Griffin v. Boyle

LANGDON, J.

Application for writ of mandate to compel respondents to appropriate for the conduct of the department of elections the respective amounts itemized and set forth in its budget estimate and to adopt and levy a tax rate sufficient to provide for the amount set forth herein. Writ denied.

The above causes have been consolidated in the argument presented therein to this court, and as they present the same legal problem they will be determined together.

In each a writ of mandate is sought to compel the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco to appropriate for the conduct of the department of elections the respective amounts itemized and set forth in its budget estimate, and to adopt and levy a tax rate for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1928, sufficient to provide for the amount set forth therein.

A similar question was presented to this court and decided adversely to petitioner’s in the ease of

Fitzgerald

v.

Badaracco, ante,

p. 18 [258 Pac. 937], The decision of that case would be conclusive here, unquestionably, except for the fact that an additional consideration enters into the present situation by reason of a special provision of article XI, chapter I, section 4, of the charter of the city and county of San Francisco, relating to the power of the Board of Election Commissioners to fix the salaries, etc., of its employees, and which special provision is found in this language: “the provisions of this section shall have full force and effect, all other sections of the charter notwithstanding.”

[97]

If we were to give to the language just quoted the force and effect contended for by petitioners, and hold that it insures to said Board of Election Commissioners the specific right to exclusively control the employment and fix the salaries of its employees, because it prevails over the general right of the supervisors to estimate the amounts to be allowed to the election department, we should also be bound to hold that, so construed, it is in conflict with a later amendment (see. 3, chap. I, art. III, as amended November 4, 1924, approved by legislature January 17, 1925 [Stats. 1925, p. 1172]) to said charter, and being thus in conflict is expressly repealed thereby.