By Jennifer Jacob Brown

jjacob@themeridianstar.com



Doorknobs in neighborhoods north and east of what was once Meridian's city limits will not go naked today.

After two years of court battles, Meridian has annexed close to nine miles of land in various spots surrounding the city and is using door hangers to welcome new citizens and provide them with pertinent information.

New residents will be provided with city fire and police protection and curbside garbage pick-up right away and will immediately be added to the city's voting rolls and will be eligible to vote in municipal elections without re-registering.

They will be put on the city tax rolls in January of 2009, but their taxes will not be due until 2010. City sewer and drinking water services will not be available to the annexed area for three to five years, and, Meridian Mayor John Robert Smith said annexed area residents will not pay city water and sewage bills until then.

New residents will not send their children to city schools. They will continue to pay Lauderdale County School District taxes rather than Meridian Public School District taxes, and, as Smith put it “Your children will still go to the same school tomorrow.”

The annexed area includes all three campuses of Northeast school — the elementary school, middle school, and high school.

Though city fire service will begin right away, an additional fire station will not be built immediately. Until then, Meridian Fire Chief Jeff Homan said the fire department will cover the annexed areas from fire stations number 7 and 5, where they will put new trucks. He said any structure fire that occurs in the area will be responded to by 16 firefighters.

"We're currently looking at different land to (build a new fire station which will) enhance coverage, meet state rating bureau recommendations and provide faster response time," Homan said. He said the fire department is also looking into the purchase of a new truck for the new fire station, wherever it will be.

The city had preliminary talks with the county's Northeast Volunteer Fire Department, whose station is located inside the city limits, about teaming up to provide coverage, but Homan said to do so would have been over-complicated, would not have been cost effective, and would have made it harder for the city to provide Class 4 fire rated service to the annexed area.

Because the city fire department has a higher rating than the county volunteer fire departments, annexed area property owners should see their insurance rates drop, Smith said. Both Smith and Homan said the new fire station will be provided as quickly as possible.

"The city government is absolutely committed to provide services to the annexed area in a timely way," Smith said.

"We're full steam ahead," said Homan. "We already have firefighters riding the territory to make themselves familiar."

When the fire station is built, Smith said it will be located for optimal service to Van Zyverden and to Northeast Lauderdale school campuses.

Smith said the city is also in negotiation with property owners for a new police sub-station to service the annexed area.

One issue that has not been fully resolved yet is into which city council ward residents will be assigned. Temporarily, they will be put into either ward 1 or ward 2, but eventually the city will have to redraw its district lines so that each ward has an even population. The council plans to meet Tuesday to put annex residents into their temporary wards.

There are five parcels of land included in the annex, and by far the most populated is parcel one, which includes the Eagle Pointe and Briarwood neighborhoods and showed a population of 1,300 in the most recent census. This parcel stretches north and south from the old city limit to Briarwood Road, and from just west of Northeast Middle School to just east of Northeast High School. It was largely residents of this parcel, especially of the Eagle Pointe neighborhood, that fought hardest against the annexation, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for court fees.

After two years of litigation that went all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court, the three entities that were suing to impede the annexation — Lauderdale County, the Town of Marion, and citizen anti-annexation groups — were successful in slightly reducing the amount of land taken over by the city. They were not successful, however, in keeping Eagle Pointe and Briarwood outside the city limits.

An area stretching from Marion's eastern town limit to the east of Hwy. 45 was requested for annexation by the city but was excluded so as not to impede the growth of the Town of Marion. The City of Meridian will now border Marion to the west, north, and south.

Parcel two includes Northeast Elementary School and a small amount of land to the east and south. The area was already bordered on all sides by Meridian and Marion, and as of the 2000 census had no residents.

Parcel three, which also showed a zero population in the 2000 census, runs along Hwy. 11/80 on the south and the southern border of Marion on the north and includes the Central Industrial Park at Hawkin's Crossing.

Parcel four runs east to west from Sweet Gum Bottom Road to Murphy Road and north to south from Will Wright Road to Hwy. 11/80. It includes the Pine Ridge Landfill, the western portion of the Lauderdale County Industrial Park, and several residential neighborhoods. As of 2000, it had a population of less than 150.

Parcel five is a small area north of Old Eighth Street Road that puts the Jaycee Soccer Complex inside the city limits. The parcel also contains a small number of residential homes and had a population of 15 at the time of the 2000 census.

The annexed areas will put 30 businesses inside the city limits, including Van Zyverden, Avery Dennison, and Waste Management.

While many of the residents who opposed the annex say they don't feel that they will get any additional services for the additional taxes they will pay, Smith said that, not only will they get additional services, they were already enjoying some city-funded public services such as the use of city parks.

"They're very much a part of Meridian, and that's what was proven in the annexation case," Smith said. "The reason they are living where they do is because of its proximity to Meridian."

He said that now that residents of the annexed area have become citizens of Meridian, they will enjoy better planning, curbside garbage and recycling pick-up for only $2 more per month than the county charges for dumpster use, city police and fire protection and therefore lower insurance rates, better sewage service in an area that he said was suffering from septic contamination, and the benefits of city zoning laws.

Newly annexed businesses



The new annexed area contains many businesses — from very small businesses to some of the county's biggest employers. The City of Meridian provided a list showing exactly which businesses they are:



• Briarwood Country Club

• Best of Both Worlds Therapy

• Lori Shea's Xpressions

• Van Zyverden, Inc.

• Kim's Quick Tan

• O.C. Barham Funeral Home

• Commercial Bank

• An unnamed warehouse

• Henderson Steel Corp.

• Avery Dennison

• Luvel

• Flowers

• Commercial Doors and Hardware Plus, Inc.

• Ryder

• Bartlett Caster Co.

• Waste Management

• An unnamed bar

• WNBN AM 1290 Radio

• Central Park Warehouse

• Allred Investments

• Heritage Building Corp.

• One Stop Building Supply

• Bruister and Associates

• John E. Smith & Company

• The Service Co., Inc.

• Tri-State Mack

• Gipson Steel, Inc.

• WMOX

• Pine Ridge Landfill and Recycling Center

• An unnamed junkyard

• Alexander Fabricating Company

Source: City of Meridian

Changes in Meridian's

statistics



Pre-annex Within annex Post-annex Meridian Meridian

Total population: 38,605 1,782 40,387

White population: 17,580 (44%) 1,205 (84%) 18,785 (45%)

Black population: 21,729 (54%) 198 (13%) 21,927 (53%)

Other ethnicities population: 659 (1.6%) 24 (1.7%) 683(1.6%)

Voting age population: 29,100 1,051 30,151

Dwelling units: 17,890 592 18,482

Persons per dwelling units: 2.2 2.4 2.2

Land area in sq. miles: 45.10 8.83 53.93

Population density: 886 162 768

Businesses (2005)*: 1,571 30 1,601



Source: City of Meridian. Statistics based on 2000 census except for *.