Boundaries of City of Vicksburg, Matter of, No. 07-CA-59634

• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: ROBERTSON; ROY NOBLE LEE; SULLIVAN; SULLIVAN
• Citation: 560 So.2d 713
• Parties: In the Matter of the Extension of the BOUNDARIES OF the CITY OF VICKSBURG, Mississippi. MAGNOLIA MARINE TRANSPORT COMPANY, Ergon, Inc., Ergon General Store, Inc. d/b/a Ergon Marine and Industrial Supply, Ergon Refining, Inc., Bunge Corporation, Anderson-Tully Company, Tenarc Construction Company, and Warren County Port Commission v. CITY OF VICKSBURG, MS.
• Decision Date: 04 April 1990
• Docket Number: No. 07-CA-59634

Page 713

560 So.2d 713 In the Matter of the Extension of the BOUNDARIES OF the CITY
OF VICKSBURG, Mississippi.
MAGNOLIA MARINE TRANSPORT COMPANY, Ergon, Inc., Ergon
General Store, Inc. d/b/a Ergon Marine and Industrial
Supply, Ergon Refining, Inc., Bunge Corporation,
Anderson-Tully Company, Tenarc Construction Company, and
Warren County Port Commission
v.
CITY OF VICKSBURG, MS. No. 07-CA-59634. Supreme Court of Mississippi. April 4, 1990.
Rehearing Denied May 23, 1990.

Page 714

Joel J. Henderson, Edward D. Lamar, Henderson Duke Dantone & Hines, Greenville, Edley H. Jones, III, Ward Martin Hassell Jones & Williford, Robert R. Bailess, Wheeless Beanland Shappley & Bailess, Vicksburg, for appellants.

Wren C. Way, Way Field & Bodron, Vicksburg, G. Kenner Ellis, Jr., Greenville, for appellee.

Before HAWKINS, P.J., and ROBERTSON and ANDERSON, JJ.

ROBERTSON, Justice, for the Court:

A number of industrial firms north of the present city limits of Vicksburg, Mississippi, appeal a Chancery Court judgment confirming annexation to the City of 31.7 square miles within which Objectors' properties lie. Objectors' principal argument on appeal challenges the jurisdiction of the Chancery Court. They challenge as well the fairness of the proceedings below.

On October 7, 1985, the Mayor and Board of Aldermen of the City of Vicksburg adopted an annexation ordinance finding that the public convenience and necessity required enlargement of the corporate limits of the City by some 68.4 square miles and ordering the annexation thereof. On December 16, 1985, the City commenced the present proceedings by filng in the Chancery Court of Warren County, Mississippi, its complaint for confirmation of the annexation. Throughout the proceedings below, the City argued the entire annexation should be confirmed. In the alternative, the City urged, if the entire annexation were not confirmed, the Court should confirm annexation of a lesser area (-GL-) of 31.7 square miles, and, in fact, in its final judgment the Court did confirm annexation of the lesser area. The 31.7 square mile area confirmed for annexation lies entirely within the original 68.4 square mile area described in the October 7, 1985, annexation ordinance.

Vicksburg's corporate limits have heretofore included some 13.7 square miles in which approximately 26,000 persons reside. The areas in the annexation as confirmed include a large industrial area south and southwest of the present city limits, smaller residential areas to the south, southeast and east, a substantially developed residential corridor extending to the northeast along the western edge of the Vicksburg National Military Park and the harbor fill industrial area to the north and northwest of the present city limits. All Objectors come from this latter area. As enlarged by the annexation, Vicksburg will cover some 45.4 square miles and have a population of approximately 42,000.

Objectors complain that the Court was without authority to approve annexation of the lesser area on grounds the City never made a legislative determination that the public convenience and necessity required such a lesser annexation. The point is specious.

Mississippi law clearly empowers a chancery court sitting in an annexation confirmation proceeding to confirm the annexation of an area less than all the municipality seeks to annex. Mississippi Code Sec. 21-1-33 (1972) provides:

If the chancellor finds from the evidence presented at such hearing that the proposed enlargement or contraction is reasonable and is required by the public convenience and necessity and in the event of an enlargement of a municipality, that reasonable public and municipal services will be rendered in the annexed territory within a reasonable time, the chancellor shall enter a decree approving, ratifying and confirming the proposed enlargement or contraction, and describing the boundaries of the municipality as altered. In so doing the chancellor shall have the right and the power to modify the proposed enlargement or contraction by decreasing the territory to be included in or excluded from the municipality, as the case may be....

In City of Jackson v. Town of Flowood, 331 So.2d 909 (Miss.1976), this Court considered Miss.Code Ann. Sec. 21-1-33 (1972), quoted above, concerning the chancery court's power to modify the proposed area. "This provision of the statute gives the annexation procedure flexibility, and the

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authority of the chancery court to omit areas from the proposed annexation has been upheld in the following cases. Lippian v. Ros, Registrar, 253 Miss. 325, 175 So.2d 138 (1965); In re City of Forest, 247 Miss. 340, 153 So.2d 688 (1963); In re City of Philadelphia, 232 Miss. 582, 100 So.2d 100 (1958); Dodd v. City of Jackson, 238 Miss. 372, 118 So.2d 319 (1960)." Flowood, 331 So.2d at 912. In Flowood, this Court upheld the exclusion of two areas from the Chancery Court's consideration due to an agreement between the city and objectors.

As stated in Lippian v. Ros, Registrar, 253 Miss. 325, 175 So.2d 138 (1965), the chancery court has the authority to "(1) ratify and approve the ordinance if found to be reasonable, (2) modify the proposed enlargement or contraction by decreasing the territory to be included or excluded, or (3) deny in toto the proposed enlargement or contraction if it is found to be unreasonable." Lippian, 175 So.2d at 144, citing Smith v....