Aberdeen residents are preparing to canvass the city and gather enough signatures to let the voters decide if 1,000 acres of farmland and golf courses will be annexed into the city and developed.
After theCity Council approved the first part of the annexation project June 19, a handful of residents living at the heart of the proposed project pledged to get the 1,500 signatures required by the County Board of Elections to put the issue on the ballot in November. The signature drive will start sometime in the next week.
“We thought we had a petition set and ready to go,” said Robert Price, a member of the opposition group. “But there are a lot of unusual technicalities in the city of Aberdeen.”
The opposition group recently hired a lawyer to review the petition and ensure that everything meets city and county standards before they start gathering voters? signatures.
“We have to respect the opposition we have in [Mayor S.] Fred [Simmons],” Price said. “They seem to have a lot of legal help on their side.”
Once the petition is legally airtight, getting the necessary number of signatures shouldn?t be difficult, Price said. The biggest challenge will be the portion of registered voters who aren?t familiar with the annexation issue, he said.
The proposed annexation stretches from Route 95 in the south to portions of West Chapel Road in the north, then from Paradise Road west to Aldino Stepney Road. More than half of the total annexation was approved at the last council meeting, over the objection of hundreds who came to protest it.
Mayor Simmons supported the annexation because it gives the city the chance to plan the entire, 3,000-home development all at once, then let it be built out over the course of 10 to 15 years.
“Regardless of the annexation, that growth is going to come in anyway,” Simmons said before the approval. “What we?ve got is a chance to have a say.”
