City of Port Isabel v. Pinnell
| Decision Date | 12 October 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 13-05-413-CV.,13-05-413-CV. |
| Parties | CITY OF PORT ISABEL, Texas, Appellant, v. HP PINNELL, Trustee of Pinnell Trust and The Town of South Padre Island, Texas, Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Alan T. Ozuna, Ricardo J. Navarro, Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal, Harlingen, Rene O. Oliveira, Jeffrey D. Roerig, Roerig, Oliveira & Fisher, Brownsville, for appellant.
Horacio L. Barrera, Martinez & Barrera, Brownsville, R.K. Whittington, Law Office of R.K. Whittington, Harlingen, Bradley B. Young, Cobby Caputo, Austin, Paul Y. Cunningham, South Padre, Island, Neil E. Norquest, Rodriguez, Colvin, Chaney & Saenz, McAllen, Noe E. Perez, Laguna Vista, for appellees.
Before Chief Justice VALDEZ and Justices YAÑEZ and CASTILLO.
Appellant, City of Port Isabel, Texas ("CPI"), appeals from the trial court judgment following a bench trial in favor of appellees, HP Pinnell, Trustee of Pinnell Trust ("Pinnell"), and The Town of South Padre Island, Texas ("SPI"). In thirteen issues, CPI challenges the trial court's judgment declaring a series of annexation ordinances to be void, and permanently enjoining CPI from (1) enforcing the ordinances, and (2) enacting any future ordinances to annex (a) the Pinnell property, (b) areas located entirely in the Laguna Madre, or (c) areas not contiguous or adjacent to CPI's city limits or within its extraterritorial jurisdiction prior to passage of the ordinances in issue. We affirm as modified.
In issue is a series of annexation ordinances CPI passed between June 2003 and April 2004. CPI is a home-rule municipality located on the mainland of Texas, bordering a body of water known as the Laguna Madre. SPI is a general law municipality located on South Padre Island ("the Island"). The Laguna Madre lies between CPI and the Island. The Pinnell property is located on the Island, north of SPI, and consists of 460 acres. The only means of access to and from the Island (other than by water or air) is the Queen Isabella Memorial Causeway which is two and one-half miles long. The distance across the Laguna Madre from CPI on the mainland to the Island varies from two and one-half miles at the causeway, to six-seven miles farther to the North. The Pinnell property is located approximately six miles across the Laguna Madre from CPI.
In June 2003, CPI passed annexation ordinance No. 625. This ordinance annexed an area extending around and contiguous to a portion of CPI's city limits, from its north to east sides. The territory encompassed by this ordinance consists principally of an area in the Laguna Madre, and an adjacent thin strip of land. This ordinance has not been invalidated.
From July through November of 2003, CPI passed three more ordinances, each designed to annex 5-mile tracts located entirely in the Laguna Madre. The first of these was purported to be contiguous to that territory annexed by ordinance No. 625; the others annexed blocks of territory in a line extending toward the north, each allegedly contiguous to the next.1 Together, the ordinances extended CPI's boundary fifteen miles over the water.
None of the parties dispute that a controversy arose over whether CPI's 5-mile annexations were valid. To quiet these claims of invalidity, CPI decided to reannex the total area annexed by ordinance Nos. 627, 628, and 633 in 1-mile increments.2 CPI held public hearings relating to these re-annexations on January 26 and 27, 2004.
On February 4, 2004, CPI's city manager sent Pinnell a notice that CPI intended to annex the Pinnell property, and that relevant hearings would be held March 8 and 9, 2004. On February 23, 2004, Pinnell requested SPI to expand its extraterritorial jurisdiction ("ETJ") to include the Pinnell property.3 SPI accepted Pinnell's request and, on March 8, 2004, adopted SPI ordinance No. 04-04. SPI and Pinnell contend and the trial court found that ordinance No. 04-04 became effective on the date of Pinnell's request, which was February 23, 2004, the day before the re-annexations undertaken by CPI.
On February 24, 2004, CPI held thirty-four consecutive "mini" meetings lasting a total of approximately forty-three minutes, directed to adopting seventeen new ordinances, Nos. 636-652, dealing with re-annexation of the territory in the Laguna Madre. The last of these, ordinance No. 652, annexed territory that brought the Pinnell property within one mile of CPI's then-extended city limits, and consequently within its then ETJ. Because this action conflicts with rights alleged by SPI over its ETJ as extended by ordinance No. 04-04, this dispute ensued.
