‘It’s Annexing War’

It’s the age-old question. If one town annexes the land that a state highway is paved on, and another grabs a drainage ditch that runs underneath, who gets the nearby plot for lucrative commercial development? Okay, so this never really comes up, but the Town of Frederick recently took the unusual step of voting to take over a swath of land under Highway 52 near the intersection of County Road 5. Erie already owns the rights to the highway as well as some wetlands the drainage ditch leads to. “It’s annexing war,” says a displeased Erie Mayor Andrew Moore, although he avoided talking further on the topic since it’s now in litigation. At stake is access to a prime piece of retail land that could add serious cash to either town’s sales tax base.

What’s next: We wait for litigation to unfold and hope the two towns don’t kill each other first.