By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer
July 08, 2009 10:24 pm
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The town of Webbers Falls has annexed the Webbers Falls Lock and Dam without notification to or permission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“That could end up in federal court,” said Ross Adkins, spokesman for the Corps’ Tulsa office.
He said the Corps had heard nothing about the annexation until the Phoenix made inquiry.
“Any such annexation would require the permission of the Corps and would first go to the project manager — and he hasn’t heard anything,” Adkins said later.
“If it’s Corps property, it (any annexation of property) goes all the way to Washington (D.C.).”
Muskogee County Assessor Dan Ashwood said the property is in the name of the United States of America.
The Corps probably won’t take any action until the town tries to serve papers on the Corps, Adkins said.
The annexation ordinance was passed and approved by the Webbers Falls Board of Trustees on June 9, 2009, according to a document filed in the Muskogee County Clerk’s Office on June 16 and meeting minutes for June 9.
The document states the ordinance was an emergency, and immediate necessity existed by reason of the protection of the citizens of Webbers Falls.
The only signatures on the document were those of Mayor Jewell Horne and City Clerk Susan Dwyer. Board of Trustees members were named as Henry “Sonny” Tipken and Dennis Berton, but their signatures were not on the document.
Horne refused to comment.
Tipken said Horne assured trustees that with a lot of construction expected in the dam area over the next few years, the town could receive sales tax from equipment used in the construction if the property were annexed into the town.
Webbers Falls attorney Troy Wayne Poteete wrote the council in May that there were some “very specific requirements about giving notice to property owners, having hearings, etc. that were not followed in the past. I advise that you should follow this procedure.”
There is no record of recommended hearings. The annexation was published in the Haskell newspaper twice in June, Dwyer said.
Reach Donna Hales at 684-2923 or dhales @muskogeephoenix.com.
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