By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra
For the second time in two weeks, the Paris City Council has disannexed property because the owner complained that promised services had never been provided since the city annexed the land 10 years or so ago.
Last month, the council granted a property owner’s request to disannex property on Smallwood Road north of Elk Hollow Golf Club.
Dr. Robert Zimmerman
Monday night, the council gave the same treatment to two lots of 10 acres and three acres belonging to Dr. Robert Zimmerman and his wife, Robyn, about a mile north of Loop 286, on the west side of Stillhouse Road, just inside the city limits.
Public hearings on Sept. 10 and Sept. 17 preceded Monday night’s action, which came by a 5-0 vote of the seven-member council. Mayor AJ Hashmi was out of town, and Mayor Pro-Tem Dr. Richard Grossnickle recused himself. No one spoke in opposition at either of the hearings.
The Zimmermans said the city never provided adequate services to the property after annexing it a number of years ago.
The ordinance dis-annexing the property contains a paragraph saying the council determined that the value of services provided by the city for the direct benefit of the property during the time the property was located within the city limits “equals or exceeds the amount of property taxes and fees collected from the land.”
Zimmerman filed in February 2011 as a candidate for the District 4 seat on the Paris City Council, and as city officials went through the process of verifying his address, it was discovered no city taxes had been applied against the Zimmerman property since the annexation, and Zimmerman was sent a bill for back taxes owed.
Until 2007, when the City Charter was changed, a requirement for running for the city council was not owing any back taxes. A court has stricken that requirement as unconstitutional, and that’s no longer one of the requirements.
But Zimmerman withdrew from the race in April 2011, and earlier this year he petitioned the city council to dis-annex his 13 acres, which were on the west side of Stillhouse Road just inside the city limits.
Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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