Peacock v. Payne

SHENK, J. This is an original proceeding in mandamus to compel the respondent County Auditor, as ex-officio Auditor of Los Angeles County Flood Control District, to approve the petitioner’s claim for services rendered in appraising certain lands along the San Gabriel River below a point known as Whittier Narrows. The appraisal of the land was ordered by the board of supervisors, and the claim was approved by the board and ordered paid. The Auditor refused to approve the claim on the ground that the oia.i-m would be paid, if at all, from the proceeds of certain bonds issued for flood control purposes and that such expenditure from the bond fund would be unauthorized. As a return to the alternative writ the respondent filed a general demurrer to the petition.

The basis for the Auditor’s objection is that the portions of the bond funds here sought to be charged with said expenditure were voted for the control and conservation of [106]waters flowing through the San Gabriel Canyon; whereas the lands proposed to be acquired for conservation purposes below the narrows would not only control and conserve waters from that canyon, but would also control and conserve waters which flow into the San Gabriel River above the narrows from tributaries below the mouth of said canyon. The waters arising in the San Gabriel Canyon which would be controlled and conserved by the proposed plan are approximately from 61 to 67 per cent of all of the waters in the San Gabriel River at the narrows. The tributaries referred to furnish the remaining 33 to 39 per cent of said waters.

The Los Angeles County Flood Control District was organized and is functioning pursuant to a special act of the legislature in 1915 (Stats. 1915, p. 1502), following the disastrous floods in Los Angeles County in 1914. The original plan contemplated the construction of a high dam in San Gabriel Canyon. After this work had progressed to a certain point the plan was changed. One sufficient reason for the change was the refusal of the state department of public works to approve the plan for the high dam as originally proposed, pursuant to the authority vested in that department under the act of 1929 (Stats. 1929, p. 1050). Whether the expenditure of the bond funds could be made in accordance with that change of plans was tested and approved in Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Wright, 213 Cal. 335 [2 Pac. (2d) 168], the decision in which is hereby referred to for a history up to that time of the flood control project as especially relating to the San Gabriel River canyon feature of the enterprise.