By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

Mayor Jones again casts a lustful eye west

I know this publication hasn’t been a champion of Wal-Mart in the past and I don’t think that will ever change, but for this brief moment, here in my Duchy of “To Whom it May Concern land,” let me celebrate Wal-Mart, the retail catalyst for the city of Mobile’s newfound Manifest Destiny.

I imagine Mayor Jones and advisors, aloft on some building balcony with an unobstructed view to the west, gazing towards the setting sun, when the Mayor compresses his spy glass, turns to the gathered and declares, “There it is, across the fruited plain of Mid-Town, Spring Hill, West Mobile, our destiny! Our destiny is there in the bright gleaming retail Shangri-La of Wal-Mart in Tillman’s Corner and in Semmes! These are times for brave men and brave deeds and only through the gaining of these lands to the west full of the natural resource called “sales-tax” will our fair country…err…city be able to prosper. Fear not the tribulations that may slow our westward expansion, for they are just county voters and will fall away in time, for our quest is true and our success destiny!”

Well, that is just the way I imagine Sam Jones rallying the troops for yet another annexation push.

The ridiculousness of that speech mirrors the ridiculousness of the latest annexation push for territories outside the Mobile city limits, Elbridge Gerry would be embarrassed by the excesses that are proposed under the gerrymander technique he gave birth to all those years ago. There are four areas that are currently needed to feed Mobile’s Lebensraum.

The districts du jour are; firstly a singular subdivision just west of Cody, which currently marks the city limits in that area, it would be a small South Ossetia-like outcropping of Mobile jutting into a sea of Mobile County. Then there are two subdivisions off Snow Road slated for annexation that would be the westernmost outpost of Mobile, a city on the move! This area makes about as much geographic sense as part of Mobile as Guantanamo Bay does being part of the United States.

This outpost on the edge of the empire is only connected by a couple hundred yards of border with the current edge of town. The next and first of a pair of proposed Wal-Mart colonies is an area of Theodore and Tillman’s Corner, which is hubbed by a big-ol’ sales-tax-generating Wal-Mart Super Store, ‘nuff said.

Lastly and most comically, the tax twin to the Theodore/Tillman’s Corner proposed annexation area is the Moffett Road to Semmes Wal-Mart corridor. If this annexation actually goes through someone please change the name of Moffett Road to “Gerrymander Parkway.” This annexation looks like some sort of odd-shaped frying pan, with the pan part being a believable annexation block, sharing borders with the current city limits on two sides. The laughable section of this proposed annexation is the frying pan handle that juts off from the block at north-west angle and snakes along both sides of Moffett Road until it meets it’s terminus, creating a viper-like head at the Semmes Wal-Mart.

The beauty of our political system is that county folks will get to vote their annexation fate. They will weigh the benefits of receiving city fire and police protection, which many of them already get, plus garbage service and city-funded streetlights against the increased sales and property taxes and increased business license costs.

These votes are possible impediments to Jones-town’s westward expansion and Mobile’s Manifest Destiny to stretch from bay to shining Big Creek Lake. I have figured out one attractive loophole for life-sworn city tax dodgers. Each of the annexed areas are promised a five year moratorium on property tax increases, which sets the plate to enjoy city services without an additional pesky city tax increase for four-and-a-half years and then the savvy tax dodger can sell their property move across the city limit line to the next area in the county proposed for annexation and do it all again. A sort of property tax flip racket. I will be bringing my “how to dodge taxes and yet get city services” seminar to a coffee shop somewhere in the county soon.

I know there are many Mobile Bon-Vivants, dining al fresco at their favorite cafes, drinking light summery cocktails right now nodding along with all that I’ve said. These people don’t want these areas of the hinterlands added to their city for reasons from snobbery to worries of further straining already strained city police and fire departments. Heads up you bunch of citified dandies, Sam Jones’ push to the west may be the only hope the city of Mobile has to prosper or even hold the status quo.

As much as I lampoon the way in which the city is growing, I believe the growth in Mobile’s size and it’s tax base are the only ways the city will prosper. So annex west young men annex west, but please do it the right way.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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