Farrell v. Board of Trustees

Thornton, J. Action for a writ of mandate to the board of trustees and others, above mentioned, to compel them to levy a special tax to raise a sum of money to pay the salaries of policemen, etc. Judgment was rendered for the petitioners, and the respondent appealed.

The city of Sacramento is a municipal corporation, organized in 1863, under an act of the legislature. (Stats. 1863, pp. 415 et seq.) The board of trustees is, under that act, the governing body of the corporation. (Stats. 1863, sec. 2, p. 416), and by it the board was invested with power to create and establish a city police, to prescribe their duties and compensation, and to provide for the regulation and government of the same; to [412]create the office of chief of police, and elect such chief and eight,policemen. (Stats. 1863, sec. 2, subds. 1, 9, pp. 416, 417.) In 1872 an act was passed amendatory of and supplementary to the act of 1863, by which the office of chief of police was created, and a board of police commissioners. (Stats. 1871-72, secs. 1, 6, pp. 243, 244.) This board was to consist of the president of the board of trustees, the chief of police, and the police judge. (Sec. 6.) The board was authorized, immediately on entering upon their duties, to appoint a permanent police force for the city, whiMi was -to consist of a captain of police and such number of policemen, not exceeding fifteen, as they might deem necessary for the protection and good government of the city. By the fourteenth section of this act it was provided that, at the time of the levy of the annual city taxes, the board of trustees should estimate the amount of money that will be required for police purposes during the fiscal year, and shall cause this money to be kept as a separate, distinct fund, to be called the police department fund, which shall be used for no other purpose whatever, except the payment of the salaries and expenses of the police department, and shall levy a special tax to meet these estimated expenses to pay the officers and expenses provided for in this act. The former act, as regards the police, was repealed. (Stats. 1871-72, sec. 15, p. 246.) In March, 1889, an act amending the act of 1872 was passed. By it the board of police commissioners was authorized to appoint policemen, not exceeding thirty in number. (Stats. 1889, p. 148.) This act went into effect immediately, and on the first day of April, 1889, the board of police commissioners, by authority of the last-mentioned act, appointed twenty-five policemen. The petitioner and the others named in his petition are the twenty-five so appointed. The board of trustees, on February, 1889, made the estimate and levy required by the fourteenth section of the act of 1872, basing this estimate and levy