On March 29, 2004, Pinnell filed suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against CPI. Pinnell's petition asked the court to declare (1) CPI's annexation ordinances void ab initio, and (2) the Pinnell property part of SPI's ETJ and therefore not subject to annexation by CPI. Pinnell also sought injunctive relief, asking the trial court to permanently enjoin CPI from enforcing existing ordinances and from enacting future annexation ordinances in the Laguna Madre and on the Island.
While this litigation was pending, on March 31, 2004, CPI enacted ordinance No. 656, which annexed an area that extended over the Laguna Madre and included territory on the south end of the Island. Although ordinance No. 656 was not a re-annexation ordinance, it was also invalidated by the trial court's judgment.
On April 1, 2004, SPI joined the suit as an intervenor.
In their petitions, Pinnell and SPI complained that the re-annexations undertaken by CPI contained numerous errors and thus their legal descriptions were inadequate. To diffuse these complaints and rectify any alleged problems, CPI enacted three more ordinances on April 7, 2004, to clarify those legal descriptions.
Specifically, Pinnell and SPI claimed that ordinance No. 636 was not contiguous to CPI's city limits, even as extended by 625, and that since all remaining ordinances were dependent on No. 636 for its contiguity to CPI, all were void. In response, CPI enacted ordinance No. 658 to close a gap and bring the annexed territory adjacent to CPI's extended city limits.
Pinnell and SPI also claimed that the legal description in ordinance No. 641 failed to define a boundary on its eastern side. They further claimed that, even assuming ordinance Nos. 636-640 were valid, the remaining areas (Nos.642-652) depended upon ordinance No. 641 for contiguity to CPI's city limits and were consequently invalid. In response, CPI enacted ordinance No. 659 to provide an eastern boundary and close the territory defined in the ordinance.
Finally, Pinnell and SPI claimed that a gap existed between territory annexed by ordinance Nos. 642 and 643, and that this gap invalidated all successive ordinances including Nos. 644-652. In response, CPI enacted ordinance No. 660 to correct the problem and close the gap.
On April 9 or 10, 2004, after suit had been filed and SPI had joined as an intervenor, CPI passed ordinance No. 657 to annex the Pinnell property itself. Ordinance No. 657 annexes territory contiguous to and within CPI's ETJ as extended by ordinance No. 652.
Validity of ordinance No. 657 depends upon the validity of the annexations of all the other re-annexation ordinances for contiguity to CPI's city limits. Pinnell and SPI claim that all the ordinances, including No. 657, were void ab initio for a variety of reasons. They therefore contend the Pinnell property was and is not contiguous to CPI's city limits, and remains outside of its one-mile ETJ.4
Pinnell and SPI additionally argue the Pinnell property already lay within SPI's ETJ at the time ordinance No. 657 was passed, by virtue of SPI's ordinance No. 04-04, and that CPI is therefore precluded from accessing that property, regardless of the validity of the other ordinances.
On October 1, 2004, CPI filed a plea to the jurisdiction asserting that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action. The trial court denied CPI's plea on October 18, 2004. The case was tried to the bench in January 2005. CPI brought an interlocutory appeal from the trial court's denial of CPI's plea to the jurisdiction; the trial court was affirmed by this Court on March 24, 2005.5 The trial court's final judgment, finding in favor of Pinnell and SPI on all claims, issued on April 6, 2005.
The final judgment provides that: (1) CPI's annexation ordinance Nos. 627, 628, 633, 636-652, 658-660 and 657 were void ab initio; (2) the Pinnell property became a part of SPI's ETJ on February 23, 2004; (3) CPI's notices for meetings held February 24 and April 7, 2004, failed to satisfy legal requisites; (4) SPI sued in good faith to enforce provisions of the Open Meetings Act; and (4) CPI is permanently enjoined from either enforcing these ordinances or enacting similar annexation ordinances in the future. The trial court subsequently entered fifty-nine pages of Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on May 27, 2005. This appeal ensued.
CPI presents thirteen issues for review, asking this Court to find that the trial court erred in:
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