Photo from Alabama Judicial System website
Alabama Supreme Court
The city of Hoover has asked the Alabama Supreme Court to overturn a Jefferson County judge’s temporary restraining order that prevents Hoover from annexing property in the Indian Ford Fire District while Helena gets paperwork in order for an annexation election for residents in the district.
The Helena City Council on June 12 accepted an annexation petition from the Indian Ford Fire District and set an Aug. 8 election to allow the 2,000 or so residents in the district to vote on whether they want to come into the Helena city limits.
However, the city of Hoover — aware of Helena’s efforts — also started taking steps to entice some property owners in the Indian Ford Fire District to come into the city of Hoover instead, offering tax abatements and other incentives, such as agreeing to pay the fire dues that property owners must pay to leave a fire district.
The Hoover City Council, in an effort to beat Helena in the annexation race, held a special meeting on July 13 to have a first reading of an ordinance to annex some of those properties and planned to vote to annex the properties on July 17 and begin the process for additional annexations.
Helena went to court, asking Jefferson County Circuit Judge David Hobdy to block Hoover’s annexations efforts, saying state law prohibits municipalities from annexing property once another municipality already has begun annexation proceedings.
Helena also claimed that Hoover was cherry-picking property either already zoned for commercial use or with strong potential for commercial use and that, if Hoover were successful, it may no longer make financial sense for Helena to annex the fire district.
Hoover argued that the state statute Helena was using to call an annexation election had been declared void by the Alabama Supreme Court and by the Alabama attorney general’s office.
Furthermore, Helena did not follow all the guidelines set up under a more general law regarding municipal annexations, said Albert Jordan, an attorney representing Hoover.
Hobdy ordered Hoover to refrain from starting the annexation process for any property in the Indian Ford Fire District until at least July 28 while Helena makes sure its paperwork is in order, saying that Helena and the Indian Ford Fire District could suffer irreparable harm without the restraining order.
Hobdy noted that the fire district first sought annexation into Helena and said he issued the order “in the interest of justice and to allow the citizens of the Indian Ford Fire District to have their voices heard.”
Hoover, in its appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, not only questioned whether Hobdy could block Hoover’s efforts based on a law the Supreme Court had ruled to be void, but also questioned whether Hobdy had jurisdiction to issue a temporary restraining order in the absence of an official legal pleading that demands a judgment.
