Clark v. City of Manhattan Beach

LORIGAN, J.

Plaintiffs, as property owners, sued for an injunction to prevent the issuance and sale by defendants of ninety thousand dollars of municipal improvement bonds, and from a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiffs appeal.

The facts show that Manhattan Beach is a city of the sixth class; that on November 7, 1914, its board of trustees determined that public interest and necessity demanded that the said city incur a bonded debt of ninety thousand dollars for

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the construction and completion of wharves upon dr adjacent to the waterfront of said city to be owned and operated by said city, one to be located at the foot of Center Street of the estimated cost of seventy thousand dollars, and one at the foot of. Marine Avenue of the estimated cost of twenty thousand dollars; and that an election to vote upon' the proposition of incurring said indebtedness in the amount of said ninety thousand dollars be held on January 20, 1916. An election was accordingly held at which 311 votes were cast; that 230 thereof were cast in favor of the issuance of said bonds, and 78 against their issuance. The city was proceeding to issue and sell said bonds when this action was brought.

A number of grounds for a reversal are urged by appellants.

First. They insist that the board of election was illegally constituted because not appointed according to law. Their counsel does not say anything further on this point than to make it; he does not attempt to point out why or how in any particular the appointments were'not all according to law, and, hence, for this reason we might well ignore any consideration of it. But as in another part of his brief he makes reference to the fact (which is true) that the board of trustees “did not publish, advertise, or receive any petition of any election officers signifying their willingness or consent to act as such officers of election” in compliance with section 1142 of the Political Code of 1915, it may be assumed that noncomplianee with this particular section is what, in the opinion of counsel for appellants, rendered the appointed board an illegal one. While the section referred to provides for advertising or calling for applications to serve as officers on boards for certain elections, it has no application to municipal elections such as was held here. That was definitely decided in