Kingsland Considers Annexation Options

KINGSLAND - Mayor Karen Wiscaver said she is reaching out to corporate contacts at Dollar General about inviting its store at Kingsland to become part of the city, thereby giving the city a new stream of sales tax revenue.While a portion of the Dollar General parking lot is within the Kingsland city limits, the store itself is not and therefore does not have to collect city sales tax.City Attorney Thomas Burns told Wiscaver and the Kingsland City Council during its regular monthly meeting last Thursday that there is an option called judicial annexation that would allow a judge to rule on an annexation rather than go through other processes that could take longer to accomplish.In an interview after the meeting, Wiscaver said she has reached out to officials with Dollar General to see if the corporation would like to be annexed into the city. If the corporation is agreeable, she said the next step would be the judicial annexation.Wiscaver said the Dollar General store is already on the city’s water service, and inclusion in the city would put the store within the Kingsland Fire Department’s immediate service area asa well.Currently, the only retail business within the city limits is the Kingsland Kwik Stop convenience store. Bringing the Dollar General into the city limits would have a significant impact on the collection of Kingsland’s 1 percent sales tax.There had been questions as to whether the store was going to be within the Kingsland city limits since the location was first announced. Originally, the plans for the store were to have a Hwy. 79 entrance which would have put the entire facility outside the city limits. However, Charlie Montgomery of Montgomery Southern Development of Greenwood, Miss., approached the Cleveland County School Board in 2022 about buying 1.1 acres of land owned by the school district along Hwy. 189 across from the Kingsland School campus. Montgomery was representing Pine Be...