The City Commission voted to receive and file three resolutions to begin annexation of parcels east and north of the city and to ratify a petition seeking de-annexation of a parcel formerly part of the Harwood lagoon. The motions were presented following a special meeting on July 31 in which the same matters were acted on in executive session.

The action matters because it starts formal municipal processes that move territory from extraterritorial zoning into Fargo’s municipal boundaries (or, for the de-annexation request, removes a parcel from an adjacent jurisdiction). Assistant City Attorney Eric Johnson said the items before the commission were two, technically identical, steps: first to receive and file the resolutions taken at the special meeting, and second to publicly ratify and adopt the annexation resolutions.

Jim Gilmore and staff described the three annexation areas as: the east half of Section 3 (in the city’s extraterritorial zoning jurisdiction and adjacent to existing utilities and a prior subdivision); a northern parcel also in extraterritorial jurisdiction and owned by a different property owner (so potential protest timing may differ); and the west half of Section 3, immediately north of the softball complex, for which the city will seek Harwood’s permission to proceed or enter mediation if Harwood declines. Jim Hassower clarified that the city’s former Harwood lagoons are owned by the city and are used only for overflow or temporary storage rather than treatment; staff said the city envisions using the de-annexed parcel as a snow-dump site if it becomes part of Fargo.

Commissioners voted by roll call to receive and file the resolutions and then again to ratify and adopt the resolutions; both motions passed on recorded ayes. Staff said the vote simply reaffirms actions the commission took in the July 31 special meeting while moving the items out of executive session into the public record. No ordinance adoption or final land transfers were completed at tonight’s meeting; the resolutions begin the annexation process and preserve the city’s next procedural steps.

The commission did not identify any new statutory references during the discussion; staff described the matters as routine annexation steps and as continuing the city’s pattern of growth in that industrial corridor.