In the long term, the worst element that could appear in Anniston isn’t Oxford’s ascension, the Army’s departure, or the town’s confounding addiction to overlooked possibilities. It’s a de-annexation.
No one desires to talk about it. Not publicly, at least. But in private get-togethers and informal chats, a modest number of Annistonians in a handful of neighborhoods are poking around the rims of this ability nightmare state of affairs for City Hall. The mystery they need to be saved silently is oozing out; there is a drip right here and colorlessness there. Their motives are various: frustrations over the town’s track desires to enhance property values and beliefs that Anniston City Schools are the albatrosses citizens can’t escape. People are bored with it. Somewhere, possibly prominently, the City Council’s lack of ability to keep away from getting sucked into Councilmen Ben Little and David Reddick’s recurring shenanigans probably performs a position, too.
This is a set race, and it’s no longer about race. That’s why de-annexation is both the last element and the worst issue that has to occur. Above all, the imaginative and prescient of majority-white, higher-earnings neighborhoods bolting from a racially divided metropolis and its almost all-black public colleges would be catastrophic. Economically, as a minimum, I get it. My circle of relatives has lived for over 25 years in Golden Springs, a few blocks from the simple school and so close to the new Burger King that you could smell the grease from my driveway. And it doesn’t take a Realtor’s license to remember that resale values almost everywhere within the metropolis could creep within the desired route if Anniston’s faculties have been a magnet for process creators and monetary builders.
I don’t fault them for it. However, I suspect that the Annistonians asking about the de-annexation method aren’t troubled by this reality — that three many years of white flight from Anniston City Schools have performed a profound function within the system’s re-segregation and the thought that there are two Anniston, no longer one. It’s telling that a few Anniston churches encompass a stipend of their pastors’ salaries to pay for private school lessons. The “Anniston tax” isn’t a fantasy because it’s known in whispers. De-annexation isn’t an easy process. It includes formal petition requests, criminal suggestions, council votes, and legislative topics. Petitions may be declined and are. And they regularly get messy. That occurred some years ago in Shelby County, where a Chelsea community wanted to sever ties with Pelham because of a school zoning plan.
I could imagine landowners alongside Buckelew Bridge Road south of Interstate 20 trying to shed their Anniston address. That’s an Anniston appendage dipping low into Oxford that’s tough to explain on a map. I could believe owners in Edgefield Farm alongside Greenbrier-Dear Road — where houses mechanically sell north of $500,000 — trying to shed their Anniston deal. And I may want to consider landowners at McClellan — especially residential landowners — who are eager to have their houses zoned for Calhoun County Schools. Those hypotheticals would go away Anniston with an even smaller populace, a less-diverse population, and a diminished tax base in sensible terms. The city’s price range absolutely could suffer. Worse, nevertheless, would be the optics. Remember that it is about race and no longer approximately race. Anniston is a twisted pretzel of issues; some are related, and others are no longer. Little and Reddick’s crusade opposing former City Manager Jay Johnson became reprehensible. However, they shoulder no direct blame for recognizing Anniston’s schools or the violent crime quotes from a number of the neighborhoods in their wards.
