Town manager Tim Holloman said demographics are normally included on surveys to give officials more information about how different groups of people feel.

Council member Michael Gage said he didn&squo;t agree with the demographics section at all and council member Margaret Metcalf said she thinks the town should keep it simple and just ask people if they want ETJ.

Council member Ricky McCallister said all the people he&squo;s spoken to are opposed to being zoned by Columbus.

Council unanimously approved dropping the issue.

The town in 2007 requested that the Polk County Board of Commissioners hold a public hearing regarding the town exercising its ETJ rights. The county did not proceed at the time.

More recently, Columbus, along with the City of Saluda, requested local legislators to sponsor a local bill for ETJ. The town received a negative response to their request, with Rep. David Guice and Sen. Tom Apodaca saying the towns had not exhausted all their local resources for getting ETJ rights.