Residents of Wittmann have asked the city of Surprise to annex their unincorporated community, but the request is something of a legal maneuver: organizers say they actually want nothing to do with becoming part of the city, and are instead hoping the annexation push clears the way for Wittmann to become its own incorporated town.
The effort is being led by Keep Us Rural LLC, according to ABC15 Arizona, whose organizers say their goal is not to become part of Surprise at all. The hitch is that Arizona law limits incorporation efforts by communities sitting within six miles of an existing municipality, and because Wittmann falls inside that boundary, organizers cannot simply move forward with incorporation on their own. So supporters are using the annexation process itself as a potential path toward the independence they actually want.
Jeffrey August, with Keep Us Rural LLC, laid out the strategy bluntly: “We gave them the ultimatum: it’s either let us incorporate or annex us. We know the annexation will fail.” He said the motivation comes down to local control over growth. “We want a voice, we want to be able to tell the developers no big developments, no commercial warehouses,” August said, according to the outlet’s reporting.
A 120-Day Clock and a County Backup Plan
Surprise now has 120 days to decide on the annexation request, and if the city does not approve it within that window, organizers say they can take their incorporation effort straight to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors instead. Surprise officials, for their part, say the city is not proactively seeking to annex the area — the request landed in the city’s lap because Wittmann’s situation requires it, not because Surprise is angling to expand its borders there…