Wilcox v. City of Torrance

PRESTON, J.

The governmental authority of the City of Torrance, a municipal corporation of the sixth class, moved in strict conformity with the provisions of the Improvement Act of 1927 (Stats. 1927, chap. 731, p. 1351 et seq.) to create an improvement district thereunder, to be known as Municipal Improvement District No. 1 of the City of Torrance,' comprising about one-fifth of the area but including from two-thirds to three-fourths of the value of the taxable real property of said city.

The object of the formation of the district was to authorize a bond issue of $400,000 to construct or otherwise acquire a public utility, to wit: a water system for said area, and to do so notwithstanding the existence of a privately owned and operated utility of that character in said city. A vote was taken and the authority was granted by the requisite majority. No protest by property owners was made and no claim is made now that any technical step required by the act was omitted.

Appellants, property owners then and now in said district, have sued to have all the said proceedings declared void and particularly to restrain the city and its various officers from taking further steps to issue and sell said bonds or to proceed to acquire said improvement. They assert that said act, as applied to a revenue producing utility, is violative of constitutional guaranties of both the federal and state authorities. (Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; sections 14 and 21 of article I of the Constitution of the state of California.) A demurrer to the complaint was sustained. Plaintiffs declined to amend; judgment passed for defendants and this appeal resulted.

The act provides that the governing body of a municipal corporation may, on the petition of a certain percentage of

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the electors of the proposed improvement district, set in motion machinery, the result of which may be the creation of a district comprising all or part of such municipality and the voting of a bond issue to construct or otherwise acquire a public utility to serve the inhabitants of such district. The municipality may accept a mandate to administer the funds arising from the sale of such obligations so as to acquire and cause to be vested in itself the title to such utility. The municipality may also itself undertake the task of operating and maintaining it for the purpose for which it was formed. It may also at stated intervals, impose an