Beware, Boynton Beach, of premature annexation | Editorial
Typically, marriage prospects brighten if the bridesmaids and best men lining up behind the happy couple aren’t all divorce attorneys.
The city of Boynton Beach is not going to be that lucky. The nearby communities they hope to court are already lawyering up.
A city commission discussion in January of whether annexing 38 communities makes financial sense was barely more than a wink and a nod, with a slide show and about 15 minutes of talk. A study determining whether the benefits outweigh costs will take months.
That’s because the scope is staggering. Fully realized, the two-part annexation could swell the city’s population by 34,911 people, roughly a 40% increase. It would add another 4,467 acres. Gated communities with million-dollar-plus homes would be vacuumed up along with a mobile home community and modest retirement enclaves.
How about a workshop?
The only comment at the meeting about potential problems with all those new residents came almost as an afterthought. Maybe, said one commissioner, they would need a workshop. All commissioners agreed that the city needs to take its time.
Residents in target communities aren’t waiting. And they want much more than a workshop.
Even after Boynton’s mayor assured representatives of the sprawling Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations that nothing would be done if it did not benefit them, residents began weighing legal options.
City officials may be shocked at the ferocity of the reaction, but the city has stumbled into the same pothole that tripped up Palm Beach Gardens and other municipalities looking to expand their boundaries.
They’re not just adding revenue and land mass. They’re adding people, too, and people don’t like being dragged into murky relationships.
An annexation case study
Consider Palm Beach Gardens. It sought to bring a mere 1,316 acres and 8,352 residents into the fold. By February, when Gardens officials tried to set up question-and-answer sessions with community groups, the annexation plan was announced, opposition solidified, misinformation abounded and the city was having trouble getting residents to take a meeting.
The next month, the Gardens’ annexation plan went down in flames: Roughly nine of every ten voters cast ballots against it.
Before Boynton’s January meeting, before the slideshow had been pieced together, city officials had an opportunity to meet with groups of residents in the affected communities — not to tell them what Boynton wanted, but to ask them what they would want from Boynton.
But then, Boynton may feel it doesn’t need residents’ support. The city appears willing to force annexations on communities using clauses in contracts struck with developers. In exchange for city water, Boynton Beach secured rights to annex the communities at a later date.
Not all those contracts, some of them decades old, have been located by the city. It’s possible not all are enforceable.
Like a shotgun wedding
It’s clear enough, though, that some still-unknown number of residents will have no right to a vote and no say in the same choices the city is now sorting through: Who will fix their roads and police their streets, decide how much taxes they pay and be their voice in local government.
No wonder people are searching out lawyers. The contracts create the feel of a pending shotgun wedding.
You can’t really blame Boynton for succumbing to annexation’s bottom-line allure. True, there would be costs, everything from new garbage trucks to more city planners. It’s one reason the feasibility study could take up to a year.
Still, the additional $2.9 billion in taxable value could pump $23 million or more into city coffers.
Boynton could use the cash. It’s not that the city is swimming in red ink. But like most municipalities, it has IOUs. Among them: unfunded pension obligations.
Many cities struggle to boost pension funds and Boynton is no exception. In 2023, the police officers’ pension plan was only 63.8% funded, according to city financial statements.
It’s not too late for Boynton to start a listening tour of the communities it covets. It should happen now, in conjunction with the city examination of costs and benefits, not later. After all, resident buy-in is part of the equation: Any money benefits of tying the knot will shrink if they come with 34,911 unhappy brides.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.