VOL. 131 | NO. 65 | Thursday, March 31, 2016

The de-annexation by referendum legislation pending in the Tennessee Legislature was sent to a summer study committee Wednesday, March 30, in the state Senate, effectively killing the proposal for the legislative session.

The move to study committee means the proposal will have to start all over in the legislative process in the 2017-2018 legislative session.

The move in the Senate’s State and Local Government Committee came the day after the committee approved a series of amendments that increased its differences with the version of the bill approved on the state House floor earlier this month.

Senators favoring the move to summer study committee said the overall bill as amended needed more time for legislators to think through the long-term effect of the amendments.

“I’m not sure we have thoroughly considered the effect of all of the various amendments working together,” said Murfreesboro Republican Bill Ketron. “I’m not comfortable with the current bill – that it adequately protects the property owner. I’m very concerned about that.”

But other legislators argued the committee spent a lot of time debating the effect already.

“This committee has invested more time than any summer study committee would invest,” said Hamilton County Republican Bo Watson, the sponsor of the bill. “Let the chips fall where they may. … The legislation deserves a right to have itself heard.”

Another factor in the move to study committee was that sponsors of the legislation, including Watson and Clarksville Republican Mark Green, wanted a Senate floor vote on each of the amendments once the bill cleared the State and Local Government Committee.

That would have been instead of voting on the amendments as a package or a bundle.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland declared the defeat of the legislation City Hall’s top priority in Nashville.

After the move to summer study, Strickland indicated in a written statement that his administration will look for a renewed push for de-annexation by referendum in future legislative sessions.

“We will continue to work with legislators in the coming weeks and months to let them know the bill’s ramifications,” he said.

State Senate Democratic leader Lee Harris of Memphis had similar sentiments.

“One of the worst things about this legislative session was the trauma caused by the prospect of de-annexation and city shrinkage,” Harris said in a written statement.

But he said the opposition at City Hall as well as the business community, including the Greater Memphis Chamber, was also a rallying point.

“This bill gave us a chance to come together,” Harris said. “And I’m hopeful this will be repeated often.”

Greater Memphis Chamber president Phil Trenary called Wednesday’s result a “reprieve.”

“It’s an opportunity to work with our elected officials to get it right,” Trenary said from Nashville.

“We think that it’s appropriate to address the appropriate footprint for a city,” he said. “To the extent a bill allows you to do that and it’s not damaging to our ability to not only attract new jobs, but retain the jobs we have – of course, that’s a good thing.”

Had the bill gone to the Senate floor for a vote and won approval there, a conference committee would have followed to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions.

The Senate version allowed for de-annexation referendums anywhere in the state for areas annexed by a city or municipality since May of 1998.

The House version applied only to five cities, including Memphis, and their annexations since May of 1998.

The Senate version required that 20 percent of the voters in an annexed area sign a petition to put a de-annexation referendum on the ballot for all voters in the area.

The House version set the petition threshold at 10 percent.

The Senate version required those de-annexed to continue to pay a proportional share of general obligation bond debt for capital improvements and a share of the liability for city employees’ pension and other benefits.

The House version required only a share of the capital debt.

Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Mark Norris of Collierville followed the delay with movement of his separate bill to allow for review of urban growth plans.

The plans in which cities and towns made agreements within their counties on annexation reserve areas are nearing the 20-year mark.

Norris’s legislation, which cleared the state and local committee Wednesday on its way to the Senate Calendar Committee, would allow cities and towns to change the plans to shrink their growth areas.