of the land owners and 51% of land owners and 51% of assessed value is needed for annexation. There is one very large land owner that once tried to get annexed into the city. This shouldn't be difficult.

The benefit of this movement would be more sales tax dollars in the Kingman area that are dreadfully needed for such things as building and maintaining a new regional park. Not to mention the potential for development that is further out and not necessarily in everyone's backyard. It would give the private property owners some more security on their investment, not only for the newly annexed areas, but also for the current residents living in the current city boundaries.

Worried about the cost of new sewer systems and the like?? Well there is this thing about grandfathered rights of property owners. The city could simply recognize those rights for the newly annexed areas until the city can properly budget for the improvements at a later time.

Even Lake Havasu City is allowing some that are on septic systems to remain that way if the cost of connecting to sewer is more than $17,500.

Annexation should be the thing. Towards the southwest into Golden Valley and the I-40 industrial corridor. Towards the north to not only include the Butler area, but also even up Stockton Hill to Vock Canyon. And of course east along I-40 and Historic Route 66 to the mountain ranges.

Back to the 800lb gorilla in Golden Valley for a second. The ambitious plan to create something out of nothing in Golden Valley is going to require a huge advertising campaign. Similar to some degree of the one I see for The Villages in the state of Florida (only there are no hurricanes or other natural disasters in Arizona). Kingman won't be on the hook for the advertising, the private property owner will, but you Mr. and Mrs. current home owner will undoubtedly benefit from that advertising. Not everyone is going to fall in love with the master planned development especially since your home is so much nicer and a better value (wink).

There would also be other benefits to our community from the growth, the spread out growth, the 'not in my back yard' growth.

For all the folks who say they aren't anti-growth and want to see community amenities such as regional parks, now is the time to pound the table and demand expansion from the city leaders. If the current leaders won't provide it then let's get a new slate of leaders in there that will listen to the table pounding.