Town of Mill Valley v. House

HENSHAW, J.

This is an application for mandate against the respondent, as treasurer of the town of Mill Valley, to compel him to countersign certain municipal bonds and the interest coupons attached thereto. He justifies his refusal upon the ground that the bond issue is illegal and void. The propositions presented by him in this regard are two.

1. The bonds were issued under the Municipal Improvement Act of 1901. (Stats. 1901, p. 27.). The earlier act of 1889 contained no provision for the doing of “street work.” The act of 1901 expressly empowers the authorities to issue bonds for “street work.” The act of 1889 came under review in the

City of Redondo Beach

v.

Cate,

136 Cal. 146, and it was there held that that act did not authorize the issuance of bonds which must be paid out of the revenue derived from taxes upon real and personal property, unless the money raised upon the bonds was to be devoted to purposes justifying the expenditure of the ordinary revenues of the city, that the ordinary revenues of a city of the sixth class could not be expended for the grading and paving of its streets, and further that “street work” was not one of the specially enumerated objects for which the act authorized the issuance of bonds. In

Rice

v.

Board of Trustees,

107 Cal. 398, it was

[700]

held that under the provisions of the same act there could be a valid issue of bonds for the construction of a sewer, and in the ease of

City of Redondo Beach

v.

Cate,

discussing the Rice case, it was said that this was so “for the simple reason that under the Vrooman Act it is entirely within the discretion of the governing body of a city to make the cost of a sewer a charge upon the lands of an assessment district, or upon its ordinary revenue”; and that “the construction of sewers is one of the specially enumerated objects for which the act of 1889 authorizes the issuance of municipal bonds. ’ ’ It should be said that in deciding the Cate case the attention of the court was not directed to section 26 of the Vrooman Act as amended in 1891 (Stats. 1891, p. 206), section 2 of the Vrooman Act as amended in 1893 (Stats. 1893, p. 172), and section 869 of the Municipal Government Act, which authorize the authorities to pay for street work out of the ordinary revenue and income, of the municipality. The decision in the Cate case, therefore, stands upon the single proposition that the act of 1889 did not specifically embrace “street work.” But this objection is wholly removed by the act of 1901, under which these bonds were issued, which expressly provides that the bonds may be issued for this purpose. The authorities were, therefore, justified under the act in calling for bonds for the performance of street work. “Street work is a phrase of common usage, and has a well-defined signification. The words mean exactly what they indicate upon their face, namely, work upon a street—work in repairing or making a street.”