City officials say they plan to move forward with an involuntary annexation of the Southwind Acres area and the commercial property on the southwest corner of Fir Road and Grand Street near the Myers Park retail development complex.

City Administrator Tom Short told the Carthage Planning and Zoning and Historic Preservation Commission that the owners of T's Corner, the convenience store at the corner of Fir and Grand, refused to come into the city voluntarily, so the city will have to resort to an involuntary annexation.

"We've got this scheduled with the presidential election on Nov. 4, so we'll have a lot of people voting for the annexation," Short said. "It's basically a two-part vote, people in the annexed area have to approve the annexation and the people in Carthage outside the annexed area have to approve it. It's got to get a majority vote in each area. If we don't get a majority in both of those areas we have to hold a second election and we have to get two-thirds of everybody in both areas to approve it."

Short said the Carthage City Council took the initial step of approving a resolution to start the annexation process on May 13, and the city staff will prepare a plan of intent for the area by the end of next week.

He said the plan of intent has to include how police, fire and utility services will be provided, a schedule showing when the city will provide all these services, the level at which the city assesses the property and rate at which it will be taxed, how the city will zone the land and when the annexation will take effect.

"It's in line with what the (planning and zoning) commission recommended to the council as far as the annexation policy," Short said. "One of the key parts of that was annexing doughnuts, areas that were completely surrounded by the city limits and this is one. It's right in a growth area and it's basically uncontrolled as far as any kind of zoning. Basically anything could go in out there."

In other business, the Short said a first draft of the city's first new comprehensive plan in 14 years might be finished for staff review as early as the end of this week.

He said workers at Our Planning Works, the Leewood, Kan., company helping prepare the comprehensive plan, say they are close to finishing the first draft.

Short and Planning and Zoning Chairwoman Carolyn Wyatt said the recent announcement by the Chamber of Commerce that Americold plans to sell property along Civil War Road for a possible strip mine might drastically alter the city's long-range options for industrial development and need to be included in the plan.