Hartigan v. City of Los Angeles

SHAW, J.

The plaintiff has appealed from a judgment in favor of the defendants.

The plaintiff as a resident, citizen, and taxpayer of the city of Los Angeles, began the action to enjoin the city and its officers from issuing, signing, or selling certain bonds of the city amounting to six million five hundred thousand dollars. The plaintiff claims that no valid election has been held for the approval of said bond issue by the voters of the city.

The constitutional provision is that no city shall incur any indebtedness exceeding the revenue for the year in which it is incurred “without the assent of two-thirds of the qualified electors thereof voting at an election to be held for that purpose.” (Art. XI, see. 18). The act of 1901, as amended in 1913, providing for such elections, declares that propositions for incurring indebtedness for more than one object or purpose may be submitted at the same election, and that the ordinance calling the election must recite the objects and purposes for which the indebtedness is proposed to be incurred. (Stats. 1913, p. 13.) The rule of the decisions regarding more than one object or purpose is “that there must be a separate proposition on the ballot for each distinct, unrelated and independent object or purpose for which it is proposed to incur indebtedness, and showing expressly the amount desired for each one, in order that the voter may express his choice on each without thereby affecting the other.”

(Clark

v.

Los Angeles,

160 Cal. 321, [116 Pac. 966].)

The election, the validity of which is here attacked, was held on May 8, 1914, in pursuance of ordinances passed for

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that purpose under the aforesaid Bond Act. The ordinance calling the election provided that the proposition should be stated on the ballot in the following form:

“Shall the city of Los Angeles incur a bonded debt of $6,500,000 for the purpose of acquiring and constructing a certain revenue-producing municipal improvement, to wit: Works for supplying said city and its inhabitants with electricity for purposes of light, heat and power, including the construction or acquisition of electric generating works, receiving substations, transmission lines, and the acquisition of lands, water-rights, rights of way, machinery, apparatus and other works and property necessary therefor, the estimated cost of which is $1,250,000; also including the construction or acquisition of distributing lines, conduits and substations, and the acquisition of lands, rights of way, machinery, apparatus and other works and property necessary therefor, the estimated cost of which is $5,250,000. ’ ’