Baytown Township board to decide whether to bring incorporation matter to vote

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·1 min read

Officials in Baytown Township, concerned about the threat of annexation from neighboring cities, plan to decide next month whether to have township residents vote on becoming a city.

The town board is expected to vote on the matter at its June 3 board meeting, said Town Board Chairman John Hall. “We’re going to vote on whether to have a vote,” Hall said. “We’re not rushing anything. We’re still learning about this.”

A survey of township residents about incorporation showed that 72 percent of the 450 respondents would be in favor of Baytown moving from a township to a city if the township could maintain its “rural environment.”

Hall said his preference would be for the township “to stay a township if it’s possible to do that.”

“What we’re looking at today, however, is not for today,” he said. “It’s for five, 10 or 20 years down the road. It’s about what the township wants as its identity.”

A group called Baytown Neighbors is pushing for the township to remain a township. Mary Keefer, one of the group’s organizers, said a card mailed to residents directing them to take the survey included a “misstatement of fact.”

“It stated that ‘if we become a city, (adjacent municipalities) would not be allowed to annex part or all of Baytown Township,” she said. “That is not true. … I haven’t seen any evidence that the identity of Baytown will be better protected by becoming a city.”

Baytown Township, population 2,200, borders Oak Park Heights, Lake Elmo, Bayport and West Lakeland Township.

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