Avondale Estates will not submit an annexation plan to the state legislature, at least not this year.
“What we’re hearing about the mood [of state legislators], they don’t want to deal with it,” Mayor Jonathan Elmore said Tuesday. “This is not the right time, the right year. We’re not giving up, but first we have to build some relationships.”
The reference was in part to American Legion Harold Byrd Post 66, which owns 15 acres just east of the city, and which Avondale has wanted to annex for at least a year.
Byrd financial officer Jim Bishop read a long statement during a Feb. 1 work session that took several commissioners by surprise, including Elmore.
Bishop said the Legion doesn’t want to be “dragged … screaming and kicking [into annexation] … which will in the end cause us to marshal our resources into a completely defensive posture.”
“We’re not trying to take their property,” Elmore said. “Heck, we wouldn’t get any revenue off them. We just want them to be part of our city, and one reason is that half their members live in Avondale.
“But there hasn’t been much communication with them,” he said, “and more than anything that’s our fault.”
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