Dumbarton Land & Improvement Co. v. Murphy

RICHARDS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment and order denying a new trial in a proceeding wherein the petitioner and appellant herein applied to the superior court of Alameda County for a writ of

certiorari,

in which it was sought to have reviewed proceedings of the bo'ard of supervisors of said county in relation to the formation of the Alameda Water District and the inclusion of the lands of the petitioner within the boundaries of said district.

The facts, in so far as they relate to the initial steps taken by the said board of supervisors looking to the organization of said district, are practically undisputed, and are briefly these: On November 3, 1913, there was presented to said board of supervisors a petition praying for the incorporation and organization of a county water district under the provisions of an act of the legislature .approved on June 10, 1913, providing for the organization of such districts. Said act provides that prior to the presentation of such petition notice of the time and place of the hearing thereon signed by a certain number of those who are seeking to form such water district, was first to be given for the time and in the manner required by said act. The record herein shows that such notice purports to have been given, wherein the time and place of hearing upon said petition was fixed for November 3, 1913, at the hour of 10 o’clock A. M. at the office of said board of supervisors “in the county courthouse of the city of Oakland.” The record further discloses that on the said third day of November, 1913, the said board of supervisors met at the hour appointed in said notice at the meeting-rooms of said board in the hall of records of said county, and that at said meeting the hearing upon said petition was regularly continued to the tenth day of November, 1913, and was then again continued to the twelfth day of November, 1913, and then to the seventeenth day of November, 1913, and thence to the twenty-fifth day of November, 1913,

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on which last-named day a hearing was had thereon, and that after such hearing, and after the board had excepted from the first named boundaries of the proposed water district certain lands of the petitioner herein and of certain other persons, which were shown to be covered with water, but had included the portion of the lands described in the petition herein, the board ordered an election to be held within the proposed district to determine whether it was the will of the electors therein that it should be organized under the provisions of the said act; that such election was called and held on December 30, 1913, at which it was voted that said district should be organized. On the twenty-ninth day of December, 1913, the day before said election, the petitioners herein applied to the superior court of said county for said writ of review, and on said day obtained said writ, directing the board of supervisors and the members thereof to certify their proceedings in said matter to said court. This was done, and upon the hearing thereon the judgment and order were made from which this appeal has been taken.