BLUEFIELD —
The greater Brushfork community is no longer being targeted for annexation by the city of Bluefield.
Bluefield Mayor Linda Whalen said Tuesday annexing a city—owned property off U.S. Route 52 was brought up at a meeting in May, but has not been addressed by the board since.
“The only thing we were looking at annexing into Bluefield was the property we own on U.S. Route 52,” Whalen said. “I don’t know the status of that. (Board Member) Dr. (Tom) Blevins did make the comment of looking into the possibility of other parts of Brushfork wanting to be annexed in, but that is not something the city wants to pursue. Any time you have to annex a piece of property the owner has to be interested. We were just looking at our own property. Annexing anything other than our property wasn’t something we really discussed at length.”
Blevins brought up the annexation idea during the May 22 board meeting, stating a Brushfork resident had approached him about annexation. Blevins said the man felt the Brushfork and Bluewell areas were not receiving adequate police protection and thought the Bluefield Police Department could respond faster. Messages left with Blevins were not immediately returned Tuesday evening.
Board member Deb Sarver previously said “attitudes have changed in some places about annexation.” When contacted Tuesday, Sarver said annexation was not seriously considered by the city.
“In passing, it was brought up that several people in that area had experienced break-ins and they thought it would have been nice if Bluefield police could respond,” Sarver said. “There was never really a plan brought to the table. That is where it started, and the board never really thought about making a decision regarding this. We really haven’t made a move on this. I know people think we are going out there and bringing them into the city limits, which is really not the case. If the people wanted it, we would look into it, but it isn’t something we are in discussions about. People would have to vote to agree to it, and we wouldn’t want to force them into doing anything they don’t want to. I just feel like the board has been blasted over this when our intention was not to do this in the first place.”
Interim City Manager and City Attorney Brian Cochran said there are presently no plans for annexation on the table at this point.
“The city of Bluefield has absolutely no plans whatsoever to annex anything in Brushfork and Bluewell,” Cochran said. “We just don’t. I’ve read the letters to the editor myself. It would be almost impossible to do, even if we wanted to do it. There has been no indication whatsoever that anyone here wants to do that at this time.”
Cochran said the city owns the former Andy Clark Used Car Lot, which is located off U.S. Route 52 and outside the city limits. In order to bring that property into the city, Cochran said the city would have to annex the road, but no other properties would be annexed as a result of any road annexations.
“Right now the property is not contiguous to city property, and we cannot annex it without annexing the road,” Cochran said. “We would just annex the road to get to our own property. We are not asking for any other property to be annexed except our own. We haven’t even asked for our own property to be annexed yet. If the road is annexed, all that means is the Bluefield Fire Department and police can respond there for an accident and wouldn’t have a fee charged.”
According to Cochran, the city has looked into the annexation process.
“What we would have to do is go to the Department of Highways, which we have done, to annex the roadway only,” Cochran said. “Once you annex the roadway, the property owner — which in this case is the city — can petition the county commission to annex that piece of property into the city limits. Our engineers have been looking into it at this time, but we have not had any formal vote to do (it).”
Cochran said the city has no plans at the present time for the property off of Route 52.
“We don’t have any plans for the property at this time,” he said. “I know at some point it could be developed into something, but right now we are just holding on to it. There is no reason why we wouldn’t sell it if someone was interesting in developing something. It was originally bought for the transit system, but then plans changed.”
— Contact Kate Coil at
kcoil@bdtonline.com�
Local News
July 18, 2012
Officials: Bluefield has no annexation plans at this time
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