Homeowners Allowed to De-Annex After Heated Discussion of Precedents

The Wentzville Board of Aldermen, after going through a lengthy and rather convoluted process at their Wednesday night regular meeting, voted 4-2 to allow a group of homeowners in the Meadowbrook subdivision to de-annex from the city of Wentzville.

The four homes will now rejoin the other 36 homes in the subdivision as unincorporated St. Charles County.

The homeowners were asked to annex into the city by a developer who wanted to annex his adjoining property and bring city utilities across the four homeowners' properties.

When the proposed development fell through and was sold, the four homeowners found themselves on a tiny strip of incorporated Wentzville at the back of a subdivision, without city water, city sewer or city police service.

Last November, they took their request to de-annex to the board of aldermen.

READ MORE: Aldermen to Discuss Annexation/De-Annexation Issues

Ward 3 Alderman Rick Stokes said that the city should have a policy and procedure in place for de-annexation and that he thought the Meadowbrook issue should wait until such a procedure was in place. "Doing this, we are setting a precedent," he said, and moved to table the bill.

The vote to table was a tie, with Ward 1 Alderman Forrest Gossett siding with Stokes and Ward 3 Alderman Mike Hays and prompting a deciding vote by Mayor Nick Guccione.

But later Gossett reconsidered and asked to have the vote retaken. This time, he sided with Ward 1 Alderman Cheryl Kross, who had originally brought the issue to the board, and Ward 2 Aldermen Chris Gard and Sonya Shryock.

Aye votes from the same four aldermen then passed the second reading and approved the bill.

Kross said that she was not in favor of a procedure for de-annexation. "Last fall, one of this board's directives was to make government smaller. If we do this, that's not smaller government," she said. "It should be as simple as filling out a form. It needs just cause. Petitioners need to go through what these owners went through."

The board decided to put a discussion of de-annexation procedures on a future work session.