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Petitioners for Deannexation v. City of Goodyear3/23/1989
The City of Goodyear (Goodyear) appeals from a judgment that permitted deannexation of a portion of Goodyear's city limits pursuant to 1986 Ariz.Sess.Laws ch. 45, § 4, as amended by 1986 Ariz.Sess.Laws ch. 414, § 1 (deannexation law). The sole issue we reach on appeal is whether the act giving rise to the deannexation is a "local or special" law and therefore unconstitutional.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In the 1970's and 1980's a spate of municipal annexations occurred in Arizona that appeared to have no relationship to legitimate municipal concerns. See Glick v. Town of Gilbert, 123 Ariz. 395, 599 P.2d 848 (App.1979). Glick indicated that some cities were engaging in "strip" annexation, that is, were artificially extending their boundaries to include potentially high value taxable areas, or to defend against the encroachment of equally aggressive neighboring municipalities. See also Report of Arizona State Legislative Joint Interim Meeting on Urban Growth Policy, Oct. 31, and 1985, Jan. 7, 1986; Maricopa and Pima Counties Neighborhood Position on Annexation Reform, Feb. 1, 1986. In response to these concerns, the Legislature in 1985 initially placed a statewide moratorium on all annexations. A.R.S. § 9-471.
The Legislature then undertook a comprehensive revision of the annexation laws, which made more stringent the statutory requirements for annexation. See A.R.S. § 9-471 (effective April 10, 1986). As part of this process, and in recognition of past abuses, the Legislature enacted a provision that would allow a portion of a previously annexed area to be "deannexed." Representative Denny stated, "the problems that the area of Litchfield Farms [the property under consideration here] has had with strip annexations by the cities of Avondale, Goodyear, Phoenix and Glendale," could be cured by a deannexation statute that "would provide an appeals process for the first time in the State of Arizona." Minutes of Meeting, House Committee on Counties and Municipalities, Feb. 6, 1986, at 2.
The original bill dealing with deannexation provided that:
A. The superior court shall order the deannexation of territory from a city or town and return the territory to the jurisdiction
of the county if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
H.B. 2189, 37th Legis., 2d Reg. Sess. (1986). This bill, as introduced, had statewide application. The bill that was subsequently passed was significantly narrower in scope:
A. The superior court shall order the deannexation of territory from a city or town having a population of less than ten thousand persons according to the 1980 United States decennial census within a county having a population in excess of one million two hundred thousand persons according to the 1980 United States decennial census and return the territory to the jurisdiction of the county if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
(Emphasis added.) See Senate Committee Amendments to H.B. 2189, Mar. 21, 1986, at 3.
The bill, as passed and as signed by the Governor, limited its applicability to the population according to the 1980 census and only affected Maricopa County and the following thirteen cities within Maricopa County: Gilbert, Avondale, Guadalupe, Goodyear, Tolleson, Surprise, Wickenburg, El Mirage, Buckeye, Youngtown, Gila Bend, Carefree, and Cave Creek.
After being signed by the Governor, the act, in the same legislative session, was further amended to provide that deannexation was only applicable to cities or towns havin
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