The Citizens of Bellevue group supporting incorporation of the city will seek to withdraw its petition and dismiss the case during a Lamar County Chancery Court hearing on April 12.
According to court action filed March 7 in the 10th District Chancery Court, retired Chancellor Michael H. Ward will hear the two motions at 9 a.m. April 12 in the William J. “Pete” Gamble Chancery Courthouse in Purvis.
The motion to dismiss by the Bellevue Incorporators follows through on a December 2017 announcement by Adcock to pull back the petitions for incorporation.
“The Petitioners have decided that, out of an abundance of caution, the best course of action is to voluntarily withdraw their Petitions, obtain additional signatures, and re-file their Petition to Incorporate,” Adcock said in a Facebook post. “Simply put, the incorporation of the new City of Bellevue is far too important an endeavor to continue without undeniable certainty.”
J. Chadwick Mask of Jackson, the lead attorney who filed the 4,118-page petition for Bellevue incorporation, said Tuesday that the group is not backing away from eventually becoming a city.
“The Bellevue folks are continuing to gather additional signatures with full intentions of re-filing their incorporation petition, probably later this year,” Mask said.
The question of having enough signatures on the petitions for incorporation came to the forefront last year after residents opposing the Bellevue move said discrepancies existed in the petitions.
William Ducker, the Purvis attorney hired by Lamar County residents fighting the court action, said about 1,000 signatures fell short of the number required by law to complete the process.
Ducker told about 50 members of the group, Citizens against the Proposed City of Bellevue, “We have a violation of statute. Unless a judge allows the group to amend their petition, it does not have the required signatures.”
The petition for incorporating a town – which was presented to the Lamar County Chancery Clerk’s Office on May 19 – must have signatures of at least two thirds of the qualified electors in the area. According to examination by the citizens group, the petition contains 2,184 signatures, about 300 short of the required number. With another 600 signatures that appeared to be invalid, the petition appears to fall between 900 and 1,000 signatures short of the required number.
Ducker’s numbers showed 2,508 signatures are needed on the Bellevue petition. “Apparently, they’ve got 1,496 signatures, so they are roughly 1,000 votes short,” he said.
At first, Adcock responded to the report of insufficient signatures on the petition on Twitter, dismissing the opposition group’s claims.
“The very small group of objectors to Bellevue are alleging that there are a number of ‘irregularities’ with the signatures on the petition for incorporation and that we don’t have the required two thirds,” he said. “They have no idea what they’re talking about. This is nothing more than an effort to stir up a frenzy among people and try to raise money for their dwindling cause. We are EXTREMELY confident that we have more than the necessary number of signatures necessary! It’s time to move on! #im4bellevue”
In the December 2017 Facebook post, Adcock said the current motion dismissing the incorporation attempt was “to allow an opportunity to obtain a minimal amount of additional signatures and refile the Petition to Incorporate in the near future.”
“As we all know by now, two-thirds of the total qualified electors must sign the Petition before the municipality is formed,” he said. “The process of determining how many qualified electors live within a jurisdictional area that is not yet distinguished by any government record is extremely difficult. The Bellevue Incorporators have worked many diligent hours and spent substantial amounts of private dollars to complete these calculations.
“Currently, the total tally of signatures collected is within a reasonable margin of error of the mandatory minimum. … This process requires a large amount of private funds, and as stewards of those funds, it has been determined that the best path forward is to withdraw and refile once the threshold has been undeniably ascertained. “
